Breath 22
The sky was beginning to turn the color of bruised fruit—half-night, half-dawn
or could it be that’s the internal turmoil that he’s going through right now
as he drives towards Crab Point?
Nick’s car tore down the cracked two-lane road heading east.
The Mee Krob.
He couldn’t shake the image.
A barely touched appetizer plate sitting right at the center of the kitchen’s steel table,
placed like an offering.
But actually it’s a distress signal.
A scream for help.
He knew that Tom knows that he will notice, that’s his favorite dish.
He won’t miss the plate.
It’s not forgotten in the chaos.
But left behind on purpose.
He made him a Mee Krob last week when they raided the restaurant
Back then, things are less complicated.
He was in control.
Unlike tonight.
Mee Krob.
Crab Point.
Nick gripped the wheel tighter. His breath quickened.
It had to be a message.
His hunch is correct.
He’s at Crab Point.
It was the kind of thing Tom would do—leave something behind
that only Nick would understand.
A breadcrumb trail through the dark.
The road curved sharply.
Gravel spat from the tires.
He didn’t slow down.
The desert stretched out on both sides like the void itself—flat, endless, colorless.
On the other side was Mexico.
A different world.
But on this side of the border.
There’s just- nothing.
This was the side where people came to disappear.
And if Tom was here, who knows tied up, alone, left do die,
Nick knew he didn’t have much time.
Luck might not be with him tonight.
His thoughts raced faster than the car.
What if I’m too late? What if he’s already—
CLANG.
The car veered. He hadn’t even seen the guardrail.
The side of the bumper clipped it hard,
and his head slammed into the driver-side window.
White flash.
A sharp pain bloomed behind his temple.
Then—
Silence.
But it wasn’t the car anymore.
He was sitting in a booth, across from his mother.
Blue vinyl seats. Red Formica table.
A glum little diner with faded menus and flickering lights.
Eggs and toast gone cold. Coffee untouched.
His mother worked here.
She’s a bored waitress with thick red lipstick.
Always watching. Always hoping.
But stuck with pouring endless coffees on people
who’s more concerned about their hash browns and dried burgers.
“I wish you’d stop acting like I married a girl” his mother said, voice low and tired.
“Well I wish you did, it’s better.” Nick interjected.
His mom scowled, “Well I hate to tell you, I’m not into girls. Not that there’s something
wrong with that. Free to love. Free to live. That’s what the Founding Fathers would say.”
“They have slaves as their servants mom. How’s that for freedom?”
Nick folded his arms. He hadn’t touched his plate.
“He’s twenty. You’re what…seventy-three?
“Sixty three you mean. You exaggerated by a decade.”
His mom interjected.
“I mean—what do you want me to say mom, that I’m ok with that,
that everyone is ok with that, I’m just a few years older than him mom”
“Who cares about their opinion, I want you to say that
I’m your mom no matter what,
regardless of the choices I made in life,
I’m still your mom, and will always be,
And that you’re happy I found someone who
makes me feel alive again. That maybe, just maybe, I deserve that.”
Nick stared out the window, jaw clenched.
“You think Dad would’ve been okay with this?”
His mother pushed her plate away, face hardening.
“Your father’s dead. He’s not coming back. He’s gone.
He’s not here to judge me. You’re the only doing that.
And you’re doing a damn good job of it.”
The silence between them thickened.
Finally, she sighed.
“You’ve always made it hard to love you when you’re like this.”
That cut deeper than he let her see.
“I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she muttered.
She got up and starts serving stale coffee on other tables
as she adjust her waitress apron.
Faking a smile, she serves two plates of burger and dried fries.
Nick left a twenty on the table.
Didn’t look back as he walked out the door.
Fuck her. And Fuck her boyfriend.
He will never be a dad to me.
Nick blinked.
The car door was open.
He didn’t remember opening it.
Gravel dug into his palms as he pushed himself up, dizzy.
Blood trickled down from his temple, warm and sticky.
Wind howled through the open desert.
A sound like the earth exhaling its grief.
His breath came ragged as he stood.
In the distance, the outline of jagged trees and bone-dry brush—Crab Point.
He wiped the blood from his face and stumbled back into the car.
As the engine roared to life again, his hands shook on the wheel.
And that’s when he saw his mother’s face. The pain in it.
And then Tom’s.
Different pain, same shape.
Same Face.
Same Emotions.
What had he done all these years—judging love from a distance?
Policing it like it came with paperwork?
He thought about Ploy’s mom.
The way her hands trembled as she mumbled in Thai and stepped away from him.
How she stared back at her crying daughter like she was the last thing that matters
in a hard world built only for the tough.
He understood now.
Maybe for the first time.
He should admit his mistake.
He should call his mom, sometime tomorrow.
But for now, there’s Tom.
He pressed the gas.
His car accelerated towards Crab Point.
