That’s why we found him tied to the bed in that random house.
“Is Luke okay?” I asked Claire, feeling my anxiety monster rise out of my shadow and loom over me.
Claire checked her phone. “Yep, see?”
The last text Chua sent was only three minutes ago.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“You should pick him up from school today, walk him home,” Claire encouraged.
“I will.”
For the next few weeks, I walked Luke to and from Parsons.
It turned into a pleasant routine for us, those walks. Although, he could still sense I was hiding something from him. The more he tried to poke at it, the more I clammed up.
Before he started seeing Dr. Brinkman, he would have lashed out. Exploded at me like he used to, driven to say things he didn’t mean by his anxiety. But now, things were much better. Instead of steaming like a teapot, he would drop the subject and start talking about something else.
It was like his emotions were the steady flow of a river, and he’d diverted the angry ones into a tributary away from our relationship. That tributary of feelings was flowing into a reservoir to be studied, sampled, and treated by Dr. Brinkman.
And from that, the overall health of our relationship improved. I felt happier, Luke said he felt happier, and we were saying “Solid” to each other more than ever to prove it.
I’d never felt closer to him. But the one thing that kept nagging at the back of my mind was the grain of suspicion that it was because he needed me. That I was being possessive and controlling in the name of being protective.
It wasn’t something I could talk about with Luke — I had to keep him in the dark about Fenwick, at least until we caught the guy.
Luke was still too fragile to know. No, this was a load I had to carry myself.
“How are you feeling?” I asked one day after meeting him outside the building.
I looked left, then right, taking in all of our surroundings. There was no prickling on the back of my neck. I relaxed and tried to enjoy the conversation.
“Oh, a little stressed, that’s all,” he admitted.
“About what?”
“My show is in a few days, remember?”
“Oh, right,” I said, nearly kicking myself for forgetting. The end of Luke’s semester was approaching fast, and he would need to show the collection he designed in a big runway show on fifth avenue.
“Today I had to fit a few models.”
“That sounds exciting,” I said.
“It was a little exciting, but it made me nervous, too. Some of my clothing — the really ropey ones — don’t fit a few of them. These girls are like bean poles.”
“You’re like a bean pole,” I said.
For a moment there was a seed of panic in me, wondering if I’d offended him. But to my delight, he chuckled.
That was evidence of Dr. Brinkman’s work right there.
“True. But I have to do some re-sewing and re-sizing. And still have to dye a bunch of things…”
“I’m sure it’ll turn out amazing. Everything you do is amazing,” I said lamely, my body on high alert.
I was looking around every corner and kept checking behind us to see if anyone was following us.
“What do you keep looking at?” Luke asked, his voice full of concern.
“Nothing. Just cop stuff,” I said, hoping to distract him.
I interlaced my fingers with his.
“Oh, I just thought of something. Fenwick texted me today,” he said.
I snapped to attention. “Oh?”
“Yeah. He wants us both to come over for dinner at the end of the week,” Luke said.
“Good,” I grunted. I made a mental note to go over to Fenwick’s with backup ready outside. I’d make that fucker give me a tour — and take pictures of anything that looked out of ordinary.
Again, I thought of the beautiful, angelic man next to me as a pure white bird. But instead of worrying about whether or not he’d fly away from me, I had my eye on the sky for the predator circling above.
“You okay, Adam?” Luke asked, his voice thick with concern.
“Yeah,” I said, that one-syllable lie carrying heavier fear than it was possible to explain.
“I worry about you sometimes,” he admitted. “It makes me feel like you aren’t telling me everything.”
“We’ve been over this,” I said sternly. “I can’t tell you everything. I’ll do my best to tell you what I can, though.”
“Alright, but Dr. Brinkman said I need to work on articulating my emotions to you. So here’s what they are.”
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked me in the eye.
“When you don’t tell me about your day, I feel like I don’t know you anymore. It feels like you’re laying the foundation for a breakup.”
“Luke, you know that’s not true—”
“It’s what I feel.”
The air was silent between us, and suddenly it seemed like he was on the other side of a canyon.
“A relationship is two people helping each other with things. Growing together. I know due to the nature of what we do in the bedroom, it’s your job to make sure all of my needs are taken care of so I can please you. But in real life, it needs to be more equal. Let me help you. Let me in.”
I was taken aback, stunned to silence. I didn’t know what to say.
“Just something to think about,” Luke said with a meek smile.
I should have kissed him then. If I could go back in time and re-do that moment like I did over and over in my head, I would have slipped my fingers under his jaw, tilted his face up, and told him everything I felt about him in that gesture.
But I didn’t. And that was something I would regret for the rest of my life.
Luke
Because of the last few weeks with Dr. Brinkman, I was able to manage my anxiety better than ever. Before, it was like an unpredictable tropical storm that could swarm through my mind at any given moment. But Dr. Brinkman
