I’m exhausted and I keep messing shit up. I’ve been trying to get a fucking spring in a fucking carburetor for the last fucking hour! I can rebuild those son of a bitches with my eyes closed I’ve done so many of them and yet, I’m so tired I can’t concentrate. I don’t want to be here. The men are talking and laughing so loud my head feels like it is being bombarded. There’s people everywhere and it’s unreasonable, it’s completely unreasonable, because truly it’s the same bunch who are always here and not even as many as normal. Still, it is making my skin feel as if it is trying to crawl off my body. The faces and the voices all mix into one blurring roar in my head. It’s like they are all on a carousel that spins around so fast and quick that I just catch images of them flashing in my head. Then they spin again with a whirl. Their combined voices are like a strange sadistic music and blends until all I can hear is gibberish. Gibberish but with mocking laughter in the background. My heart drums a million beats a minute and jars my body with its force.

Panic attack. I’m having a fucking panic attack in broad daylight. Each person that comes up to me is hidden by unseen arms, unseen hands reaching out to grab me. Reaching out to grab me and pull me down into the darkness. My hands shake, a cold sweat breaks out over my skin. I’m dizzy. I’m going to fucking lose it in front of my brothers. NO! I CAN’T!! I throw the parts down on the work bench and stomp out of the garage.

I want to fucking run. I want to run so fucking far that I can feel nothing but the burn of the air in my lungs. I can’t do that either. If I run they will all know, they will know and it will all crumble around me and I’ll lose Carrie. I make it to the back of the garage and lean against the block wall, slowly falling to my ass. I bring my knees up and put my head down and breathe deep.

This one might have been the worse yet. My hands are trembling. Hell, my whole body is shaking. I have been doing so well. I cope so much better when Carrie is with me. I’m a grown ass man, and I need a woman around to hold my hand. It pisses me off. I do not want to be weak. A weak man can’t take care of himself. He can’t defend himself. I do not want to be this person. I need to be different for Carrie. I just don’t know if that is possible.

I get a little control and decide on a couple of drinks before going to my old room to nap. I need Carrie. I need her so bad, it’s all I can do not to jump on my bike and head back to the house. Instead I pull myself up and go into the bar.

I down one shot after another. I’m on the fifth when Tash, a club Twinkie, comes over and slides on my lap. She feels wrong. She smells wrong.

“Dancer baby, I thought being in the joint might have changed you.”

My heart stalls. Is there talk? Does she know something? Did Dragon tell the men?

“What do you mean?” I ask my voice gruff. My hand grabs her leg tight. She doesn’t seem to notice. Hell, she probably thinks I want her there. Really I’m trying to keep the room from spinning and fighting back the traces of the panic attack that is still in my system.

“I was starting to think we had lost you to the land of soccer dads and minivans. Figured we wouldn’t see you around here until you had a ring through your nose and a couple of kids screaming for attention,” Tash laughs her fingers moving along the side of my face and moving close to my lip.

My emotions are all over the place. An image of Carrie with babies at her feet… but not just any babies, my babies flash in my head. Then I feel the sweat still popped out on my neck and the pounding beat of my heart from the earlier panic attack and immediately get jerked back into reality. I am not father material. I can’t even protect myself, how can I protect kids? Hell, I almost got Carrie killed if you get down to it.

“Fuck, if there is one thing I’m not cut out for girl, it’s being a dad. You won’t ever catch me with my balls cut off for some woman. You know me better than that shit. The only van you might catch me in, is one rockin’ if you get my meaning,” I say, giving a half-hearted attempt to laugh it all off.

She laughs and the noise is shrill and annoying. She bends down like she’s going to kiss me. Fuck, I don’t want that. I don’t want her anywhere near me. Her perfume is about to make me gag. I’m about to pull away when my world stops turning.

“You dildo, juggling, thunder cunt! What the hell Tash? Did you NOT learn to stay away from a brother who is spoken for?” Freak’s woman, Nikki demands. That isn’t what destroys me though. No, what does that is Carrie’s quiet gasp.

Fuck! I stand up, not caring one fucking bit that Tash falls to the ground. In the background Nikki and Tash start yelling, but it is Carrie standing in front of me that I concentrate on. I have to fix this. I need to fix this. I can’t lose Carrie.

“Carrie sweetheart, I can…it’s not what you think, Care Bear.”

She flinches like I hit her.

“Don’t. Oh, God Jacob, please don’t. Don’t you dare use that name on me, not now.”

She turns around and pushes through the front door before I can tell my fucking feet to move. I catch up with her seconds later outside.

“Carrie, I swear, nothing was happening. It wouldn’t. I have you, I don’t…”

“That’s just it, Jacob,” she says turning around, facing me and the sight of her tears is so hard to take, I almost wish she had kept her back to me. How many tears have I caused her? Why do I always hurt her? “You don’t have me. You’ve been pretending with me. I’m not what you want, not at all.”

“Bullshit. I’ve been showing you for months that you’re what I want.”

“Really, Jacob?”

“Damn it, you’ve been there in our house. You know! You get more of me than I’ve ever willingly given anyone.”

“Why do you refuse to sleep with me?”

“We fuck like bu….”

“I’m not talking sex Jacob, I mean sleep. Why can’t you sleep with me?”

“Now you’re talking crazy, Carrie. We sleep beside each other every night. C’mon baby, let’s go home,” I counter, her face looking even more shaken with my answer. I know I’m lying, but there’s no way she can. I need to get her home, calm her down. I can’t lose her. I start walking her towards her car.