He saw.
“Don’t cry,” he said.
“I’m old. My eyes leak.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
He laughed.
Then grew quiet.
“My dad asked if we could work on another bike together.”
“How do you feel about that?”
He shrugged.
A careful shrug.
“Scared.”
“That’s honest.”
“Mad too.”
“That’s allowed.”
“And kind of glad.”
“That’s allowed too.”
He nodded.
“Feels weird.”
“Most healing does.”
The last bike of the day leaned against the table.
A little purple one with training wheels.
I checked the brakes and handed it to a tiny girl waiting with her grandmother.
The girl looked up at Leo.
“Did you fix it?”
Leo crouched.
“We both did.”
She smiled.
“My mom says fixing things is magic.”
Leo glanced at me.
Then back at her.
“Nah,” he said. “Magic is easy.”
He tapped the side of the bike.
“Fixing things means you stay.”
The grandmother put a hand over her mouth.
The little girl didn’t understand.
Not yet.
But I did.
So did Leo.
So did every person who had ever needed someone to stay long enough to prove they weren’t disposable.
When the girl rode away, wobbling but safe, Leo stood beside me.
The park was quiet now.
Not empty.
Quiet.
There’s a difference.
Empty is what my house used to be.
Quiet is what peace sounds like after the work is done.
I looked at the old cardboard sign still hanging crooked from the table.
Free Bike & Skateboard Repairs.
You Break It, I Fix It.
I thought about changing it.
The wording wasn’t quite true anymore.
Because I didn’t fix all of it.
They fixed me too.
So before we left, I took a marker from the toolbox and added one line at the bottom.
Leo leaned over to read it.
Then he smiled.
The sign now said:
Free Bike & Skateboard Repairs. You Break It, We Fix It.
And underneath, in smaller letters:
