Broken Compass

The room darkens. I don’t know where I am. The ceiling lowers over me, threatening to crush me, and I scramble back. My heart starts to thrash about in my chest, banging against my ribs, and pain wraps like a vise around my head.

Hell.

This is where I am. Deep in fucking hell.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Sorry, Nate.” Her weight, her touch is gone, and I roll on my side, swallowing down bile. “I’ll get Kash.”

Kash. “Don’t,” I manage, somehow sure I don’t want anyone seeing me like this, even as my head spins and my thoughts crawl inside my head like insects. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay.” She gets up, a blurry form, and pulls on her dress.

Syd. It’s Sydney. We’re in my room.

I groan, throwing an arm over my face. “I’m sorry. So fucking sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Isn’t it? I’m weak. I let this… thing, whatever it is, control me, take over my mind. Prevent me from acting like a normal human being. Like a horny teenage boy making out with his girl.

She’ll never be my girl. I’m such a freak.

“Nate, listen to me.”

“What?” I lift my arm cautiously. She’s on her knees now, by the bed, her face level with mine, her pretty eyes shiny.

“It’s okay.”

I choke on bitter laughter. “I want you, Syd. So fucking bad. But I can’t. I get these… these panic things.”

“It’s okay,” she says again.

“How the fuck can this be okay? I’m fucked up. I just…” I have to stop, my voice going out. If I break down and cry in front of her, I might as well walk out of here and never co

me back.

She reaches for me, then lets her hand drop on her leg. “Talk to Kash. He also gets panic attacks.”

I lift my head from the bed. “He does?”

Kash, the Superman? He’s actually superhuman. Always in control. Always strong.

Unlike me.

“You’re not weak. Or broken,” she says. “Talk to him.”

But she’s wrong. I am broken. Beyond repair, beyond redemption. I’m tainted and filthy and rotten to the core.

Even supposing I say to hell with it and explain to Kash just how fucked-up I am—which isn’t happening—nothing he can tell me will change the truth.

Since the Dirty Dawg closed—temporarily, according to the guy I talked to, but whatever—I manage to land an afternoon shift in a gym, manning the front desk. Guess all the years I spent sparring and running with West paid off.

West.

Dammit.

I’m so worried about him. Would my asshole of a dad hurt him? Would he drag him into what he dragged me?

He wouldn’t fucking dare. He wouldn’t. Besides, West has a family. His granddad would report my dad if he so much as touched West.