Page 20 of Hold Him Like Gravity

Gross.

“Where is he, Bobby?” I demanded, rushing down the hallway to push open the bathroom and bedroom doors. But finding nothing. Save for unmade beds and piles of laundry that I could smell from the hallway. Sweat, garlic, and other scents I didn’t want to think about. “Where. Is. He?” I snarled as I marched toward the desk, reaching down, grabbing the footrest, and whipping it up, making the chair flip backward.

Bobby hit the ground with a grunt, his eyes huge, like he couldn’t believe what I’d done.

“What the hell, Kick?” he asked, flopping over onto all fours, then working his way up to his feet, showing off no small amount of buttcrack in the process.

Bobby was what you tended to think of when someone told you they were a gamer. Average height, a little overweight, greasy hair that was overdue for several trims, a superherot-shirt on, and an actual dent in his head from wearing headphones so often.

Honestly, I didn’t mind Bobby.

Sure, he had slightly incel leanings, thanks to spending almost all of his time online with other guys who’d likely never been kissed, let alone gotten laid, so they spewed nasty-ass misogynist shit to the occasional female gamer, or about the big-boobed female characters.

But if you got him away from his gaming systems, he was kind of funny, a bit of a teddy bear, honestly. Sure, he perpetually was in need of a shower. And he could use a sharp razor and some deodorant. Still, he was an alright guy.

It was just bad luck on his part that he had such a dick for a roommate.

“Where is he?”

“He’s not here,” Bobby said, rolling his shoulders that had this perpetual tilt forward from leaning inward and clutching his controls. I bought him a posture corrector once. I was pretty sure it was still in the packaging in the closet.

“I see that, Bobby. Whereishe?”

Bobby moved away from me, heading toward the little kitchen, complete with cabinets hanging off their hinges and the silverware drawer that had been stuck for what had to be two years at that point. Instead of fixing it, they’d bought new, mismatched silverware that they kept in a cardboard box on the counter.

“I don’t know,” Bobby said, reaching into the cabinet to pull out a cup of ramen, then setting it under the single-serve coffee maker that I was pretty sure was only ever used for hot water, not coffee. Since Bobby was an energy drink kind of guy. In case you didn’t know that about him based on the shelves full of various cans that served as the only real decor in the living room.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” I snapped, making him turn to look at me for the first time.

He wasn’t great with eye contact. I imagine it came from having a shitty dad who was always telling him what a piece of crap he was. But when he looked at you, he was usually looking past your ear or down at your chin.

“What happened to your face?” he asked, eyes going a little sad.

“That’s why I need to find Jake.”

“Wait. No. Jake didn’t do that,” he said, shaking his head, ready to go to bat for his friend. Even if his belief in Jake’s goodness was wholly misplaced.

“Jake stood by and let it happen. Which is just as bad. So where the fuck can I find him?”

“I don’t believe that,” Bobby said, setting his spoon on the top of his noodles to keep the seal over it so the noodles would soften up.

“This isn’t religion, Bobby. You can’t choose not to believe a fact. He was there. He let this happen to me,” I told him, waving at my face.

“He must have had a good reason,” he insisted, shaking his head, refusing to believe his only real-life friend in the world could be the shithead he actually was.

“A good reason,” I scoffed. “Do you seriously think there isevera good reason for a guy to stand by and let a woman’s face get fucked up?”

“I dunno. Maybe if he stepped in, he woulda gotten shot or something.”

“Wow. Just… wow,” I said, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

“It’s possible.”

“Don’t go putting Jake on a pedestal, Bobby. He doesn’t deserve it. Would any of the guys in your comics or movies standby and let a girl get beat up?” I asked, knowing that the only ‘people’ he looked up more to than Jake were the fictional ones that had pretty much raised him.

“But they have superpowers.”

“You don’t think that Jake’s size and strength was more of a superpower than what I have going on?” I asked, waving down at myself.

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