Day 2 – December 22, 2024: The Day He Faced Old Wounds
I am Mark, and I’m twenty-seven now. I work at a small mechanic shop in a town most folks drive through without stopping. I spend my days changing tires, listening to country songs on a static-filled radio, and wrestling with the ghosts my stepfather left behind.
As a kid, I remember flinching at every creak in the floorboard. My stepfather’s footsteps carried a special kind of weight, heavy enough to squeeze the air right out of my lungs. When he was drunk, his anger burst out of him like wildfire—hands that struck me across the face, boots that shoved me down. My mother tried to hide her tears in the cramped bathroom, but we both knew there wasn’t enough space in that tiny house to bury our bruises.
At fifteen, I ran away for three days, sleeping under a broken slide at the park. I was so angry, I vowed never to return. But I did. I told myself I needed to protect my mother, even though I was just a boy. Yet every time he raised his voice, I felt smaller, like my bones might collapse under the weight of his rage.
I escaped for good at eighteen. I managed to land this mechanic gig, and for a while, I pretended the past didn’t exist. But some things refuse to stay buried. When I see a father yank his kid’s arm too hard outside the shop, my chest tightens. I swallow memories of smothered screams and raw fear. Sometimes I grip the wrench so tight my knuckles go white, as if I can force those memories to stay down.
Yesterday, a man rolled in with a banged-up truck. He had his teenage son with him, a tall boy who avoided eye contact. Soon as the father started barking orders, the boy hunched his shoulders, his posture screaming dread. I saw a reflection of my own teen years staring back at me. I wanted to say something, but fear tensed my throat.
Late last night, I lay awake in my cramped room above the shop, wrestling with a decision: keep silent or speak up. My heart pounded at the thought of facing that father. But I remembered all the times I wished someone—anyone—had stepped in for me. So this morning, when the father came back to pick up his truck, I pulled him aside. My hands shook, but I told him his boy seemed scared. I said, in a low voice, “He reminds me of me, and you sound like someone I used to know. Don’t let anger be what he remembers most.”
The father glared at me, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. I expected him to snap, to laugh or curse me out, but he just stared at the floor and muttered, “I’m not like that,” before driving off. Maybe I got through. Maybe I didn’t. But I spoke, and that’s more than I ever did for myself all those years.
Tonight, when I shut down the shop, I felt a small flicker of relief. I still hear my stepfather’s voice, still see the terror in my mother’s eyes, but each time I face that memory, it loses a bit of its hold on me. I can’t change the past, but I can keep another boy from living my old nightmares. Sometimes that thought is the only thing that helps me breathe.