Now that grin was gone.
He nodded once.
“Okay.”
I walked him down myself.
The chair moved quiet as a thought.
That somehow made the trip worse.
Because the whole point was that it finally worked.
Outside the front office, the nurse was waiting with our principal, Ms. Keene.
She was a decent administrator in the way a locked gate is decent.
Strong. Predictable. Meant to keep things in order.
She looked at the chair.
Then she looked at me.
“Did this device come from home in this condition?” she asked.
She said device.
Not chair.
Not wheelchair.
Not the thing a twelve-year-old boy sat in all day.
A device.
“No,” I said.
Mason kept his eyes on the floor tiles.
The nurse crouched by the side bracket and touched the fresh weld with one finger.
“Who repaired this?”
I should have said it was me before she asked again.
I should have stepped in faster.
But there is always half a second where grown people still hope reason will save them from procedure.
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