The Less Miserables Keep a Secret (1)

The man in the Airwalk shirt was watching again.

Hector noticed him the way he noticed everything at the park—peripherally, without looking directly, cataloging data the way he cataloged his trick attempts. Third time this week. Same spot by the fence, leaning against the chain-link with one foot up like he was trying to look casual. Same notepad in his hand, the small spiral-bound kind reporters used. Same way of leaning forward whenever Hector ran a line, his pen moving across the page in quick strokes.

He didn't mention it to the others. Didn't want to make it a thing. Didn't want to deal with Tanner's excitement or Nova's questions or the way Zara would look at him like he was suddenly someone different than who he'd been yesterday. But he was aware of the watching, the way you're aware of a splinter you haven't pulled yet—present, persistent, slightly wrong.

The July heat pressed down on Deadwood like a physical weight. The air was thick enough to taste, humidity that clung to your skin and made every breath feel like work. The new concrete was almost too hot to touch, radiating warmth that made the air shimmer in waves you could see from across the park. Even the coping was warm under his hands, the metal that had been cool in spring now holding heat like a brand.

But the surface was perfect—smooth and fast, the kind of skateable that the old park had never been. Three weeks since the reopening, and Hector still felt a small surge of gratitude every time he dropped in. The bowl responded differently now. The transitions were consistent, predictable in a way that let him focus on technique instead of compensating for cracks and rough patches.

He'd been skating at Deadwood since he was twelve. Four years of showing up, rain or shine or blazing summer heat. Four years of falling and getting back up, of slowly transforming himself from a kid who could barely ollie into the best skater at the park. Not that he thought of himself that way—thinking of yourself as "the best" was the kind of ego trap that led to stagnation. But objectively, statistically, he landed more tricks more consistently than anyone else who skated here.

Four years of notebooks filled with data. Attempt counts, success rates, adjustments that worked and adjustments that didn't. The current notebook—number seven in the series—was tucked under his arm right now, its pages soft from handling, its cover stained with sweat and Slurpee residue.

Nobody had asked him to keep the notebooks. Nobody had told him that tracking his practice would help. He'd figured it out on his own, through trial and error, back when he was thirteen and couldn't understand why some days he landed everything and other days he couldn't land anything. The inconsistency had frustrated him until he'd started looking for patterns. Started writing things down. Started treating his own practice like a science experiment, with hypotheses and data and conclusions.

The notebooks were his way of making the invisible visible, of turning feeling into fact. When he said "I'm getting better," he could point to the numbers and prove it. When he said "this adjustment helps," he had fifty attempts documenting the improvement.

They were also, he'd realized over time, the thing that set him apart. Other kids practiced. He studied. Other kids repeated tricks until they got lucky, until muscle memory and chance aligned to produce success. He broke tricks down into components, identified failure points, made systematic adjustments. He knew exactly why he landed or didn't land, could diagnose his own failures with surgical precision.

It wasn't more fun than the normal way—it was often less fun, actually, more frustrating, more demanding. The notebooks forced him to be honest with himself, to confront plateaus he would rather ignore, to admit when he was avoiding something that scared him. But it was more effective. The numbers didn't lie.

And now someone had noticed.

"You're being weird," Zara said, skating past him on her way to the flatground.

"I'm always weird."

"Weirder than usual. You keep looking at the fence."

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

Hector shrugged. "Nothing."

It wasn't nothing. But he wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

---

That night, he looked up the Airwalk logo online.

His mom was still at work—the evening shift at the restaurant, the one that didn't end until midnight. She'd been working double shifts for as long as Hector could remember, ever since his dad had left three years ago. One morning he'd just been gone—no note, no explanation, no forwarding address. Just an empty closet where his clothes had been and a silence that had never quite filled back in.

His little sister Elena was doing homework at the kitchen table, her pencil scratching against paper in a rhythm that had become the soundtrack of their evenings. She was ten now, old enough to stay home alone but young enough to need someone there anyway. That someone was usually Hector, which meant his evenings were split between the park and the apartment, between the thing he loved and the people he was responsible for.

The apartment was small—two bedrooms for four people, before his dad left, now two bedrooms for three—and sound traveled through the thin walls like there were no walls at all. Hector could hear the neighbors' TV through the ceiling, could hear the baby crying three doors down, could hear everything that happened in this building because nothing in this building was ever truly private.

He used the family computer, the ancient Packard Bell that took five minutes to boot up and another five to connect to the internet. The library's computers were faster, but the library was closed, and this couldn't wait. The dial-up connection made every page load take forever, the modem screeching its handshake while Hector drummed his fingers on the desk.

Eventually he found what he was looking for: Airwalk was a shoe company. Not just any shoe company—one of the biggest in skating. They sponsored pros, ran contests, had teams that traveled the country doing demos. Their shoes were in every skate shop, their logo on half the boards at Deadwood.

He stared at the screen, the blue light washing over his face, the information settling into his brain with an uncomfortable weight.

Someone from a real skate company was watching him. Had been watching him for at least a week, maybe longer. Taking notes. Paying attention.

Looking at him.

The obvious conclusion was that they were scouting. Looking for talent. Looking for kids who might be worth investing in, who might become the next big thing, whose skills could be developed and marketed and monetized.

Looking at him.

Hector closed the browser window and sat in the apartment's blue-lit silence, listening to Elena's pencil scratch, trying to figure out why this made him feel sick instead of excited.

---

The man approached him on Friday.

"Hector Martinez?"

Hector stopped mid-push, his back foot dragging on the concrete to kill his momentum. Caught his board as it rolled, tucked it under his arm, turned to face the man. Up close, he was older than he'd seemed from a distance—maybe thirty, with a tan that suggested he spent a lot of time outdoors and a handshake that was practiced but not insincere. His Airwalk polo was clean and pressed, company logo embroidered over the heart.

"I'm Kevin Marsh. I work for Airwalk's am program. We scout regional talent, look for kids who might be ready to move up."

"Move up to what?"

"Amateur sponsorship. Flow product—free shoes, boards, gear. Whatever you need, we provide." Kevin smiled, the practiced smile of someone who'd done this pitch before. "Maybe some travel if you're interested. Regional contests, demos, that kind of thing. Meet some pros, learn from the best."

"How did you find me?"

"We keep tabs on the scene. Regional parks, contests, anywhere talent might be developing." Kevin glanced at the notebook tucked under Hector's arm, the same way he'd glanced at it from across the park every day this week. "Your technique is solid—better than solid, actually. But what really caught our attention was your work ethic. We've been watching you for a while."

"Watching."

"It's part of the job. We look for potential. And you..." Kevin's smile widened. "You've got it. The way you track your practice, the way you analyze your own skating. That's unusual. In a good way. Most kids your age just wing it. You actually understand what you're doing."

Hector felt the words washing over him without quite landing. Free gear. Travel. Sponsorship. These were things other skaters dreamed about, things that represented success in a world where success was measured by who noticed you and what they gave you for being noticed.

He should be thrilled. He should be calling his mom, telling the crew, celebrating this as the culmination of everything he'd worked for.

Instead, he felt the sick feeling intensify.

"Can I think about it?" he heard himself say.

Kevin's smile flickered—just for a moment, a flash of confusion quickly smoothed over. "Sure. Of course. Take my card, call me when you're ready to talk."

He handed over a business card, shook Hector's hand again, and walked back to his rental car. Hector watched him go, watched the car pull out of the parking lot and disappear down the street.

He stood there in the July heat, the card in his hand, and tried to understand why he wasn't happy.

---

He didn't tell anyone.

Not that day, not that weekend, not the following week. The card sat in his desk drawer, hidden under a pile of old homework, its presence radiating like something radioactive. Every time he opened the drawer—for a pencil, for paper, for anything—he saw it there, white against the darker papers, Kevin Marsh's name and number waiting to be called.

Every time he thought about mentioning it—to Dusty, to Nova, to anyone—something stopped him.

Part of it was superstition. Saying it out loud would make it real, and he wasn't sure he wanted it to be real. As long as the offer existed only in his head and on that business card, it was theoretical. A possibility, not a decision.

But part of it was something else. Something harder to name. Something that felt like protecting a wound he hadn't realized he had.

He went to the park every day, same as always. Ran his lines, drilled his tricks, tracked his attempts in the notebook that had become as essential as his board. The skating felt the same as it always had—the focus, the flow, the quiet satisfaction of landing something clean. The numbers in his notebook kept climbing: 35/50 on backside 180s, up from 28/50 last week. 22/50 on frontside flips, still struggling with the catch.

But something had shifted. A shadow had fallen across the thing he loved, and he couldn't quite see past it.

---

"You're skating different," Dusty said.

It was Wednesday, a week and a half after Kevin's visit. The crew was scattered around the park in their usual formation—Zara and Tanner attacking the stairs, their wheels thundering on the concrete every time they landed. Nova working flat ground with her usual patient focus, her sketchbook open nearby. Quinn practicing the manual he'd been drilling for months, his notebook out, marking attempts the way Hector had taught him.

"Different how?"

"I don't know. Tighter, maybe. Like you're being careful."

"I'm always careful."

"Not like this." Dusty leaned against the fence, watching Hector with an expression that was harder to read than usual. He'd gotten better at reading people since the renovation fight, since the council presentation, but Hector was still difficult. "You're skating like someone's watching."

Hector felt his stomach drop. "What makes you say that?"

"Because someone is watching. Has been for weeks." Dusty nodded toward the parking lot, where a different car was parked—not Kevin's rental, but similar. A sedan with out-of-state plates, another man in company-branded clothing, another scout with a notepad. "You going to tell me what's going on?"

The lie was right there, ready to deploy. Nothing. Just some random guy. Don't worry about it.

But Dusty was his friend. Had been his friend for years, through everything, since before Deadwood was even a thing they cared about. They'd learned together, failed together, built something together. Lying to him felt like betraying something fundamental.

"Someone offered me a sponsorship," Hector said. The words came out flat, factual, stripped of the excitement they should have carried. "Airwalk. Amateur program. Free gear, maybe travel. The whole thing."

Dusty's face went through several expressions in quick succession: surprise, excitement, confusion, concern. "That's... that's amazing. Right? That's what you've been working toward."

"Is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" Hector struggled to articulate something he'd been circling for days, something that felt true but refused to take clear shape. "I mean, I don't know if that's what I've been working toward. I've been working toward getting better. Toward landing tricks I couldn't land before. Toward—I don't know—understanding my own limits and pushing past them."

"And sponsorship isn't part of that?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not." He looked at his notebook, at the pages of tally marks and adjustments that represented years of work. "When I started tracking my practice, it wasn't because I wanted someone to notice. It was because I wanted to improve. The tracking was for me. The work was for me. Everything about this—" he gestured at the park, at his board, at himself— "was about something internal. Something that belonged to me."

"And now?"

"Now someone wants to pay me for it. And I don't know if that changes what it is."

 

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