Broken Compass

Chapter Four

Kash

My room is small and dark, one narrow window high up and caked with dust. If that isn’t a metaphor for my life, then I don’t know what is.

Then again, my life is much more fucking complicated than a sublet room in an unknown neighborhood. At least there’s Wi-Fi, and I managed to figure out how to get to my new job from here tomorrow.

Small fucking mercies.

And the apartment owner’s son—Nate, was it?—doesn’t seem like a jerk. Though the way he stared at me yesterday evening was kinda creepy. Like he couldn’t really see me, or like he could see through me.

See inside me, to the truth underneath it all. So I ended up running from him, holing up in my room and locking the door, for no good reason. I should have stayed and asked him about the neighborhood, the closest convenience store, the best way to work.

Truth is, I missed talking to someone, someone my age, someone who might understand me. And that’s crazy talk and crazy thinking. As if anyone could understand me. As if I’m your average teenage boy.

As if I’d let my guard down.

A shiver runs down my spine, and I uncurl and get up from the narrow bed, my phone clutched in my hand. What the fuck am I doing?

I shake my head at myself, look down at my jeans and black T-shirt, my black Converse, the black tattoos curling around my forearms.

This is me, I tell myself. Even if I barely recognize myself. I avoid looking at my reflection in the mirror these days, afraid of what I’m going to see.

Afraid I won’t know myself.

Afraid I will.

I barely recognize myself, and that’s a good thing. This is the new me. And this is now my life.

Grabbing my bag, I dig out my black journal and a pen. I plug my earbuds in my ears, connect them to my phone and search for my playlist.

A loud crash comes from next door, and I’m scrambling to sit up and cursing, my phone flying out of my hands and dropping to the floor. I almost topple off the bed myself, my heart banging around in my chest.

Holy fucking shit.

It takes me a long moment to get my shit together. Too long. I can taste bile in the back of my throat, and my heart is still beating uncomfortably fast. The walls are closing in around me. Where the locked door and lack of big widows seemed comforting before, now it’s claustrophobic, the small room a tomb where I’m buried alive.

“Fuck.” I abandon my phone a

nd journal, grab my tobacco pouch and the key and get the hell out of there. I can’t breathe, dammit. I need out.

But the moment I’m out of my room, I stop and bend over in an attempt to suck in more oxygen before I pass out.

Jesus Christ, Kash. Isn’t it about time you got over this and lived like a normal person?

The apartment is quiet and empty, like the first time I ventured out of my new den. Dragging in one last shallow breath, I straighten and eyeball the door at the end of the living room.

Get out, smoke, let out the tension. That’s the plan. Then go back in and write until I’m able to sleep.

One can hope, right?

But a thought hits me smack between the eyes before I make it that far. That crash from before… has something happened to Nate? Shit, what if he fell and hurt himself? Creepy gaze or not, I should check up on him. It’s the right thing to do.

And like the sucker I am, I push back the fear, swallow it down until it’s a stone in the pit of my stomach, and ignore my crazy breathing as I check the living room, and then the kitchen, looking for him.

“Nate?” I call out uncertainly, then force myself to ask again, louder, “Nate?”

Once I used to talk loudly, to not be afraid of my own reflection.