Am I Beautiful? by Jon Athan

Author:Jon Athan [Athan, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-24T20:00:00+00:00

13

Lockdown

March 13, 2020

“They’re closing the schools,” Amber said in a hushed tone as she ran her fingertips across Adam’s strong, bare chest.

Adam lay in bed beside her, blank eyes glued to the ceiling. The dark circles under his eyes looked black in the moonlight pouring into the bedroom from the window. His jaw was clenched and his muscles were tense. His head seemed to hurt all the time, but no amount of medicine could relieve the pain. Ten seconds of silence elapsed.

He said, “I saw the news.”

“It’s a good thing, right?”

Fifteen seconds of silence passed.

“I don’t know,” Adam said.

Amber responded, “Well, there’s going to be a, um… A shelter-in-place order or something like that. That should help, right?”

With so much on his mind, Adam was slow to respond. He heard every word from Amber’s mouth, but it took him a moment to process it. Another ten seconds passed.

Before he could answer, Amber asked, “What’s wrong, hun? You’ve been so quiet recently.”

‘Everything.’ He stopped himself from saying that word out loud. It was the truth, but he didn’t want to alarm his wife. The world was crumbling around him. Stress ate away at his health, killing him from within. He lay still, but he felt like he was free-falling, sick to his stomach just thinking about survival. He shouldered the burden of supporting his family during the pandemic.

Amber would have been happy to help. She knew something was wrong, but she didn’t see it. Optimism had a way of blinding people. Everything’s under control, she told herself repeatedly.

She said, “Talk to me. Please.”

Without moving his eyes, Adam responded, “Things aren’t looking good, Amber. Last year was our most profitable year ever. You know that already. We were on top of the world, all over the world. This year… We haven’t seen a cent of profit in weeks and we’re not expecting any for a few more. It could be months before we see any revenue. We’re being wiped out. It’s like the entire industry is… is being executed—publicly. Everyone’s watching but no one can help us.” He sighed and shook his head. He said, “I don’t know what I expected. I know everyone’s struggling, but I’m just… it’s… I guess I’m just a little shocked about it.”

What he really wanted to say was: ‘I’m just scared.’ But he knew fear was a virus in itself, contagious like a yawn. Amber kept twirling her finger on his collarbone, half of her concerned face lit up by the moonlight.

Adam said, “Forget about it. We’ll rebound.”

“We will,” Amber reassured him. “And at least we’re healthy right now. That’s the most important thing, right?”

“Yeah.”

Adam’s voice sounded uninterested and tired, devoid of relief and gratitude. Words couldn’t reassure him. Only money could set his mind at ease. He was thankful for Riley’s health, but the pandemic wasn’t over yet. In fact, it looked like it was just getting started. To him, being grateful for surviving an ongoing pandemic was like being happy about winning a race before the race even ended.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.