The Bulkhead Between Us

I am sitting in the driver’s seat of Rig 4, staring at the empty passenger seat where Mateo’s chipped black coffee cup sits. It is three in the morning. The rig is parked in the bay, the engine off, the radio silent. We have worked this night shift for a year, riding in silence for eleven hours while pretending our opposing methods—my loud, gut-driven intuition versus his quiet, rigid protocol—are just professional differences rather than a cold war.

We are thirty-six and twenty-nine, respectively, though he acts older and I act tired. We are partners, which means we share a cab, a schedule, and a mutual, unspoken agreement that we are enemies. It is a choice I made. I chose him because I wanted someone to push against, someone whose competence was so boringly absolute it felt like a challenge. I chose to be the noise so he could be the silence. I chose to be the one who talks until she is out of breath so he would be the one who waits for her to finish.