Hull Breach

[TRING-TRING]

I slap the alarm and tell myself today is the burn.

One sentence in open air.

Leo will be in the room.

The scrap paper on my nightstand still says Don't leave Leo flying solo in small graphite like a private mission patch.

I dress fast. Torn bag. Sticker-smudged make-up packet almost finished?Friday still staring. Index cards for a presentation I'm supposedly only "supporting."

Kitchen. Pancakes. Mom's tease is gentler than usual.

"Big map day?" she asks.

"Maybe," I say, which is cowardice with syrup.

Dad lowers the newspaper all the way. Glasses. Warm eyes. Firmer than joke-mode.

"Dave. If you know something, say it. Tactical genius isn't telepathy."

The words aren't angry.

They still feel like a hull inspection.

"I will," I promise.

Promises are easy in kitchens.

***

[HISS]

Bus. Leo sits beside me, quieter than old Leo, still here.

"You got your sentence?" he asks.

I nod. Practice it under my breath until it frays.

At school the hallway is already a launch bay. Ryan's group clusters early. Maya adjusts pastel corners. Bro holds the pointer like a ceremonial spear.

"Support stands left," Ryan says without looking. "Hand me cards when I tap."

Invisible Seat, now with choreography.

Leo peels off toward his class with a two-finger salute that means stay on channel.

I salute back.

This time I mean it.

***

[RING]

World History. Desks shifted. Poster board up. Ms. Carter smiles the teacher smile that expects growth and will notice its absence.

Ryan begins?loud, smooth, mostly accurate. When he blanks a city, he taps.

I hand the card.

Whisper the name.

He takes the credit like gravity.

My practiced sentence sits behind my teeth, engines hot, brakes on.

Ms. Carter glances at me during a lull. "Dave, add one point from your research."

Open channel.

Forced.

The room turns a few degrees toward the quiet corner that isn't a corner today.

My mouth opens.

In my head: asteroid dead ahead, stick freezing, Ch1 scream.

In the real world I hear myself start, wobble, then push:

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

It isn't perfect.

It is airborne.

Someone in the back whispers "space cadet" soft as static. A couple kids smirk. Maya's eyebrows lift?not cruel, almost impressed. Ryan's smile tightens like I stole a spotlight pixel.

Ms. Carter nods once. "Good. Continue, group."

Ryan continues, louder, reclaiming the air.

I stand there shaking in places nobody can see, holding cards, not disappearing for three whole minutes.

When we sit, Leo?from his seat across the room in the shared block?gives the tiniest salute. Not celebration. Acknowledgment.

My hands are still trembling against the index cards. I hide them under the desk like contraband courage.

Ryan mutters, without moving his lips much, "Next time warn me before you ad-lib."

I could apologize.

I don't.

Hull breach sealed with duct tape.

Still a seal.

Between periods I replay the sentence on loop?moved ideas, moved ideas?until it stops sounding like mine and starts sounding like a thruster pattern I can copy again under fire.

***

Lunch should feel like victory.

It doesn't fully.

The fair clipboard is thicker with names. The math girl is there again. She looks over.

I almost walk.

Leo says, "Now."

I take two steps, then hear Ryan call, "Invisible Seat actually spoke! Miracles!"

Laughter?small, quick, deniable.

My feet abort.

Leo's jaw hardens. "You're going to let him name you forever?"

"I spoke in class," I say, defensive because shame needs a shield.

"And then you docked again." He exhales. "I'm proud of the sentence. I'm tired of the abort."

That honesty again?no patched grin.

I stare at my sandwich until it becomes an asteroid I can't chart.

Around us the cafeteria launches a dozen easy conversations I can't dock with. Someone yells a nickname across two tables and gets three answers back. The sound is ordinary for them. For me it feels like a language I study but never speak.

"Clipboard," Leo says again, softer.

"After I can breathe," I say.

He doesn't call that a lie. He also doesn't call it a plan.

Afternoon study hall is not front-row punishment today?just regular quiet?and I finish the last make-up problems like docking clamps locking. Sticker armor peels at one corner. I press it flat.

Ms. Carter collects the packet early when she walks by. "On time. Better."

She almost walks on, then soft-stops. "Speaking once gets easier the second time. Like any system."

I don't know if she means math, history, or me.

I say, "Copy that," because Leo's language is leaking into my mouth, and she smiles like that's an acceptable answer.

Better isn't hero.

Better is fuel.

Still, Friday's other weights remain: fair I didn't join, nickname in orbit, Leo's tired pride.

***

After school I tell Leo I need a night at home.

He nods too quickly. "Copy that."

The duplex gate doesn't squeak for me tonight. Distance is a sound too.

On the walk home I pass the fountain. No pickup game. Just wet stone and the ghost of a ball I refused. I tell myself tomorrow's checklist will fix the pattern.

Tomorrow is doing a lot of unpaid labor in my brain.

***

Home. Mom asks how the map went.

"I said a sentence," I tell her, and the truth feels strangely heavy.

She squeezes my shoulder. "Then say another tomorrow."

Dad, newspaper down: "Proud of the launch. Don't forget the flight path after."

Warm.

Firmer.

I promise tomorrow again?fair clipboard, maybe; talking to Leo properly; not sealing every hatch.

Promises stack like unread missions.

In my room I almost message Leo something dumb and true?like sorry for aborting after the one good burn. My fingers hover. I put the phone down. Open channel feels easier when the other person is a doodle.

I finish nothing else brave before night. I only rearrange the index cards into neatness that looks like virtue.

***

Night.

I mean to set two alarms.

I set one, then open a comic "for one minute," then let a doodle bloom in the margin of leftover scrap?Vanguard under fire, stick locked, sirens.

I tell myself I'll close my eyes for ten minutes, then set the second alarm.

Ten minutes is a liar dressed as a nap.

Sleep hits sideways.

Dream isn't fun.

It's Ch1 without the pancake ending: console sparks, first officer yelling shields at ten percent, controls freezing while the asteroid swells. I try to shout divert all power and my voice comes out as the classroom whisper of space cadet. Leo floats outside the canopy tapping the glass?stay on channel?and I can't open the hatch.

[CRASH]

***

I wake late.

Not apocalypse late.

Enough late that the bus window is a memory and Mom's voice is a proximity alarm from the kitchen.

"Dave! Bus!"

[THUD]

Feet. Socks. Bag. No time for pancakes. Dad calls something about tactical genius and mornings that I don't fully hear.

I run.

Sidewalk cracks try to trip me. The torn bag slaps my hip with every stride like a bad metronome. A car with tinted windows hisses past a puddle and sprays my sock. I don't stop. Captains who freeze mid-asteroid don't get to savor clean socks.

The courtyard is already thinning. Leo stands by the entrance looking at his communicator-of-a-phone, then at me, relief and leftover hurt mixed.

"You almost left me flying solo," he says.

Not a joke.

A report.

"I slept through the burn," I admit. "Dream controls froze."

Leo studies me. "Then we don't promise tomorrow like it's magic. We make a checklist. Today. Out loud."

In my head amber warnings tick.

In the real world I nod, breathless, bag tearing a little wider on the sprint.

One thruster burn at a time?

even when the burn is showing up,

even when showing up is the part I keep trying to sleep through.

We write the checklist on the bus step before first bell, shoulders touching the way docks connect:

1. Answer Leo when he asks.

2. One more sentence if a door opens.

3. Look at the clipboard without turning into vapor.

4. Two alarms?no comics in the cockpit.

Leo initials it like engineering sign-off.

It should feel silly.

It feels like life support.

Somewhere behind my ribs the dream-asteroid is still out there.

So is the sentence I already flew.

Both true.

The day isn't saved.

It's started?late, messy, mine.

I touch the checklist card in my pocket once, like ugly sticker armor, and follow Leo into the building before the bell can name me late twice in one morning.

amber lights. Still flying.

I keep my hand on the pocket card until the fabric is warm?one sign-off, already done on the bus step?then let go and face the hallway current like weather I can walk through.

First bell hasn't fully finished echoing. Leo bumps my shoulder the gentle way, not yesterday's bruise-kind, and we enter before the corridor can invent a new nickname for late.

Behind my ribs the dream-asteroid shrinks one click. Not gone. Manageable. The checklist corners dig into my palm through cloth like a tiny, ugly shield.