Open Channel

[TRING-TRING]

Morning comes too fast after a night of half-brave rehearsals.

I eat pancakes without the usual galaxy story. Mom notices the missing narration and doesn't tease. Dad's newspaper lowers half an inch, then rises again?giving me silence like a loan.

On the bus, Leo sits beside me but talks less. The quiet isn't empty. It's waiting.

[RING]

***

Library period. Project corner. Same four chairs?three in formation, one still slightly out.

Ryan spins a marker like a baton. Maya's pastel highlights have colonized half a poster board. Bro says "bro" at a graph and somehow that counts as contribution.

"Presenting is tomorrow," Ryan announces. "I talk. Maya flips slides. Bro? holds the pointer."

"Bro," confirms bro.

Ryan's gaze skims me, then past me, like my chair is optional scenery. "Dave already did research bullets. We're good."

We're good means stay seated.

Invisible Seat, still assigned.

My mouth opens before my fear can veto launch.

"I can present the trade-route map," I say.

The sentence lands in the middle of their bubble and sits there, unprotected.

Maya blinks. "You want to talk? In front of people?"

Ryan laughs once?not loud, just enough. "Space cadet on open channel? Bold."

Heat floods my ears. In my head the Vanguard's comms crackle: Transmit. Hold the line.

In the real world my voice shrinks. "I just? I know the routes. I can explain why the cities mattered."

For half a second, something almost like respect flickers on Maya's face.

Then Ryan leans back. "Cute. But I've got it. You can stand near the board and hand me cards if you want. Support role."

Support role.

A polite exile.

I nod.

The nod is a retreat dressed as teamwork.

I write extra bullets nobody asked for?dates, caravan hazards, why glass beads traveled farther than kings. My handwriting is neat enough to look brave.

Ryan takes the page without reading it all. "Great. Backup."

Backup means: stay in the bay unless the star dies.

Across the stacks, Leo is waiting for his own group to dissolve. He sees my face and reads it like a damage report.

***

After class he catches me by the lockers.

"You offered," he says. Not a question.

"I retreated."

"You offered first. That counts."

"Does it?"

Leo hesitates?honest, which is worse than comfort. "It counts with me."

***

[THUD]

Lunch. End-of-row again.

The cafeteria is a nebula of noise. On the far side, kids sign up on a bright clipboard taped to a pillar: FRIDAY FUN FAIR HELPERS ? games, tickets, not-boring shifts.

A girl from math?the almost-hey?writes her name, then glances toward our row like she might toss a signal.

My hand twitches toward standing.

Leo notices. "You could put your name down."

"And do what? Vanish halfway through?"

"Or not."

I stand.

Three steps.

Four.

The clipboard is close enough to smell marker ink.

For one vivid second I picture myself in a ticket booth, stamping wrists, saying next please like a person with a job in the open. The fantasy is ordinary. That somehow makes it scarier than asteroids.

Names in confident handwriting. Nicknames in parentheses. A doodle of a smiley sun.

I uncapped the pen in my head already.

Then Ryan's laugh cuts from a nearby table?same frequency as the library?and my spine remembers Invisible Seat like a branding iron.

I stop.

I put down a pen I never actually picked up.

Turn back.

The math girl watches the turn happen. Her mouth opens like she might say wait.

I pretend I needed a napkin from our table instead.

Halfway back I realize I already have one under my tray. The fake errand fools nobody near enough to matter. It only fools me, and barely.

Leo's expression does the hull-breach blink again?and this time it doesn't snap fully back.

"Dave," he says quietly. "You don't have to be them. But you also don't have to abort every launch."

"I know."

"Do you?"

The question isn't mean.

It still hits shields to ten percent.

***

Afternoon is Silk Road rehearsal in the classroom. Ryan practices his presenter voice, big and shiny. I stand near the board with index cards I wrote too carefully.

When he forgets a city name, I whisper it.

He uses it.

Doesn't look at me.

A kid in the front row glances at the whisper and smirks like catching a glitch in the simulation. I stare at the board until the smirk burns out on its own.

Ms. Carter asks if the group wants to split speaking parts. My pulse spikes?an open door.

Ryan says, "We've got a system."

The system is him.

Ms. Carter nods at the content, not the choreography. "Solid facts. Make sure everyone speaks at least once tomorrow."

Ryan smiles. "Of course."

Of course means maybe.

Between periods, the courtyard fountain throws light. A pickup kickabout starts with a scuffed ball. Someone yells for an extra.

Leo looks at me. "Open channel."

I shake my head too fast. "Bag tear. Zipper. Bad luck physics."

It's an excuse with a real prop.

Leo plays for five minutes without me, then comes back breathless, not smiling as hard as usual.

On the field someone calls him by a nickname that isn't mocking. He answers like a person who belongs in open air. Watching that hurts in a clean, specific way?like seeing a ship undock while you're still clamped to the station.

"I said I'd pass to you," he mutters.

"I know."

"Then stop knowing and start doing once."

That sits between us like a third person.

I want to argue that doing once is how you get laughed at forever.

Instead I stare at the torn bag and say nothing.

***

[SQUEAK]

After school, Leo's gate. Dog. Couch. Controllers.

We run a mission on mute for a while because talking feels mined.

Then Leo pauses the game mid-dogfight.

[CLICK]

"I'm not mad you got scared," he says. "I'm mad you keep leaving me alone in the open while you hide in the cockpit."

My throat tightens. "You're not alone. You're? you have other people."

"Not like this." He gestures between us, small and furious. "I cover you in math. I wait at lockers. I save seats. And every time a door opens, you look at it like an airlock and seal it shut."

In my head: emergency bulkhead. Red lights. Captain freezing on the stick?the Ch1 freeze I beat in the sim and keep failing on Earth.

"I tried," I say. "The map. The clipboard."

"You tried for two seconds. That isn't a burn. That's a spark."

Silence.

The paused starfield hums.

"I don't want to be Invisible Seat," I whisper.

"Then stop sitting there like it's assigned."

We don't finish the mission.

We do fractions instead?make-up packet nearly done, sticker armor smudged from my thumb. Leo checks my work without soft jokes.

When I leave, the dog still likes me.

Dogs are simple. People keep score.

I scratch behind his ears and whisper an apology meant for Leo into fur so it doesn't have to be brave.

Leo walks me to the gate but doesn't bounce.

"Tomorrow," he says. "If they won't let you talk, talk anyway. One sentence. Out loud. I'll be in the room."

"What if I can't?"

Leo looks at me for a long second. "Then I'll still be your friend. But I'm going to be honest when it hurts."

***

[HISS]

Rain mist?thin again?on the walk home. Not Ch3's courtyard mist, not Ch4's hard sun. Just weather, doing its job while I fail mine.

Mom asks about the fair clipboard she heard about from another parent somehow. Parents have sensors.

"I didn't sign up," I say.

She doesn't scold. She just sets down a plate and says, "There's time to change your mind before Friday."

Dad lowers the newspaper. "Tactical genius includes choosing your battles. Also showing up to them."

I nod, because nodding is my best thruster today.

***

In my room I lay out the index cards, the packet, the sticker.

I practice one sentence to an empty wall:

"The Silk Road cities mattered because they moved more than silk?they moved ideas."

It sounds fine with no audience.

I practice the fair too:

"I can run tickets."

Also fine.

Then I imagine Ryan's smile, the clipboard sun doodle, Leo's not-quite-anger, the math girl's almost-wait.

My voice dies in my throat like a cancelled transmission.

Outside, tomorrow is already assembling?presentation period, open doors, an honest friend who won't fake a grin every time I abort.

I set the alarm.

One thruster burn at a time.

Tomorrow the burn has to be words in air?not doodles in margins?or the open channel closes with me still on the wrong side of the hatch.

Before the alarm wins, I rewrite the Silk Road sentence one more time on the scrap, then under it, smaller:

Don't leave Leo flying solo.

The second line isn't for class.

It's for the part of me that keeps sealing hatches and calling it safety.

Night deepens. The comic-book posters watch me fail dress rehearsal for being seen.

I sleep in fragments.

In one fragment, I'm at the fountain with a nickname that fits.

In another, Leo turns away mid-salute and I can't blame him.

I wake once, heart loud, and rewrite the sentence on a scrap paper in the dark so my hands remember even if my courage doesn't.