They all disappeared. Wasting away one by one. His girlfriend. His friends. The people that waited at his bed when he was fighting to live, seemed to disperse. They left him in the breeze to face the threatening winds during recovery. The time between learning how to function at one hundred percent was a ruse. Not because they couldn't hang. Not because their lives were some how superior to his own but it had become his on doing. Crumbling apart. Becoming a decaying son of a bitch that choked on his own chip he gobbled off of his shoulder. A curse burgeoned in pits of eyes that saw a disliking of the person he gradually altered to. No wonder people fled; headed for the hills because of his way of treating those around him like the shit stain he was becoming.

Disbelief of ever being the carefree, lovable man with a hint of an edge grew as the year came and went. The accident was the catalyst, struck by months of painful recovery. The nights left to defend his own or when the live in girlfriend was weary of his complaints, Nathan ‎wanted nothing more than to be alone. He wanted to rot in his own stew of despair. Purposed actions to drive others away were petty with juvenile intent to prove in his mind where loyalties could easily be tested that there was no place for them. He took on this behavior, allowing it to fester within. Be one with imbalance because it felt true, real, when people were disposable or lacked follow through.

His ways of sending the best away would catch up, especially in a moment of complete weakness. His hate grew, spread through the bowls of all the good he believed in. Knee gave out the moment those negative musings overpowered any will to walk. He held on the bar tightly, gripping with fear of falling when so many falls were unprotected. ‎God, did he hate physical therapy. He hated the therapists wispy know it all quips about a body that wasn't his. He hated the way the prick socked him with a body shot to what little was left and ripped it to shreds with belittling adage wrapped as encouragement.

Nate death stared him and every other professional in that room each session. Each second he could because the taste of revenge on all that wronged him was strong but defeat in its sound form was an entity of its own he couldn't match. Falling was inevitable. Falling over again on his face, losing traction, and feeling his body give out was fated. The brains communication, his will to walk like once before crossed in a wiry display of misfortune. Once his grip loosened by chance rather than choice, the night where his life changed slammed into him like a dirty boot making a mark against his ribs.

Visuals never left him. All sprung on his subconscious like a leech, never to let him forget it. He went down, and hard as if that boot was connecting to his knee again. Stomping at the bend with a thrown bonus of metal crashing into it. He wanted to crawl for someone, anyone who would save him, but all that was in the short distance was the same hard ass that unlikely did not know his pain. He heard the words Mr. Wilson, get up and try again, as his mind was not in that moment but in the cold adjacent alley to a store front that posed as a trap. It was he and a few others, possibly two or three.

His mentor was out of reach because the man was too old for a younger man's game. He took that bait, and did so because he wanted to be the hero. His pride and silly arrogance got in the way. It got him in the position he was in. It pushed him into blind loyalty territory, which would forever leave an irremovable blot. Body felt mingled against the mat, in position as he was left in a fetal. Curling to a safe place where defeat was out of sound out of mind but he was sinking quickly. Falling into its clutches when overwhelmed by the sheer power he could not fight.

"I can't do this," he mentioned over a low dry tone. "Fuck it all to hell, let me be!" It braised in his spirit, shaking him to the center of his core, as the therapist watched on with folded arms. He wanted to be alone, to hear the quiet of the floor. No movement, only what was saving him from not wanting to push on. He couldn't bear to look at himself if there had been a chance to see it. His head ached, not as much as the pain received from the collar, his shoulder, and the knee that needed the exercise. He wanted to walk, definitely but the cost of getting there outweighed what put him in the place he had been currently. Nathan laid there, cheek to mat, eyes closed in an attempt to let it go to move onward.

Arms were brought forward, folded above the crown to hide away like a coward. It was a move that was unlike him when he probably faked worst adversity being in an accident before. This time was different when so much had been lost on the outcome. His sanity hung in the balance, tipping closer away while he tried searching for what meant more to him than loss. Mr. Wilson, get up and try again. I have all day. You can do this. His fight did not begin that day but months ago and wanted to end it there. He'll be a cripple for the rest of his life and fall back on public assistance and become a slob. Half the man he was pruned to be but that wasn't his lane.

He grew cold by the moment, seeing flashes of the night and then where his mind went if the future of defeat had its way. Encouraging words sat on the sidelines as he laid on the surface. There were no arms to pick him up to put him back on a path. No wheels of training to stick back on and ride again, and after literally doing so years ago, this should have been a piece of cake. The reality was that he did not see it that way. He would not see it any way of what was presented at face value.

In his time to collect himself on the floor, he flipped onto his back. Arms protected his face from the lights, and from the stare of disappointment in a person who meant little to him. Like a drawn out sting, he lifted his knee up to bend but couldn't pull up enough to fight again. A few paces and a collapse. That was his fight and it stopped. There was always a next time he thought, that day was more than enough. The man was not ready and did not know when he ever would be.