“So, you’re still together?” I asked.
I had to know if they’d broken up. If that was the case, I knew that Luke would insist on flying back home to see his mother; to make sure she was alright.
I could only imagine the amount of anxiety that would cause him.
There was a quietness on the phone line. Then Jake finally said, “…she pulled a knife on me, bro.”
I swept my palm over my face. “Okay, fair. So you broke up?”
“I told her that I couldn’t do it anymore. She said she understood.”
“How did she say it?”
“Calmly.”
I knew what that meant. Luke told me that his mom was at her most dangerous when she acted like nothing was wrong.
“And there are eyes on her now? There are people around her, right?”
“She’s in the psych ward, so I imagine so,” Jake said. “She’s safe.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear. How are you doing?”
“Still shaken,” he said. “I never knew which Sarah I was going to get — normal Sarah or Scary Sarah. It was amazing when she was taking her medication, but then as soon as she stopped…”
He let me fill in the blanks. All I could picture was how Luke’s face looked that night he exploded at me, glowing from below with the light from his phone screen.
“Anyway, let’s not talk about that anymore,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “It’s hard to be faced with two failed relationships in one year, you know? And then I look at you, and you have everything—”
“I don’t have everything,” I said quickly. I could feel that the words were valid as they left my mouth, but I couldn’t put my finger on precisely what was missing from my life. Still, I felt the absence of that thing, whatever it was, with an acute, painful hollowness.
“We all miss you here,” Jake said.
“I miss you guys too,” I said, a lump forming in my throat. Maybe the hole in my heart was shaped like my family. Was that what I was missing? I could feel that it was somehow related to that, but I couldn’t help but think the primary cause was connected to the relationship between me, Luke, and his anxiety.
At times, it felt like we were in a thruple with it.
“I wish you could still visit,” I said.
“I’m not in good shape to travel right now,” Jake said.
“After a breakup is the perfect time to travel,” I urged. “Get your ass out here to see us. We’ll go fishing.”
He paused. That got his attention. “Maybe in a few weeks, when it’s spring. I can only handle the cold for so long.”
I nodded. “It is cold and dark here. Going outside is like walking into a basement.”
My mind immediately snapped to the playroom in the basement — how, because of my neglect, it was like a dungeon. I couldn’t help but wonder for a few seconds if that was a reflection on our relationship.
In any case, I made a mental note about making fixing it up a priority.
“Alright, well, I’m going to return to moping,” Jake said, crestfallen.
“You going to the boathouse bar?”
“Probs.”
“Tell Claudia Luke says hi. She’s his old boss, remember?”
“Oh, right!” Jake said, brightening a few shades. “Maybe I can go down there to… forget…”
When we hung up, I felt pretty satisfied with myself that I’d planted that seed in my brother’s head. He’d always had a thing for Claudia. At one point, he even told me that he was bringing her to our family barbecue. When he showed up alone, I thought she’d rejected him or something.
It turned out that she did… and that things were less serious between them than what Jake led me to believe. Before Sarah arrived at the barbecue, he was lamenting about how Claudia rejected his invite.
Then Sarah showed up, and the rest was history.
I leaned back on the couch, thinking about that night. That night I got to introduce Luke to my family — how much fun we had.
…and how kinky things had gotten.
That was the second time I thought of the playroom this evening. A pang of guilt gonged in my chest, sending shame to my fingertips.
With several dad noises, I got off the couch and trod down the stairs.
We only used this room when we were already in the heat of the moment, so this space didn’t look… lived in. It looked like a scary unfinished basement room where there might be monsters hiding in every corner. A single lightbulb dangled from the ceiling like it was an interrogation room — and I had to remind myself that it pretty much was…
My mind was suddenly awash with memories of me grilling into Luke down here, over some made up transgression. I’d ask him a question in my stern Dom voice, and then he’d answer either “Yes, sir” or “No, sir” without making eye contact.
Even the thought of that got me going. I could feel myself stiffen in my jeans…
The front door opened, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Luke! You’re back!” I said, my surprise morphing into joy.
“Adam? You’re in the playroom?” he asked.
“I’m checking it out. Trying to figure out how we can improve it,” I said, looking at my man.
He tilted his head, and I wondered if he’d was thinking I meant to improve our relationship rather than the room.
Both were true. I wanted our bond to remain solid and make us both happier than we could ever be alone.
To do that, I needed to put more time and effort into what we had, including this room of desires.
He flung himself into my arms, and we both breathed in deeply. It felt like his scent was giving me life.
Still, an uncomfortable thought jingled in my brain: That I would have to tell him about his mother.
“Luke…” I started as I pulled away.
“Dinner?” he asked, his eyes alight with hunger.
I blinked a few times in surprise. “You have an appetite this late?”
“I’m starving,” he said, turning from me. He paused in the doorframe. “What do we have to eat?”
“Uh… not much,” I admitted, pulling out my phone. “Here, I’ll order a pizza.”
“Pizza sounds amazing!” he called as he tromped up the stairs.
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.
What could I do about it, though? Ask him to stay home all the time; to stop going to class? To stop living his life here in New York City? To look over his shoulder everywhere he went?
He already had crippling anxiety. What good would it do to tell him that the killer was looking for men that looked strikingly similar to him?
He’d have even more of a target on his back than he already did. He would be too afraid to leave the house.
And he would blame me.
Even though Luke was in the next room, I’d never felt further from him.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally emerged from the bedroom and leaned over the couch.
I looked up at him. His eyes were filled with worry, but he didn’t have that distinct anxious vibration coming off of him.
He was calm.
“What episode is this?” he asked, gesturing to the T.V., where Rick’s blue-haired, green-drooling face was laying into Morty.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve been zoning out.”
“Can you pause it, please?” he asked lightly.
I did, suddenly feeling nervous. My own anxiety monster’s long shadowy fingers were creeping down my shoulders.
Luke sat on the couch next to me, the leather making a soft noise as it shifted.
“How is she?” I asked.
“She’s… okay,” he said with his head in his hands.
I wanted more than anything in that moment to reach out and touch him; caress his back. There was a part of me that knew if I touched him, I could discharge his fear somehow. Like it was static on his skin, and the shock of touching him would dispel it.
But I stayed in place.
“She doesn’t want me to fly out and visit her,” he said. “She said that she forgot her medication that day and that she thought it would be fine. That it makes her feel… sorta numb.”
I nodded, unsure of what to say.
“I couldn’t fault her for that — I never took Xanax, because I didn’t like the way they made me feel.”
A long silence stretched between us, and I wondered if somehow he was thinking of breaking up with me.
“I’m not happy that you kept that from me,” he said sternly. “I need you to talk to me, Adam. I feel so far away from you lately like you’re a stranger living in the same house.”
My anxiety monster made of my own shadow rotated its fingers so they were around my throat. I could feel pressure constricting my voice.
“I want to feel close again, but I don’t know how to make that happen,” he said, sweeping his thin palm over his face. “I need you to tell me things.”
I looked down sadly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you immediately.”
But it felt like he wanted me to apologize for more than that. I was sorry for a lot of things — for making him worry all the time, for keeping something from him. I wanted to keep him safe, and the only way to do that was to isolate him from the rest of my life.
The problem was, the rest of my life outside of this house was taking up more and more real estate in my head. Despite my efforts, it was starting to bleed into my life with Luke here. My thoughts would wait until he fell asleep, or when he was on the bed phone loafing, and then they would be attacking that case I was working on again. I couldn’t help it; I wanted nothing more than to catch the serial killer. And I couldn’t stop my mind from obsessing over every last detail of this case, trying to find a flaw in the logic of events that might lead to more clues.
That stud. That damn shining stud had been on my mind for the past few days like it was a magnet for my thoughts.
“Adam? Are you still with me?” Luke asked, his face full of sadness.
“Yes, I’m here,” I said with a grunt, readjusting my posture.
“You can trust me,” he said. “I want to know what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“Now you sound like Claire,” I said gruffly.
To my delight, Luke chuckled and grabbed my hand. “I just want you to know that you’re not alone in this. I’m here for you, and I’m sorry if sometimes I lose my temper. I’m working on getting better about it — I want to be a better partner to you. And I don’t want to bleed all over you with all of my problems, either.”
I frowned slightly, unable to keep my mind from conjuring up the image of Luke covered in blood.
My throat got tighter, and my hand crept towards his.
“Thank you, Luke,” I said softly. It was the only volume my throat would allow.
Luke smiled, and for a moment, I thought that everything between us might be okay.
Luke would continue to see Dr. Brinkman, and we would work out the kinks in our relationship. We’d grow together instead of growing apart.
“Do you think these issues we’ve been having are just growing pains?” I asked, feeling extremely vulnerable as the question escaped my lips.
But I needed to hear his answer — I needed it more than I needed air to breathe.
“Absolutely,” Luke nodded, squeezing my hand in his. “I mean, we’re in a new city. We’re still getting used to our surroundings. It’s cold outside all the time, and you’re working on intense things at your job. It would be enough to create tension in even the most perfect relationship, like ours.”
I smiled at that, feeling the anxiety monster loosen its grip around my neck. I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that.
Luke leaned forward and kissed me, pressing his thick lips to mine.
I savored his gentle touch, the kiss communicating everything underneath the surface that wasn’t being said:
I want you. I need you. I trust you. I love you.
When he pulled away, his eyelids fluttered like he was an addict that had just gotten a hit of a drug he’d been craving.
He leaned into me, pressing his body on top of mine.
I wrapped my arms around him, and he just rested there, on my chest.
For the first time in weeks, I was truly happy. I loved the feeling of Luke's weight pressed onto me. And holding him like this made me feel fulfilled in the way I needed — like I was protecting him.
“I love you so much, Adam. Even if we fight, I needed you to know that.”
I felt relief course through me. I hadn’t realized how much that simple fact — that Luke really loved me had been thrown into doubt by the recent events.
How can there be love with no trust? My mom had once read me from a passage of Greek mythology as a kid.
My eyes snapped all the way open. Why was that popping into my mind at this second? It w
as like my brain was sweeping it off carefully, that relic of the past. As if it were a dinosaur bone.
“I love you too, Luke, more than anything,” I said.
But I couldn’t keep the tightness out of my voice.
Luke
Things with Adam had gotten better after I had time to reflect on the evening I heard about my mother. It couldn’t have been easy for him to deliver the news to me like that.
I admitted to him that I might have overreacted.
And Adam, being the sweet, gentle giant that he was, told me that it was okay; that I needed to trust my feelings.
That he could handle it if I had an outburst; that it was okay to feel.
Even so, I couldn’t help but feel like we were even further apart, like I was the only one with issues that were destroying the relationship. It was like anything Adam gave me; anything personal and private, and different than his constant, unwavering support would send me over the edge.
He was treating me like I was made of glass. And though I wanted to argue with that sentiment and pretend like I was made of something more durable like brass or iron, I couldn’t help but agree that he was right.
Here in this city, I was fragile. And I could feel the cracks chipping away at my confidence day by day.
Sunday rolled around swiftly, and it was finally time for Adam and I to go to the munch.
“It’s at this speakeasy downtown,” he told me while we were getting ready.
“What should I wear?” I asked. “I’ve never been to a munch before.”
“Just wear what you normally would to a bar. It’s like a regular meetup.”
I couldn’t help but feel the tide of excitement within me recede a little. I was half-expecting to wear one of my fun submissive outfits.
Settling on one of my floral button-downs and some orange corduroy pants that emphasized my bubble butt, I turned around to find myself face-to-face with my hulking giant of a fiancee.
He had that air about him— that aura like he wanted something. I looked up into his eyes and watched his pupils pulse, crowding out his dark green irises.
Desire coursed through me, and all I wanted to do was get naked with him.
But I really wanted to make this munch. Missing it would be saying no to the friendship with Lily.
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