Shane (Damage Control 4)

“When I fell from that scaffold? I thought someone pushed me. And then again yesterday. And everyone was chewing cinnamon gum.” Christ, it sounds like I’m completely off my rocker. Feels like it, too. “Dammit, Seffers…”

Say something. Tell me I’m not bound for the straitjacket.

“You fell off that scaffold, cuz.” Seth’s mouth is downturned. Sadness flickers in his eyes. “That’s what they told me. And cinnamon gum? Why the fuck would they chew cinnamon gum?”

“Because that’s what Christoph and Marco did, Seffers. In prison.”

His eyes widen with understanding, but it makes no fucking difference. Once more I got my answer, and it’s like a sucker punch to the stomach.

I’m imagining things. Mixing past and present.

“Listen to me. You were getting better,” Seth says. “Do you really think I’d fucking let you go and live alone if I didn’t think that? If I didn’t see that?”

Dunno what the fuck to say to that, except he was wrong.

“I got fired,” I say and silence spreads around me like a ripple on a lake. “I was told it’s unsafe for me to work there. They had complaints.” I let my hands fall to my sides. “I’m jobless, and losing my mind. I need…” I struggle to keep my shit together. “Need help, Seffers.”

More silence, more strained than before. Seth is still pale like a ghost. Fuck, I’ve scared him.

He can’t be as scared as I am, though. Goddammit…

“We got you covered, man,” Zane says suddenly. “Don’t worry about the job right now. Maybe it’s for the best. Sounds like something triggered your flashbacks there.”

“Yeah,” Seth says, finally moving, raking his hands through his hair. “Yeah, maybe it’s a good thing.”

“The fuck it is.” More black seeps into my vision, and I list sideways. “Fuck.”

“Shane, sit the fuck down,” Zane snaps.

The hell I will. I glare at him.

Zane opens his mouth to say more, but Seth steps forward.

“Maybe you should talk to someone, cuz,” he says. “A good therapist, not like the asshole you talked to in prison.”

Christ. “That won’t help. Besides, who will pay for that?”

“You don’t know that. It might help.” Seth doesn’t look like he’s about to back down on this one. “Ask Asher. Ask Tyler. Ask anyone. As for paying…” He exchanges a look with Zane. “We’ll work something out.”

“Fuck, Seffers, I don’t know.”

“Take the chance, man. What do you have to lose? You do want to get better, don’t you? For Cassie?”

I nod.

“Speaking of the devil…” Zane goes to the door and opens it. “Cassie, tell him to sit down. Fucker listens to you.”

Cassie?

Shit, it’s not just Cassie at the opening. As she comes to put her arm around me, behind her follow Ocean, and Micah with Ev, and Jesse with Amber, and Tyler with Erin, and everyone I know in this fucking world.

Oh hell…

Cassie drags me to a chair in the corner of the room, and just in time, too, before my legs fold under me.

Talk about feeling cornered. But she stays there, standing beside me, her hands on my shoulders, and it’s not as bad as it could be.

A therapist. The last one told me I should man up and stop complaining, that I was a man and should stop being a pussy.