in my head. It’s stuck on auto rewind and doesn’t help my dick.
I hold my head in my hands.
She’s thrown the biggest wrench in my day.
I’m so hard, it feels painful. I need to take a cold shower or spend the afternoon jerking off, neither of which will help with my word count.
Damn Mari and her beautiful half naked body.
Damn the power she has over me.
That was one plot twist I didn’t see coming.
MARI
My mom has had a fall.
I grab my bag and rush out, heading straight to the nursing home. Why’s she at the nursing home and not the hospital? Alarm bells sound, loud and piercing. What if something bad has happened? What if she can’t be treated? My brain goes haywire at all the things that could go wrong. I’m driving so fast that I get a speeding ticket on the way which wastes more of my time.
By the time I get there, my mom’s lying on her bed. Brenda, one of the nicer caretakers at the home, is fussing over her. I rush straight over. “What are you doing here, Marianne?” my mom asks. She sounds okay. She looks unhurt. “It’s the wrong day.”
“She’s fine,” Brenda assures me. “You had a bit of a fall, didn’t you?” she says to my mom.
“Is that why you’re here?” My mom asks me. “Because you’re not supposed to be here today.” I’m secretly pleased that she is aware of my visiting days and is alert enough to know that this isn’t the weekend.
“What did you do, Mom?” I give her a light hug and plant a kiss on the top of her head. My racing heart slows down. A lightness warms my insides. I’ve been fraught the entire time, dread and worry coursing through my veins from the moment I got the call. Now I can relax. My mom’s okay. She’s going to be fine.
Brenda leads me outside and tells me that my mom tripped but luckily fell onto her bed, which cushioned her fall and prevented her from hurting herself badly.
“Tripped on what?” I want to know, scared that her reflexes and brain synapses are failing.
“She tripped over her shoe.”
I’m so happy to hear that.
“She’s going to be fine. We’ve had the doctor check her over. I called you because I knew you’d want to be here.”
“Thanks. You did the right thing.” I feel even better about my mom being here because of Brenda. She says my mom reminds her a lot of her own mom, and for that reason I like to think she’ll keep an extra careful eye on my mom.
It doesn’t matter that it was a minor fall, and that she’s okay. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for, and after the kind of morning I’ve had, I need my mom, and an escape from my place of work more than my mom needs me.
Soon, it’s time for lunch, so I stay with my mom and decide to spend the whole day with her now that I’m here.
My courage has returned, and Ward exhibited a side of himself that I haven’t seen before. He’s not important, and he’s not my priority. My mom is.
I return later in the evening. It’s only then that the tiredness hits me and my grumbling belly reminds me that I haven’t eaten since breakfast.
Was it only this morning that Ward overslept and then we had the pen saga? It seems so much longer than that.
I’m famished and head into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. It’s only when I open the fridge door that I realize I never left Ward any lunch, or dinner, or even a note to say I was going out. I just rushed off and didn’t think about him at all.
I don’t care. My mom was more important.
But as I start to butter my bread, I jump as I catch sight of Ward in the TV room. I notice the litter on the floor beside him. He’s lying on the couch in the TV room and there’s something different about him. He turns and stares.
I blink.
Has he learned nothing? He seems to have nosedived back into earlier stuck ways.
Can losing his favorite pen stall him so completely?
I look away and spread the butter evenly on my slice of bread. I focus on making my sandwich as if it’s an intricate task that requires all of my attention.
“Hey.”
Oh, god, no. He’s come to talk to me. I lay the slice of ham onto my