Broken Compass

“Bullshit. You and my son were attached at the hip. Where did he run off to?”

“I told you already, I don’t know,” West says, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “If you’re worried, you should go to the police.”

Nate’s dad huffs. “No reason for that. He’ll slink back, tail between his legs, sooner or later. You and me, though… We’ll talk later.”

He climbs up the stairs, and a moment later a door slams in the building.

“What the…? Has he threatened you before?” As West starts up the stairs, I grab his hand. “Has Nate’s dad done anything to you?”

He shakes his head, but fear lights up the blues in his eyes. “No.” He gently extracts his hand from mine. “He hasn’t.”

“Will you tell me if he does? He has no right to harass you.”

“I’m fine, Syd. I can handle him.” He starts climbing, and I hurry after him.

“He hurt Nate.”

“Not according to Nate, he didn’t. You think I didn’t ask him a thousand times?”

“And you believed him?” I demand.

“I don’t know what the fuck to believe.” Uttered softly but vehemently. Bitterly.

“West…”

He unlocks his apartment door, and I walk inside after him. “Nate stopped talking to me about anything months before you guys ran away. I don’t think he likes me much anymore.”

“That’s simply not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

I don’t know what to say to him. The living room distracts me, so clean and ordered, like always. The tiles are gleaming, the carpet is a perfect green, the cushions are placed in a perfect row on the sofa.

My heart aches when I picture him scrubbing it all over and over, and I wonder how he’s doing with his OCD these days.

Another topic he’s refused to talk about. He won’t talk to me, and he certainly doesn’t talk to Nate. I can’t stand the thought of him going through difficult times alone.

I wish I could grab both him and Nate and shake them, shake some sense into them. They’re such good friends. How could they drift apart like that?

“Coffee? Tea?” He hovers at the kitchen door, dark hair falling adorably into his eyes.

I focus on that, because if I let myself look my fill, he’ll notice. West has turned into a sort of sex god over the past year. If the other boys filled out, he turned into a sculpted statue of a man, his chest so strong I can see his muscles through his T-shirt. His jaw is so square you can cut glass on it, and that mouth…

Good God. Not that I haven’t been noticing him at school every day, but being here, in his home I somehow can’t get over how hot he is.

Maybe because he kissed me here once, and I can never forget how that felt.

“Coffee it is, I guess,” he mutters, and vanishes in the kitchen, leaving me to stare after him.

Oops. Turns out I was staring, after all.

I chew on a fingernail. Try to relax. When that fails, I get up to check out the collection of memorabilia displayed in the heavy china cabinet. I’ve glanced at them before, but always in quick passing as we headed to West’s bedroom.

There are china dishes and cups, and random stuff from different countries—fridge magnets and snow globes and statuettes of unknown people—and trophies. Sports trophies?

Squinting closer, I read the names at their bases. Adela Black. Platte County Perpetual Trophy. Dressage and Show Jumping. Youth Amateur Champion.

There’s a whole row of these.