Compulsion by Heidi Ayarbe Page A

from my stomach. Tanya’s hair tickles my nose; her bony ass digs into my thighs.
    The car bounces down the road and squeals to a stop in the Nugget parking lot, and we spill out of the car just in time for me to gulp down the fresh morning air before Tanya’s decomposing fruit-smelling hair makes me retch. I lean over, hands on knees, my palms burning against the fabric of my sweats. Webs are being woven in the back of my brain and work their way upward. It feels like my head is going to split in half.
    Tanya tugs on my elbow. “Are you even listening to me, Jake?” she asks.
    I look at her and nod. “Just give me a sec. Just a second.” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to push away the pain, but the best I get to is a dull throb that I know won’t go away for hours.
    I need to get back home and start over. I can’t eat here. Not like this. But before I can think through anything, Luc, Diaz, and some other guys grab me and start to chant:
If ever they are playing in your town,
You must get to that soccer ground;
Take a lesson and come on in,
Soccer taught by Jake Martin;
We love Jake!
We love Jake!
We love Jake!
    It’s like their words are chiseling my skull while the spiders burrow deeper into my brain. If I can’t control it, I’ll be comatose for a week.
    Walking into the Nugget is like walking into a time warp: smudgy mirrors, shitty lighting, and that underlying smoker smell that permeates from the burnt sienna–colored carpeting.
    Banners and streamers hang from the rafters in the banquet hall. Everybody is decked out in blue and white. The band is set up near the stage, playing the Senators’ fight song. The orchestra is next to them, sawing on their instruments. Mera looks bored, probably not amused by the fact she has to play something as mundane as the Senators’ fight song on her precious strings.
    I concentrate, though, on the movement of the bow pulling across the strings—trying to focus just on the sound that comes from Mera’s violin. I’ve almost got it when a couple of guys jump on my back and start to chant again, breaking the music away.
    I stagger to a chair. For a second everything goes black, so I shove my palms into my eyes and push real hard. It’s like watching an electric storm when I do that—spider bodies frying on my brain, their fibrous webs trapping any rational thought.
    Somebody claps me hard on the back and says, “Wake up, man. How can you sleep through this ?”
    I look up, and the veil of black lifts in time for me to see Luc staring at me. “ Guevón ,” he mouths. The vein on his neck is pulsating. He looks at me not like I’m Jake but like I’m some kind of lab experiment in a petri dish.
    There’s a plate of steaming biscuits and gravy in front of me.
    “Assmunch,” I mouth back, and rub my eyes, acting like I’m zombie-tired and not a step from falling into wacko-land. Keep it cool, I think.
    Luc cracks a smile, then is swallowed up by the rest of the team, leaving me behind.
    I exhale and search the room for a clock, finding a crooked-hanging one on the wall to the right. I cock my head to the side, but it still looks crooked; the floor has a Titanic slant, and I clutch the edge of the table so I won’t go careening to the end of the room. White-knuckled grasp, jaw clenched, I scoot my chair as close to the table as I can, then turn to stare at the clock, working the numbers, trying to make things okay, wishing the day hadn’t already begun.
    Tanya waves her goddamned hand in front of me. “Earth to Jake. Hey, Jake. Aren’t you gonna eat?”
    The biscuits and gravy have gone cold on my plate; the white sauce has an unnatural sheen to it. I release the table, easing my fingers off the edge.
    My chair doesn’t slide away.
    The clock looks straight now. The room is back in order.
    Just. Stop.
    Screaming. Surround-sound, high-pitched screams echoing off the walls like we’re stuck in an endless corridor.
Kasey shrieks, her voice sharp and piercing.
    “I