The Less Miserables Spot a Liar (3)

(Cont.)

At the edge of the parking lot, they could see Dusty and Wesley confronting a small group of burnouts by a rusted-out Camaro.

No shouting. No fighting. Just Dusty talking, low and steady, and Wesley standing behind him with his arms crossed and his face blank, looking like he didn't care if things went sideways. Like he almost wanted them to.

Garrett could hear fragments as they got closer. Dusty's voice, calm but with an edge that could cut: "...not asking for trouble. Just asking for what's ours."

One of the burnouts—not the one with the Monster tattoo, a different one, older, with a patchy beard and a faded Metallica shirt that had been washed so many times the logo was barely visible—was shaking his head. "Man, I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't take s*** from your little playground."

"Yeah, you did." Wesley stepped forward, and something in his posture made the older burnout take a half-step back. Wesley wasn't big, wasn't muscular, but there was something in the way he moved, something that suggested he didn't care what happened to him. That was scarier than size. "I saw Marcus there counting our money in the parking lot yesterday. Fifty-seven dollars. All ones and fives. Ring any bells?"

The one with the Monster tattoo—Marcus, apparently—was standing by the Camaro's trunk, trying to look casual and failing badly. His eyes kept flicking toward the road like he was calculating escape routes, running numbers in his head.

"It's not about the money," Dusty said, which Garrett knew was a lie but a strategic one. "It's about respect. You take from us, you're saying we don't matter. That we're just kids you can push around."

"You are just kids," the older burnout said, but there was less conviction in it now.

"We're the kids who skate here every day. Who fixed that ramp you crashed your bike into last month. Who don't call the cops when you smoke up in the parking lot." Dusty let that hang in the air, let it settle. "We could make your life difficult. Or you could give us our money back and we forget this happened."

Garrett watched the older burnout's face. Watched the calculation happening behind his eyes—the hassle weighed against the fifty-seven dollars that probably wasn't worth much to them anyway, that had probably already been half-spent on beer and cigarettes and whatever else they did to make the days pass.

"Marcus." The older one didn't look at the guy with the Monster tattoo. "Just give it back."

"But—"

"It's not worth the drama. Give it back."

Marcus hesitated, his jaw working like he was chewing on something he couldn't swallow. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of crumpled bills, counted off what was probably fifty-seven dollars, and handed it to the older burnout, who handed it to Dusty without ceremony.

"We good?" the older burnout asked.

"We're good." Dusty pocketed the money. "Thanks for being reasonable."

The burnouts piled into the Camaro, grumbling but not fighting, and pulled out of the lot. Garrett watched them go, watched the exhaust smoke hanging in the hot air.

"Huh," Zara said beside him. "They actually got it back."

"Looks like it."

"Cool." She glanced at him. "You owe me a Slurpee."

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm pissed at you and Slurpees make things marginally better. That's just science."

Garrett almost smiled. It felt strange on his face, wrong somehow, but also necessary. Like something loosening that had been wound too tight.

"Cherry?"

"Blue raspberry. Cherry's for children."

"Right. Obviously."

They walked toward the Quik-Mart. Behind them, Garrett could hear Dusty counting the recovered money, Wesley lighting his cigarette, Hector saying something to Tanner that made Tanner laugh too loud. The normal sounds of a normal afternoon, almost.

Fifty-seven dollars. Minus whatever Garrett was about to spend on Slurpees.

Still enough for a ramp.

---

That night, Garrett sat on his porch watching the fireflies blink in the yard.

His parents were inside, watching the news, their voices a low murmur through the screen door. Something about a factory closing in High Point, layoffs, economic uncertainty. The air smelled like cut grass and charcoal from the neighbor's grill and the jasmine his mom had planted along the fence.

A normal summer night in a normal neighborhood. Sprinklers programmed to run at six. Lawns mowed by people who got paid to mow them. Houses with air conditioning and cable TV and refrigerators full of food that nobody had to count or ration.

He couldn't stop thinking about what Zara had said.

You looked at who had the least and figured they'd want it the most.

That wasn't exactly what she'd said. But it was close enough.

He thought about all the times he'd walked into the park and noticed—without meaning to notice—whose clothes were worn, whose shoes had holes, whose board was held together with duct tape and prayer. He'd told himself he was just observing. Just paying attention, the way you pay attention to your surroundings. But there was something else in it too, something underneath. A sorting. A categorizing. A quiet voice that said: I know who you are. I know what you'd do.

He thought about his mom, who locked the car doors when they drove through certain neighborhoods and pretended she wasn't doing it. His dad, who complained about "those people" whenever the news showed a crime story—always "those people," never names, never faces, just a category. His own mental map of the world, divided into safe and unsafe, trustworthy and suspicious, people like him and people like everyone else.

It wasn't something he'd chosen. It was something he'd absorbed, like secondhand smoke, and now it was in his lungs and he didn't know how to cough it out.

The worst part was how automatic it had been. He hadn't decided to suspect Zara. He hadn't weighed the evidence and reached a conclusion. His brain had just—jumped. Taken a shortcut. And by the time he realized what he was thinking, the thought was already there, fully formed, like it had been waiting for him.

But that wasn't true either. Nobody had put it there. He had. Or the part of him that absorbed things without questioning them, that learned patterns from parents and teachers and TV shows and the way certain neighborhoods looked in the background of news reports about crime.

He wondered what other shortcuts his brain was taking. What other assumptions were running in the background, invisible, shaping every interaction without his permission. If he'd been wrong about Zara—and he had been, completely, embarrassingly, almost unforgivably wrong—what else was he wrong about?

But now you're thinking about it. That's something.

Zara's voice in his head. Not forgiving, not yet. But not dismissing either.

He pulled out his wallet. It still had the crisp ten he'd kept back for lunch money, plus a few ones from his sock drawer. He thought about Zara counting out dimes and nickels with her jaw tight, dropping them into the pile like they burned her fingers. He thought about the way she'd looked when she said that's literally all the money I had in the world.

Three dollars. Her entire fortune. And she'd given it away because she thought they were—

What? A crew. A family. Something that mattered enough to spend everything on.

And Garrett's brain had filed her under "thief" anyway.

Tomorrow, he'd go back to the park. He'd help build the ramp. He'd try to notice when his brain made those automatic jumps—the shortcuts, the assumptions, the categories—and he'd try to catch himself before the thoughts became words.

He wouldn't get it right every time. He knew that. The patterns were deep, carved into him by years of not paying attention, by a lifetime of absorbing things he'd never chosen to believe. But maybe paying attention now was the start of something.

Maybe that was how it worked. You noticed. You caught yourself. You tried again.

Like landing a trick you'd been bailing on for weeks. You didn't fix it all at once. You just stopped making the same mistake, over and over, until the new way started to feel natural.

Garrett watched the fireflies until his mom called him inside. He didn't have answers. He didn't even have good questions yet.

But he was thinking about the thinking. Watching his own mind make its jumps. That was new.

That was something.

---

Three days later.

The ramp was finished.

Not perfect—the surface was slightly uneven where they'd run out of screws and had to improvise with nails, and one of the angle-iron edges was already starting to warp from the heat—but it was solid. Rideable. Theirs.

Garrett stood at the top, looking down at the others. The plywood was pale and clean, smelling like sawdust and potential. They'd built it together over two afternoons, taking turns with the drill, arguing about angles, sweating through their shirts.

Zara was trying a boardslide on the ledge nearby, bailing more than landing but getting closer each time. Hector was teaching Quinn how to pump the quarterpipe, patient as always, adjusting his stance with careful hands. Tanner was yelling something about his pager while Nova sketched him, capturing the chaos in quick pencil strokes.

Dusty appeared beside Garrett, board under his arm, looking at the ramp like he was seeing something more than plywood and nails.

"You gonna hit it or just stare at it?"

"Thinking about it."

"That's your problem." Dusty kicked his board down, stepped on. "You think too much."

"Maybe."

Dusty dropped in, carving a smooth line down the ramp and across the flatground. Garrett watched him go—the easy way he moved, like the board was part of him, like he'd never had to think about any of it.

But that wasn't true. Dusty thought about everything. He just did it quietly, without announcing it, without making it anyone else's problem.

Garrett set his board down. Positioned his feet. Took a breath.

He dropped in.

The ramp was faster than he expected—the new plywood slick and unforgiving—and he wobbled on the landing, had to throw his arms out to keep from eating concrete. But he didn't fall. He kept rolling, pushed twice, and kicked the board up at the edge of the flatground.

"Not bad," Zara said. She'd stopped trying the boardslide, was standing nearby with her board in hand, almost smiling. "For a suburban kid."

"Thanks. I think."

"Don't thank me yet. You still owe me another Slurpee."

"I bought you two yesterday."

"Did I stutter?"

Garrett laughed. It felt strange—wrong, almost, given everything—but also necessary. Like something that had been clenched in his chest finally letting go.

"Blue raspberry?"

"Obviously."

He headed for the Quik-Mart. Behind him, he could hear the others skating—boards clacking, wheels humming, Tanner's voice carrying over all of it. The normal sounds of a normal afternoon at a park that wasn't normal at all, that was broken and beautiful and theirs.

At the door of the Quik-Mart, he stopped. Vernon, the clerk, was watching him through the glass, the same suspicious look he gave everyone who walked in—kids, adults, regulars, strangers. The same automatic assessment.

Garrett noticed himself noticing. The categories clicking into place in his own head—Vernon as hostile, the burnouts by the gas pumps as sketchy, the woman with the stroller as safe. Everyone looking at everyone and making assumptions, all the time, without even realizing they were doing it.

He thought about what Zara had said. About patterns. About the shortcuts your brain takes when you're not paying attention. About how you don't even know you're making assumptions until the assumption is already made, already out there, already doing damage.

He pushed open the door and went inside.

Blue raspberry. Extra large. And one for himself too, cherry, because he didn't care if it was for children.

It wasn't an apology. It wasn't a solution. It wasn't even close to enough.

But it was something.

And something was where you had to start.