LUCAS

A notable absence on the right side of the couch. An indent in the sofa cushion, where his mother would sit back when they’d have family movie nights, about two growth spurts ago. Lucas recalls this era of his life (i.e. childhood) like it’s an old movie reel. It is odd and distant;

feels pretend, like his parents are actors in the film playing in his brain.

He does not need nor want this added emotion—nostalgia—in his psychosomatic soup of confusion, anger, horniness, resentment, and heartache. He saw on TikTok that guys handle breakups differently than girls do. Girls got over things hard, but fast. The situationship with Margot had ended a few weeks ago, but only now was the longing and regret materializing in Lucas like a tumor. Fucking annoying.

More annoying still, Margot had been the one to end things. So decisive, so irritatingly “mature” of her. Lucas doesn’t like to be reminded that Margot is over three years his senior, that at twenty-four she’s already starting to move up at her boring ritzy corporate job, while at almost-not-twenty he’s prepping and stressing for the inclement midterm/GRE combo.

All the other endings he’d experienced were fizzles, were neither-of-us-wanted-to-text-the-other-firsts, were breakups that weren’t breakups because they’d just been “hanging out” and then the girl would get a real boyfriend and subsequently stop “hanging out” with Lucas. It is only bothering him now, probably, because he realized, he knows, he is hotter than Butterface Margot. She wears cardigans to work. He has tattoos on both thighs. Who the fuck was she to get the satisfaction of “ending things?”

Like there had been anything to end. Lucas had fucked a girl from the volleyball team the night before his final hookup with Margot. He could have any girl he wanted, meanwhile this fucking adult had been hanging out in a rank college dorm room while Lucas finished his math quiz.

Lucas was riling himself again, and also making himself hard thinking about the head Margot would give (one of the sparse benefits of hooking up with an older girl was their honed technique), and everything is annoying and confusing and his dad has still not explained why he’s sat the two of them down for this excruciatingly forced “man-to-man” convo. Lucas crosses his long arms and slinks back in the recliner, letting his dad take the reins and speak first.

He isn’t going to pretend like he wants to be here, back in Bumfuck, Upstate New York, population sixteen. It’s homecoming weekend at his alma mater, so he’d returned to play in the alumni lacrosse game earlier this evening. He’s honestly grateful for a reason to get out of the same city that Margot lives in for a weekend. Sick of seeing her Insta stories out at the bars with random guys, overtly attempting to evidence that she is over him. It also offers the sweet opportunity to remind his high school ex what she’s been missing, who of course had been there to watch him.

But after his team had won, his mom had taken a separate car and vaguely said she had plans to meet up with some girlfriends. This left him to ride home with just his dad down too-quiet backroads. Now, in the living room of Lucas’ childhood, his father’s worried blue eyes are poring into him like he has something important to say.

Lucas just wants to leave. Heather, his old junior prom date, saw him play earlier and just texted him to come over. So:

“Out with it, Dad,” he huffs.

Lucas Senior sighs, cracks his knuckles. Lucas Junior—lanky, tall—envies his father’s ropey muscles earned from post-AA gym obsession. While Junior sports a video-game-and-homework-induced hunchback, Senior’s forty-something stature is apparent even when he is seated. But despite his muscles, at this moment, his father looks sheepish.

“I just…” he wanes. “You’ve been away a while, busy. I thought you might be wondering what’s going on between your mother and I.”

A ping charms from Lucas’ phone. It’s Heather. ru on ur way yet ??

“Will you turn that off for a minute?” Senior barks, like he just couldn’t help but say that. But he quickly settles again, composure necessary for whatever this bullshit is about to be.

That’s his AA training. Only after Lucas turned fifteen or so did his dad start doing breathwork like what he’s doing now. Only after completing all twelve steps to overcome his flaws did Lucas Senior, step by step, start to point out the flaws of everyone else in his house.

He leaves his ringer on in protest. “Okay, what is ‘going on’ between my mother and you?” Lucas says, exaggerating his air quotes.

Margot had never liked when he used Snarky Voice, he remembers. She’d shove him when he parroted her words back at her in mockery, so then he’d do it more. And then she’d shove him harder, or say something dorky like “Cut it out, will you?” like a fucking Boomer.

God, she was fucking weird. He cringes at the thought of ever doing anything but just fuck Margot.

“I know you grew up watching your mother and I fight,” his dad starts. “But that is normal. Being in love doesn’t mean you can’t have disagreements, or differences, and not still be together. I want you to know that.”

Lucas shrugs. “Okay?” He glances at the unanswered text from Heather.

“That being said,” Lucas Senior shakes his head, averts his eyes, “your mother and I have been unhappy for a long time.”

Okay, so now Lucas has confusion, anger, horniness, resentment, heartache, nostalgia, and the newest charming addition: agitation.

He did not need this right now. He was stressed enough with midterms and managing his social life and applying to grad school and working at the library. He did not need to fucking babysit his parents and did not need to know what was happening back home, back here—he does not live here anymore. For a reason. This is not his life.

“Then get a fucking divorce,” Lucas casts, picking up his phone. He texts Heather sry one sec and sends Ashley—volleyball girl—a quick Snap to keep their streak going. When he looks back up at his dad, Lucas Senior is staring at him, mouth parted, downtrodden.

“We are,” he finally chokes out.

Oh. Shit. Uhg. Add guilt to the psychosoup. “Oh, shit. Sorry Dad.”

Senior shakes his head, playing the self-righteous victim. “I’m not the one that deserves apologies.”

People were always telling Lucas how much he looked like his dad. Same wavy dark hair, same crook at the apex of his nose. Lucas hates this. His dad is an asshole. One of those born-again alcoholics who looks down on pretty much anyone that doesn’t outwardly present as perfect, even if that anyone is his son. And to be a born again-alcoholic that owns a fucking winery with his wife is a whole ‘nother ball game.

“What’d you do then?”

Senior clasps his hands in his lap, looks down like he’s taking a moment of silence. God, the bastard is dramatic. Could they wrap this up, please?

“I guess you could say…” he says, “I put my own needs before your mother’s.”

So goddamn vague. Lucas knows his dad wants him to ask; shamelessly loves this fallen angel persona. He does not want to feed this monster, but wonders if delaying the inevitable is only delaying his fucking Heather. “And what does that mean?” Lucas sighs.

The persona falters a bit, Senior seemingly hesitant to cross the line edging true honesty. You can only beat around the bush for so long. Not that it really matters what his dad spits out here; nothing he says will change the way Lucas looks at him. Junior already regards Senior with loathing equanimity.

“Dad!” Lucas says, and the jeer seems to snap Senior out of his sheepishness. His son gives him a Move It Along gesture.

Senior sighs deeply, so deep his breath shutters at the end of the exhale, and the shutter carries into the words he speaks next like tied music notes. “It means I was unfaithful.”

Lucas exhales, the shutter a virus his dad spread. Oh. Shit. Unfaithful. Dad cheated on Mom. The separate cars. “Oh. Shit,” Lucas says.

Senior looks at his hands.

There is silence for a moment, which Lucas hates. Silence is absence, void, that will get filled one way or another, usually awkwardly.

Margot had mentioned that her last boyfriend cheated on her. She’d gotten sad when he asked her about it, which was annoying because he just wanted to smoke and chill out and not get all emotional. But she’d said it had made her understand why people felt like they wanted to get revenge on people that hurt them, how it seemed like the only analgesic to that kind of pain and rejection. Lucas had laughed when she said the word analgesic because, well, come on, and she’d shoved him.

Lucas’ shock suddenly recoils, mutates. The bastard cheats once and can’t hold his shit together? Had to go and spill the beans as soon as he could? That’s the thing about these AAssholes—they think that Step Nine is the good person thing to do. But in Lucas’ experience, “making amends” was always just his father assuaging himself of any possible guilt for what he’d done. I was drunkenly talking about how hot JLo is in front of everyone, including your mother, at Thanksgiving? I’m sorry you got upset and uncomfortable because of that. Because I’m apologizing now, please expunge my mistake from my record so I can go on slate cleaned and conscious abeyed.

This fucker. Monogamy's a lie anyway. Humans are animals.

Before she’d let her neediness shine through, he’d let himself go along with the progression of things with Margot, had let her get attached to Lucas and want to do things other than have sex with Lucas. He didn’t think anything of it at the time. Hadn’t thought much of how big her smile was when she asked him to go out on a “real date.” But really she was crazy, insecure, weird. When she finally realized he didn’t want to do any “real date” bullshit because they weren’t “really dating,” she’d cut things off, unable to handle Casual. He hadn’t heard from her since.

There’s no desire more natural than to fuck. To fuck is to be human. Senior fucks one girl that isn’t his mom and now the whole world has to fall apart? Are they still gonna be able to pay his tuition if they get a divorce?

“‘Oh shit’ is right,” his dad nods, forces out a little chuckle for one of their sakes, though it’s unclear whose.

Again, in the interest of quelling both his horniness and let’s-not-grace-it-with-the-term-heartache as soon as possible, Junior breaks the silence. “Well, with who?”

Senior’s still looking down at his hands, but his dad’s eyebrow quirks, unconsciously, like he really wasn’t expecting that as a follow-up question. Lucas isn’t really sure why he asked it either. Useless knowledge can fill voids, he supposes.

“Uh,” says Senior. He cracks his neck.

The sound makes Lucas wince, and now he’s filled with raging irritation. Heather pings him again. ru with ur other girl ?? ;P

“She’s… I met her at the gym?” his dad says.

Lucas’ restless leg syndrome starts to kick in. “Okay, so some yoga mom?”

A twitch in his dad’s eye. “No, not a mom. A little younger.”

Yuck. Jesus. “Uh, what, like thirty?”

Senior bops his head back and forth, like sloshing his brain around will get him to answer less cowardly. But he just shakes his head, bites his lip.

Alright, that’s about all Lucas can take of this. He stands up, puffs out his chest, blows a raspberry as he stretches his arms over his head. That’s so… uhg. Yuck.

Lucas doesn’t even want to look at his dad now, fucking Leonardo DiCaprio over here. Such a red flag to be with someone younger than you like that. You might as well walk around wearing a t-shirt that has “I’M INSECURE” written in big block letters on the front.

And, well, in a way, there’s no way the younger counterpart won’t feel some subconscious sense of deference, of inferiority, of misaligned power dynamics. But so too is there power beholden by the younger, hotter status symbol, awarding validity to the desperate existence of the older. They must get off on it, in a demoralizingly aesthetic way. He doesn’t even want to think about this yoga girl—probably not that far off from Lucas’ age—sucking his dad’s fucking co

“I gotta go,” Lucas shakes his head, spasms his face to repent whatever half-materialized motion pictures are threatening to fully develop in his mind.

“Don’t,” Senior begs. A meaty hand grabs a skinny arm, desperate. “I’m not done.”

But Lucas is already snatching his keys off their hook, craving the numbness that will come approximately three seconds after he does. He glances subconsciously at the other side of the couch, where his mom usually sat. A more juvenile part of him wonders if she’ll ever sit there again. But the weathered part of him quells the thought and remembers he does not live here anymore. He does not care what his dad does or fucks or does not fuck.

“She’s pregnant,” Senior proclaims.

If you were deaf watching this exchange, only seeing the bulging eyes and ischemic arm grab, you’d’ve thought the guy had actually said “I’m going to kill myself.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Lucas says, swiping his arm back into his own sphere of influence. His heart beats fast and his forehead tenses. “Why do I need to fuckin’ know this?” Before his dad can answer, Lucas subsequently decides that he does not. He opens the door and decides he hates every human being older than him. If maturity means just trauma-dumping and unloading the guilt of your actions onto those around you, he’s better off with someone younger too, frankly. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall so far.

It’s dark, save the incandescent porch light over the driveway. Neighbors in the houses next door have gone to sleep, lights off. Lucas stomps across the driveway and into his Beamer—an 18th birthday gift, now made relic of a time when his parents were together and people fucked age-appropriately—and slams the door behind him. But there’s a desperate rapping against the window, and he looks up to his dad, beckoning him to roll it down.

Reluctantly, Lucas does. Blue eyes peer into his. They are mirrors to his own, the same striking color. With peepers like theirs, both Senior and Junior know they can disarm women with a single strategically targeted glance.

“Because,” his dad breathes, “she’s keeping it. It’ll be your half-sibling, technically. So I want you to meet her.”

Now, Lucas is officially pissed. Nostalgic, angry, horny, resentful, heartbroken, agitated, and PISSED. Fuck that. Fuck this. He does not want to meet his dad’s twenty-something bimbo. He does not want to deal with messy Thanksgivings between Bimbo, Mom, Dad, and Bimbo’s kid. He wants to leave behind this life and his dad’s bullshit.

He did not want Margot to dump him. He just wanted her to be fine with his bullshit.

You know what, fine. If this is all the fucker really wants—some superficial dinner meeting so he can go back to Mom and tout that “Lucas met Bimbo. Lucas likes Bimbo. Bimbo is not just some bimbo, Maureen, she’s pregnant, and you need to respect that she’s a part of our life now,”—then whatever. He’ll be a pawn because it’s the path of least resistance, it will get him out of here the fastest. It at least will get them to sympathetically continue paying tuition since Lucas will become the child innocently trapped in the middle of this whole mess. They don’t actually care how Lucas feels or what Lucas does. Lucas is a pawn in their life, but at least pawns only move away from their king and queen on the chess board. It lives an independent little life, even if its world still falls under the monarch’s domain.

So, fuck it. He just needs to go sink his dick into Heather now. “Fine, whatever,” Lucas spits. He jams his key into the ignition, shifts the car into reverse but keeps his foot on the brake since his dad is still obnoxiously leaning over the windowsill.

Senior’s face softens a bit. Fucker knows he’s done it, won his son seemingly onto his side. “Great,” he says, sighing with satisfaction. “That’s great, son.”

Lucas nods. Seeing his dad now—soothed like a child who has just gotten his toy back after throwing a tantrum for it—he feels a little sorry for the guy. He’s just a man looking for something. Most men don’t actually know what they’re looking for. Lucas sighs, really seeing his dad for a minute. He asks, conciliatory, “So what’s her name?”

Lucas Senior smiles winsomely when he says, “Margot.”

Annabel Gregg’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Eclectica Magazine, The Bookends Review, The Wagner Review, and Olympia Works in Progress, among other publications. As a recent grad and young policy advisor, she lives in New York with her cat, Baton.