Drastic measures are a last ditch effort to save yourself after twenty-one heartbreaks and thirteen failed relationships, or at least this is the logic behind Wyatt Carter's decision to open his podcast: The Bottom Club.
When it goes viral, however...
THE TRIP BACK home did not go by as fast as Wyatt would've liked and he briefly wondered why things always dragged out when you did not want them to before completely abandoning this train of thought when unwanted images of Rashad's living room and how he'd left it flashed across his mind. He shuddered, earning more than one curious stare from the people around him.
His bandages had turned looser than they were when Rashad wrapped them around his knuckles and in the time it took to trek from his house to Grand Central it'd gone from white to red.
The old woman he'd vacated his seat for began to hack wet, loud coughs which attracted the occasionally faint look of concern from a passenger whose eyes would promptly slide back to whatever it was that they were doing on their cellphones.
New Yorkers and their preoccupation with minding one's own business never ceased to amaze Wyatt, but to be fair he was more concerned with hoping her cough did not have him catch something than anything else, until she sneezed on him, effectively putting to rest all thoughts of Rashad and psychotic breakdowns.
"Sorry dear," she muttered, jowls shaking as she pulled out a bottle of hand sanitizer from her ancient handbag. She spritzed it on a handkerchief and cleaned the affected part of his trousers. "There you go. Good as new."
Wyatt, unmoving, maintained his cool even as a ball of bile rose up his throat. He imagined he could feel the germs go through the fabric of his trousers to permeate his skin, and fought past a violent shiver.
Letting go of the handrail he moved to another part of the train, flying out as soon as he got to his stop.
The suburb he lived in wasn't a twenty minute walk away and so he decided to trek, bumping into everything from couples walking hand-in-hand to a lone saxophonist playing the blues, face scrunched up in effort, neck-veins visible as he coaxed music out of his saxophone. Wyatt dug into his pocket and pulled out a tenner, which he deposited into the instrument case before heading on his merry way.
The city was alive, and yet as he walked Rashad's words shadowed him.
He hadn't anticipated his anger becoming a living thing and that scared him, as in retrospect it shouldn't have been his business since they were no longer together. But barely three weeks after their breakup?
The thought snuck into his mind unbidden, that he was justified in his feeling of betrayal, and he shrugged it off before pulling out his cell phone to text Rashad.
WYATT: hey i'm rly sry abt 2nite
He paused then added.
WYATT: i hope ur trip goes ok. text me when u get there.
Without letting himself overthink things he hit the send button and slid his device back into his pocket.
His knuckles stung when they grazed the hemline, then it hit him that perhaps he shouldn't have sent the text in the first place.
"Fuck," he murmured.
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