And I was going to need to see a doctor because at this point, I couldn’t keep blaming it on stress.
But that was a problem for future Forest.Right now, I had shit to do.
I was almost done uploading my lesson plans for the day. Summer sessions were easy, and the online classrooms were intuitive even for someone as technologically inept as I was. I would have to scan their group chats to make sure they were following the rules, read over one- and two-page papers they hadto turn in weekly, then throw the multiple-choice quizzes into the scanner for grading.
The ease of it all meant I could take more naps because the fatigue wasn’t any better here either.
Fighting back a yawn, I hit save. My hands had mostly stopped shaking, and I could stand without the room swaying back and forth, which was something. Driving was starting to get a little scary. I had no idea when these little spells were going to hit, and the last thing I wanted was to careen off one of the impossibly steep San Francisco streets and roll my car to death.
My left hand began to tremor again, and I shook it out before taking another breath. “God, what is wrong with me?” I whispered to myself.
The words felt like ash against the back of my throat, threatening to choke me. Something was going on with my body, and I didn’t know what, and the prospect of finding out had me so scared I was shaking in my boots.
Literally.
I was wearing Creek’s old pair of Doc Martens that he’d left behind when he was sent to Texas for basic training. I offered to give them back once, and he’d laughed and said if I’d grown big enough to keep them on my feet, they were mine.
They were a size too big, which made walking with uncooperative feet complicated, but I loved them anyway.
Hitching my bag over my shoulder, I made my way to the door. The more I walked, the steadier I felt, which meant I could get home and enjoy the quiet, soothing vibe of Nash’s place.
Living with Creek’s former NCO presented its challenges.The worst being the fact that he was an absurdly hot older man who was pretty much every fantasy I’d ever had about another human being. And he was also completely untouchable. He was gay, yes, but he was my brother’s best friend…and eleven years older than me.
He was sweet and attentive in ways I was wholly unused to, but it became obvious almost immediately that he was like that with everyone.
He wasn’t shy with physical affection either. That was something I would have to get used to. Casual touches just didn’t happen where I was from. And they were not present when I was growing up. The occasional hair-ruffle from Creek when I did something that made him happy was his version of a bear hug.
So the way Nash just kind of…touched me? The way he’d help steady me if I were ever off balance, or the way he’d sit close enough that our knees would brush together?
It was almost too much. It was a buffet for a starving man, except I wasn’t allowed to have as much as I wanted. I could only take what little I was given. But I was used to that, so it wasn’t difficult to accept.
I was a master at control.And so what if I’d been dreaming a few nights a month—well, a week—okay, every night—about him cornering me, pinning me to the wall, and having his way with me.
But that’s all they were: dreams. They didn’t mean anything.
Every single crush I’d ever had in my life was on someone I had no business wanting. And sure, some of them worked out for short periods, but all of them had been closeted, and they never went anywhere.
So I allowed myself this. A quiet fantasy of a man who would never be mine, and I hoarded the little bits and pieces of affection and attention Nash offered me.
It wasn’t like this crush was going to last forever…
Right?
Everything was fine that afternoon until it wasn’t.
Until I nearly tripped going down the stairs toward the parking lot, making my heart start racing like it was trying to hurl its way out of my chest. By the time I got to my car, everything felt like it was shutting down. My vision had narrowed, the edges sort of a grayish fuzz, and my ears were ringing.
This didn’t happen a lot, but it had happened before. The only thing that made it go away was rest, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was driving in city traffic with my head foggy and my vision compromised, so I needed a different way to get home.
Fumbling with my phone, I scrolled past my brother’s name because the last thing I needed was for him to turn into a hulking grizzly, attempting to command me better with the sheer force of his will. I landed on Nash a few swipes later, then said a little prayer he was home because his schedule could be very random, and I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.
“Forest? You okay?”
He always answered the phone like that, but it was only ever with me. I didn’t know what that meant. “Hey, yeah. Well, actually…no. Um.”I stopped.My ears were ringing, and there was a weird smell happening.Like…like ammonia?And there was a weird, waving flashing light in my periphery.
That was not normal.
“What’s going on? Where are you?”
