In his room August practices opening and closing drawers. With each slam against skin his fingers smart. His nails crack open; black, blue, and bleeding. It isn't supposed to hurt this much, he's certain – or maybe it's supposed to hurt more.

He has spent so long inhabiting his own pain that he can't remember what it feels like to gauge it, what it feels like when pain turns dangerous, what it feels like when pain grows too strong. Sometimes the pain is inside his own mind. The worst kind. Because: that was the kind that never left.

Fists pound against his door. Deep tenor, vocal straining, heavy boots that drag over the doorframe. His father. Fists cease pounding and turn to wide-open palms that pull him from self-induced destruction.

August blinks but all he sees is white noise.

"August," his father is saying. "August, stop. August please stop. Dammit – August."

"I'm not – I'm just – I'm not –"

Now his sky is ceiling. August lets his head fall back. He doesn't feel like a man anymore. Three months ago he had felt like a champion. Now he's a stranger in his own body. Weak. "I'm just a cripple."

"What? Don't –" those hands, they were gruff. "Sit up. Good. That's good. Straighter, August. Your hands. What the hell did you do to them? August. Stay here. I'll get..."

Limp, he counts patches in a plaster sky where the stars are fading out.

"I can't move," he says.

His father is so quiet. Then: "I'll be back."

Knuckles press gently into his son's shoulder.

August rolls his neck sideways. He can't even feel the bleeding. The problem is his legs – had been his legs – but now it has migrated to the rest of his body. Maybe he has stopped paying attention. Maybe he's spending too much time inside his own mind. The thought is irresistible.

Rain lashes the windows. August stares at the outside world as lightning streaks out purple, white, gold. In that world, anything is possible.

But he isn't there. He's here. Surrounded by four walls, fur blankets, and a depression that keeps building brick walls between him and his determinations. Trophies – souvenirs of a past life – live on the shelves. This room cages him in, steals from him. Slow and certain but taxing all the same.

Closing his mouth, August swallows his tears.

He doesn't want to be in either world, but now he lives in both. This is his certainty – the certainty of everything, and the certainty of none.