Dreams

13

Just because Kevin felt like complete crap, it didn't stop time from inching forward. Tomorrow would still come, and the day after that. And with every passing day, would again come the cycle.

On Sunday, Kevin tried to reorient himself. He tried to get himself to the straight and narrow.

But after church, his spiritual high faded. His desire for sexual gratification returned. And he gave in once again.

On Monday though, he just felt dead inside. He felt too tired to either give into sin, or make the effort to repent.

It was in these times of deadness that Kevin felt rare stability. It was when it was easiest to put on a face and pretend things were alright, yet not feel the pressure of having to maintain doing things he should.

He had a hard time paying attention in his classes that day. He was falling further and further behind. It was hard to want to muster up the effort to do better in them.

To his parents, it just appeared that he was being lazy in letting his grades fail. That had been true to an extent in the past. However, this time, he could not deny that his addiction was the primary thing destroying his academics.

Because his addiction was consuming his free time, it meant that his free time was consuming the time he normally would've gotten around to working on school. It wouldn't be a problem if he could just masturbate and be done with it, but that wasn't his way. His way of doing things was to spend tons of time building it up, only to be disappointed with the result.

And that was making Kevin more anxious lately - was he less sexually able than other guys? Or was he just feeling less excitement because he was doing it so much?

He didn't know. He didn't feel like talking to Dad about it again.

Kevin's day soured further after his classes ended. He was already feeling depressed about his academics, and therefore his ability to obtain a career, but going to work only added onto his feeling of being miserable.

He grudgingly went to the custodial closet, and eyed the back-vac with contempt. He slung it on his back, but when he went to buckle the chest strap, the buckle broke one of its teeth, and refused to click together.

Kevin clenched his jaw, and tried hard not to swear. He set down the vacuum and walked to Jayden's office.

"Hey Jayden?" he asked as he walked through the door.

Jayden turned, adjusting his ball cap, his giant key ring jingling. "Hmm?"

"The buckle on the back-vac broke."

"And?"

"What should I do about it?" Kevin asked.

"Put the back-vac on," Jayden chuckled in a teasing tone.

Kevin tightened his hands into fists, absolutely not in the mood for this.

"I dunno Kevin," Jayden said, "tie the broken straps together. Deal with it."

Kevin turned around and left Jayden's office. That would make this back-vac just as annoying to use as the other one. Maybe he should just not even try to tie them together. Tying them together would give him the false hope that maybe he could take the weight off his back, only for that to fail.

Only a few minutes of vacuuming, sure enough, started making him ache. He hated this job. He hated vacuuming. He should've searched for a better job. Roommates and friends had laughed at him, when they had "real" jobs, and yet he was still working like a high schooler.

Even worse, Kevin realized that he'd forgotten to charge his headphones, so that meant no music or podcasts. That was the worst thing of all. Being left to himself. To his own thoughts. Being forced to confront the spiraling depression inside him.