After Luna Pier

A young couple, Rachel and Luke Phillips, sat on each end of a beige leather couch in the living room of their home.

"You embarrassed me, Rachel," Luke complained while drinking a glass tumbler of cheap Merlot.

"You're the one who decided to disappear instead of simply stepping up, being a man, and facing the music. Don't blame me, Luke," Rachel protested.

"I was gonna tell you. It's just...I got that letter in the mail from the university telling me they're kicking me out of veterinary school. It was too much...it was like a punch to the gut. I just needed to be alone, I needed to get away from here. Why can't you just let me deal with things my own way?"

"While I was at work, you left town and drove over 200 miles to Michigan - no phone call, no text, no email, nothing. You even left your cell phone behind. What was I supposed to do, Luke? I called everyone, your parents, my parents, friends, everyone, and no one knew where you were! I tried calling the police, but it hadn't been forty-eight hours so I couldn't report you missing. You never bothered to tell me anything. What if something happened to you?"

He held his arms up in exasperation. "It didn't! I was fine!"

"But I didn't know that!"

"I wasn't gone that long. Just overnight. I called you, but you wouldn't give me the dignity and respect as your husband to allow me to tell you what happened in private. No...you just had to put me on speakerphone and force me to tell you I failed out of school in front of my parents, your parents, your friends. You just had to humiliate me."

"Luke...I just wish you would be accountable. Maybe if you were, you wouldn't have been kicked out of school, and none of this would've happened."

"That's not fair, Rachel. You have no idea what it's like to be in the middle of an important exam and not be able to concentrate because of these intrusive thoughts." Luke then took a deep breath and continued. "Y'know, sometimes it's stupid stuff, like 'Did you lock your car door? Did you lock your car door?' And sometimes it's constant reminders that my parents think I'm a failure and I'll never reach my brother's success."

"Nobody's going to steal your old Saab."

He rolled his eyes. "That's not the point. The point is, I tried with school. I was smart enough but I dunno, I just couldn't keep my mind together long enough to hack it."

"You also kept drinking yourself to sleep and you overslept for class half the time. I have to be at work by six-thirty in the morning. I can't make you get up and go to school like a child. Maybe if you went back to your psychiatrist so you can get back on treatment, and you started going to therapy, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"You need to stop nagging me about this. I've been telling you I'll go back. Just trust that I will."

"When, Luke?" Rachel shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We're not going to make it, are we?"

Luke proceeded to scoot closer to his wife. "It'll be okay. I will make the appointments first thing Monday morning. I promise you, Rach, I'm trying. I will do everything I can to make us work, to make you happy."

Author's Note: This story involves characters in my upcoming literary fiction novels, which focus on themes such as mental health, relationships, religious criticism, and more.