Broken Carts ✔️

Aisle 28: Storms

LYNETTE
rock bottom 2nite with me ra sones and vinny

ME
Nahhh

LYNETTE
why tf not?

ME
Ezra doesn't like me rn, remember?

LYNETTE
its been like 2 days. hes over it

ME
He hasn't talked to me at work in 2 days either sooo

LYNETTE
dude. trust me. hes over it

ME
Not taking my chances

LYNETTE
kk fine but if you stop being a lil bitch youre still welcome to come out w us

ME
Gee thanks

While the Ezra debacle weighed on my conscience, my main source of angst stemmed from re-adjusting to the mundanities of life under my parents' roof and watchful eyes. The addition of Jude to the household kicked their wariness up a notch, as if they were now constantly comparing my every action to that of my immaculate brother's. I theorized that if I so much as closed a door a little too loud, they'd serve my head on a platter for Jude's consumption. So I holed myself up in my room and listened to my parents' laughter as Jude beguiled them over dinner or coffee or between commercials of their favorite shows that I'd never watched in my life.

The day Lynette invited me to Rock Bottom, I was reveling in a particularly long post-work hole-up session when I heard the unmistakable sound of my father climbing into bed to read until he fell asleep. Minutes later there was a soft knock on my door.

"I haven't seen you all day," Jude said. He sat on my bed— reminding me that I had yet to change my sheets from the weekend— as I lazed in my computer chair, a single headphone blaring explicit punk music into my left ear. "Have you been up here since you got back from work?"

"Yepp," I said.

"Why's that?"

I hesitated. "Dunno. Tired."

"Right, right." Jude gripped his knees and looked around my room. Just before the silence became unbearably awkward, he exhaled through rounded lips and said, "Do you want to come for a drive? I've got to drop off a job application somewhere."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Job application? How long are you staying here, exactly?"

"I'm not sure." He paused and flicked an invisible crumb off his jeans.

"You can take a bunch of time off of your real job?"

Jude rose to his feet and grimaced as he reached for the car keys in his pocket. "Why don't we take a ride and talk about it?"

We took Dad's car. Jude let me monopolize the AUX cord. I switched to Ezra's Sad Night Drivez mix to set the mood.

"It was too hard after Melanie broke up with me," he explained with little lead-in, referencing his ex-girlfriend of five years. "I didn't just lose her, I lost all my friends, too. Johnson's death was really the icing on the cake. But it was bad icing— celery-flavored icing. No... icing that tastes like nothing. Or pinecone icing. You know?"

Sometimes the only way to get Jude to stop rambling was to nod like you understood him. So I did.

"I felt alone, I felt empty. I re-evaluated everything in my life. After a lot of soul-searching, I knew I had to quit my job— it wasn't good for me, anyway— and when mom and dad came to visit, I realized I needed to come back home to center myself. So I guess I'm here because I want to hide for a bit." He chuckled humorlessly.