Shift

Six hours earlier . . .

“My mom. Where’s my mom? Is she okay?”

I followed Mr. Judge to another small room, this one more like an office, after I soaked his shirt with tears and snot. I didn’t realize how hard I’d been holding on to everything until I saw him standing on the other side of that door. He let me cry it out, and I cried so fucking hard. I feel so lost in my head right now, and I have so many fears and questions colliding in my brain, leaving scars and cuts and so much damage. But I can’t move on until I know whether or not my mom is all right.

“I don’t know where she is, Dustin, but . . . please, sit down.” He flattens his palm on the center of a desk in the middle of this room. There’s a line of leather cubes against a wall across from the desk, so I decide to sit there instead of the chair across from him. I don’t know why. I feel trapped at that desk, I guess, and I’ve been trapped for way too many hours now.

“Okay, I’m sitting. You don’t know where she is, but—” My voice comes out threatening, shaking with frustration, and I regret the way it sounds. I hold up my palm and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Take your time and just breathe,” he says.

He pulls his hands together on the desk, folding his fingers together, and I stare at the zigzag line formed by his linked knuckles.

I do as he says and fill my chest, holding it that way until a satisfying wave passes through my body. That felt good. I blow it out and do it again.

“Nobody seems to know where your mom is, but she went to work today. The manager at the gas station said she clocked out on time and he saw her get in one of those ride-share cars about fifteen minutes later. Authorities are tracking down that driver, and I’m sure they’ll find her,” Mr. Judge says.

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and nod before letting my head fall into my hands. None of that makes sense. My mom doesn’t have friends. We don’t have relatives other than my mom’s brother who lives in Oklahoma. He basically disowned us because he got sick of my mom asking for money. She has no place to go, other than somewhere new to get drunk or high. Maybe she took on another job? I laugh off that thought almost the second it passes through my mind.

“I’m more worried about Colt, Dustin. We need to talk about things, but I need you to be present with me for this conversation. I want you to process things first, to relax,” Mr. Judge says, and I laugh out loud in a knee-jerk response.

“Sorry,” I say, staring into his disappointed, sloped eyes and stern-lined mouth. “It’s kinda hard to relax given, well, all of this,” I add, waving my hands around the room and toward the door that leads to whatever the hell this place is where I’m being kept.

Mr. Judge nods slowly and looks down at the sterile desk.

“Give me a minute,” he says, knocking on the wood before standing. He rounds the desk and before exiting the door, holds up a finger as assurance he’ll be back. The clicking mechanism grinds when it shuts and I can tell I wouldn’t be able to just open the door like he did.

I spend my few minutes alone taking in the details of the room. I’ve been in a place like this before. The two-way mirror behind me confirms it. This is the kind of place where CPS meets with delinquents and kids they want to throw into foster homes. I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need this shit.

I stand so I’m ready to protest when Mr. Judge comes back, and when the door beeps with a clearance badge, I ready myself to tell him to leave me in that vacant room I was in before for the next two weeks. I’ll check myself out when I’m an “adult,” as if I haven’t been one my whole life.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says before I can get my words out.

My brow draws in tight, and it takes a few seconds to process what he’s suggesting. Finally, he jerks his head, urging me to follow, and my feet move.

We stop at a security desk where a woman who clearly doesn’t know how to smile hands me a plastic bag with my keys, wallet, phone, and two sticks of gum that they confiscated from my jeans pocket when they brought me in. I sign for my belongings and Mr. Judge signs next to my name under the line labeled GUARDIAN. The woman buzzes us through a thick glass door, and it slams shut behind us. I glance back and note the layers and layers of security between where I was and where I am now. I don’t belong here.

I follow Mr. Judge down some steps and into a parking lot filled with squad cars and police SUVs. His truck is parked between one of those armored trucks used by SWAT teams and what looks like an unmarked vehicle, a Dodge that I know is built to go a lot faster than it appears.

“You hungry?” he asks me across the hood of his truck.

I nod as my stomach grumbles. I’m actually kind of sick, but I think having actual food under my nose could change things.

We climb in the truck and take a silent trip several miles toward home, stopping at the Waffle House off the main highway. We take a booth in the back corner and Mr. Judge orders himself an omelet and me a big stack of pancakes. The waitress fills our water cups and we slide the coffee mugs her way, indicating we’d like some. Our eyes meet and we both huff out breathy laughter.

“You boys tired, huh?” the waitress says, pulling her bifocals down to the tip of her nose as she pours coffee in my cup first, then Mr. Judge’s.

“Been a long night . . . and day,” Ha

She leaves with a cursory smile, leaving the pot behind so we can take care of our own refills. I’m glad we stopped here, far enough from town to not be inside the gossip ring. This place is a truck stop, everyone transitory, and Colt Bridges’ messed-up kid isn’t on anyone’s radar.

We take careful sips of our coffee, setting the mugs back down on the table in sync, which makes me smile. Mr. Judge leans forward, rubbing his hands together on top of the table, his eyes down, brow pinched, and jaw flexing as if he’s holding back words I fear might be hard to hear.

I mimic his posture at first, fisting my hands together and reminding myself to breathe through my nose. It’s a trick I’ve learned in racing, something that forces my heart rate in check. My leg bobs with nerves, though, the longer it takes Ha

“Let me have it. Foster care, right? But only two weeks, so—”

“Dustin, Colt is in serious trouble,” he interrupts.

I shut my mouth, realizing my worries are bigger than getting stuck in a system. His eyes flit up to meet mine, and he does that thing where he doesn’t blink. He used to deploy this technique when Tommy and I were in trouble for breaking something.

“I mean, I gathered.” I shrug. Flashes of my dad’s face race behind my eyes and I wince outwardly at the memory of his bloodied face, his snarled smile.

“I have to know, and I’m serious about this, more serious than I have ever been my entire life, about anything,” he begins.

I swallow down the instant dryness in my throat and lean forward a little, enough to sit upright, good posture for a good person. That’s my thought process, despite the one thing I keep coming back to is the two thousand dollars I stole from Colt’s stash. I know in my gut that’s at the heart of all of this. The remaining eight hundred bucks burns a hole in my pocket. Money I changed out when I bought the first set of tires, self-laundering money I knew was bad.