Broken Compass

He doesn’t sit down, instead starts to eat standing at the counter, swallowing his sandwich in huge bites. “Nah.”

“I knew it. Where from?”

He chews, and gulps, then puts his sandwich down. “Elsewhere.”

“That’s it? Elsewhere? Come on, dude, are you kidding me?”

He says nothing.

Shit. I rub again at my temple, lean back in my chair. “You’re not wanted by the police or anything, are you, man?”

He laughs, a short and rueful sound. He shakes his head.

The shadows in the kitchen are slowly clearing up, and his halo is fading. His face starts to clear, set in tight lines.

“I’m not wanted by anyone,” he says quietly, nods at me, grabs his plate and leaves the room.

Not moving from my seat, I hear his door whine as it opens, then click closed, and I’m left alone in the silence, lost in distorted space and time.

“Coming!” I yell as I hurry out of my bedroom, the doorbell ringing again. “Just a fucking minute.”

My vision has cleared enough to read, but trying to study brought back the nausea and headache, so I’d been dozing when the insistent ringing started.

I’d been caught in a dream where I walked in a forest of glowing trees, and West had been there, and Sydney, and then an angel fell from the sky and crashed so hard that his ribs had broken open and I could see his heart, a heart of gold, beating in time to mine.

“Nate!” a familiar girlish voice shouts from outside. “It’s me! I need my backpack.”

“Sydney?” I can still see her as she was in the dream, wearing a long dress made of flames, her red hair lifting on a warm breeze.

Fuck, I totally forgot I have her backpack.

Throwing the door open, I step out and she smiles up at me. “Hey, Squirt.”

Her smile falls. “Don’t call me that.”

“Shortcake, then.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Peanut.”

“Nate…” She rolls her pretty eyes, and I give in. I capitulate.

She does that to me every

time. Also, I’m too damn tired for any real banter today. “Wanna come in?”

She glances inside, clearly curious. “You alone?”

“Yeah. Except for our roommate. But he’s locked up in his room.”

“Oh.” Her mouth purses, as if in disappointment.

I’m not gonna think about that. That she could be here to check Kash out, and not to see me.

Unlike in my dream, she’s dressed in cut-off denim shorts and an off-shoulder white blouse. She’s all smooth legs and freckled arms and curves.

So many sexy curves. I try to look away and can’t. It’s as if my vision cleared just to see her better. One of life’s ironies.