Submerge

F R A C T U R E

The morning sun comes in crooked through the blinds, slanting across my desk in pale lines. I sit cross-legged on my bed, half a granola bar in one hand, the other scrolling through a scholarship application I've already filled out three times. My name, my GPA, my trauma wrapped in clean margins and Helvetica.

Nathan's voice echoes up the stairs. "Mason! You've got twenty minutes if you want breakfast!"

I call back, "I'm good!"

Which is a lie.

But that's how the day starts—with little lies dressed as self-sufficiency.

The air still smells faintly of paint from last week's patchwork attempt at fixing the peeling corners near my window. The wall's not perfect. Nothing is. But it's close enough to pass for okay if you don't look too hard.

The way most people look at me now.

By noon, Ethan texts:
You breathing today or nah?
Also I found a cliff & a sandwich with your name on it. Come outside.

I meet him on the curb. He's in his beat-up Civic, windows rolled down, a hoodie tugged halfway over his ears. The kind of look that says I'm chill but also I stayed up till 3 a.m. doing homework and pretending I wasn't checking your location.

"You're underdressed," he says as I slide into the passenger seat. "Also, you look like you haven't slept in four years."

"Thanks. You look like a skate park and an NPR podcast had a baby."

He grins. "That's honestly the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week."

We drive south, past the turnoff for his school, past the strip malls and fading gas stations. He doesn't explain where we're going. I don't ask.

Eventually, he pulls into a gravel turnout on the side of a hill that overlooks a tiny lake, more a puddle than a body of water. Still, it glints like glass. The wind tosses brown leaves across the hood as we get out.

"This is where I bring people I'm trying to impress," he says.

"I'm honored."

"You should be. The sandwich was eleven dollars."

We sit on the hood, unwrapping overpriced turkey and avocado that tastes better than it should. Neither of us says much. Just chewing. Breathing. Sharing space.

"I meant to ask," Ethan says after a while. "You still writing?"

"Some."

"You ever gonna let me read anything?"

I shake my head. "Probably not."

He chuckles, nudges my knee. "Fair."

I glance sideways at him. His smile is quiet now, more thoughtful than amused. "You think it helps? Writing?"

"Some days. Other days it just makes it louder in my head."

He nods. "Yeah."

We sit there until the sandwich is gone and the clouds start rolling in. Then he drives me back home and kisses me goodbye in the driveway—quick, soft, like he doesn't want to press too hard on whatever's holding me together.

"I'll text you tonight?" he says.

"Yeah."

Nathan's on the phone in the kitchen. He's pacing. I catch the words "trial prep" and "witness outline" before he glances up and sees me. He covers the receiver with his hand. "Hey. You okay?"