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
