Lisa raised an eyebrow. "A car?"
"Yeah."
She waited, expecting him to say more. Malik hesitated. "It was a nice one," he said finally.
Lisa smiled. "They're all nice when they're broken," she said. "Did you help somebody?"
Malik nodded. "I think so."
Lisa's expression softened again, that quiet pride settling in her eyes like it always did when he said something like that. "That's what matters," she said. "Don't ever let the world make you think kindness ain't worth something."
Malik looked down at his hands, the grease still caught in the lines of his skin. "They don't think it is," he said.
Lisa stepped closer and gently lifted his chin so he would meet her eyes. "Then they're the ones who don't understand," she said softly.
For a moment, the room felt still. The fan hummed. The sunlight pushed through the thin curtains, casting soft lines across the worn kitchen floor.
Malik nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said, but something inside him wasn't as certain as his voice.
Later that afternoon, he sat outside on the small wooden steps, a broken radio spread out in pieces beside him. The sky had shifted to a softer blue, and a warm breeze carried the distant sound of kids playing somewhere down the road. He picked up a small screwdriver and turned it slowly in his fingers.
The parts made sense. They always did: wires, circuits, connections—everything had a reason, a purpose. If something stopped working, it was because something had changed; you just had to find it. People weren't like that. People didn't make sense.
He thought about Tyler's voice: Trash fixes trash.
He thought about the way the man in the Ferrari had looked at him at first, like he didn't belong anywhere near something so expensive.
He thought about the money: $1,000—more than they'd had in the house in months. Malik swallowed hard. For a second, just a second, he wondered what would have happened if he had taken it. The hospital bill on the kitchen table flashed through his mind—the one Lisa thought he hadn't seen.
He tightened his grip on the screwdriver. "No," he whispered to himself. That wasn't why he did it. That wasn't who he was.
But the doubt lingered, quiet and heavy, settling somewhere deep in his chest.
Inside the trailer, Lisa coughed again. This time it sounded worse. Malik's head snapped toward the door. He stood quickly, the radio parts forgotten at his feet, and stepped inside.
"Mom?" he called.
No answer, just the faint sound of her breathing and something else. Something wrong.
Malik's heart began to race. Because for the first time, fixing things might not be enough, and he had no idea what to do next.
The trailer felt smaller that evening. The air inside pressed in from all sides, thick and unmoving, like it had nowhere else to go. The little fan on the counter hummed weakly, pushing around warm air that did nothing to cool the room.
Lisa sat at the kitchen table now, her hand wrapped around a glass of water she hadn't touched. Her breathing had slowed, but not enough; every inhale sounded like it had to fight its way in.
Malik stood across from her, watching. He didn't sit, didn't move, because something inside him told him that if he looked away, even for a second, things might get worse.