The Loop

by Jeremy Robert Johnson

Danny Brewer was a loadie who covered his bad skin with a mop of dyed black hair and was constantly out of school on drug-related suspensions. He had a habit of offering things to Bucket, acting like he was a friend, but Lucy saw the way Brewer looked at her. She understood his angle. He was actually kind of cute, somewhere under his blemishes and bad posture and greasy hair, but Lucy had a learned aversion to anybody who was constantly fucked up—she’d trust a wild animal first.

Lucy hadn’t flinched—she had yet to back down from an internet challenge—but she did cry for the girl in the video that night. Never told Bucket, though. He often told her he liked that she was “one of the guys,” and she didn’t want to let him down.

Seeing Brewer in the light of her headlamp gave her pause at first—he was skinnier than the type she usually went for; his long, artificially colored hair barely concealed the fact that his head was too large for his body; and she now had confirmation that he had no problem ingesting a large amount of drugs. But none of that mattered to her, not really, because when she thought about what he’d said to her, and the way they’d kissed, she felt a fresh rush of something pure and good through her heart and body, and she couldn’t let go of that feeling.