Power Bottom by Jeremy Jenkins

Author:Jeremy Jenkins [Jenkins, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

A few minutes later, we were parked at the dining room table over a pizza. Luke had picked off all of the toppings and arranged them in neat piles around his plate.

“Luke, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” I started.

“Oh?” he asked.

From the way he said it, I could tell that all of the air had gone out of his lungs. It was like I could feel the vibrations of his thundering heart over here on the other side of the table. Suddenly, it felt like I was in the shadow a looming beast at the head of the table, his anxiety monster peering down at me.

I was feeling anxious myself. Afraid to tell him. Afraid to not tell him.

Well, I couldn’t not tell him.

“Your mom.”

“What about her?” he asked, dropping his pizza slice on the blue ceramic plate.

“Jake called me today. They broke up.”

“What?!” He exclaimed, his mouth dropping open.

I felt a wrenching in my chest. By giving him this news, I felt like I was the one causing the pain. Like I was the one twisting the knife in his heart.

“She had another…” I didn’t know the word for it. “…episode.”

“Are you serious?!” He said, standing up. His face was full of panic, then shifted to suspicion. “How long have you known?”

“Only for the last hour or so.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me that first thing when I walked in the door?!” he cried, running his hand through his hair.

“Luke—“

“You were keeping something from me again!”

“I’m trying to protect you—”

“You can’t protect me from the world, Adam!” he yelled. “Withholding things from me doesn’t keep me safe — it keeps me in the dark! How is that protecting me? What if my mom hurt herself in this last hour?”

“Babe, Babe, please,” I said, feeling the mistake sear my veins with regret. I wrapped my arms around him, but I could feel the tension in his body.

He didn’t forgive me.

“I need to call her,” he grumbled, stomping into our bedroom and shutting the door with a harsh thwack.

“She probably won’t answer,” I called to him. “She’s in the psych ward.”

The door was silent, unmoving.

I glanced down at the pizza sitting on the table. From the color, I could tell that it was lukewarm.

My appetite had vanished, so I folded the lid back over it.

Then I sulked into the living room and turned on the T.V.

I flicked the channel to an episode of Rick & Morty, but I wasn’t watching it. My mind was whirling into overdrive, thinking about Luke.

That fear I’d seen in his eyes— that mistrust. I never wanted him to look at me like that again.

And just like that, I felt my own anxiety monster shift to life in my shadow.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the serial killer’s victims. They all looked like the love of my life.

It killed me knowing that Luke was walking out by himself at various times during the day. Any time he was outside, he could become a target.

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