Saturday rolled around faster than anticipated and my nerves for tonight's date only worsen by the second. Several times I've thought about canceling, using work as an excuse, or even playing sick to get out of tonight. Breathing out I remind myself it'll just be for an hour that I have to appear normal and likable.
How hard can that be?
As of now, I'm off duty and shopping for my mother with Jack which takes my mind off the date. We stopped at my usual spot to shop and Jack grabbed a shopping cart pushing it down the aisle and begin browsing. He trailed behind me as I collected items on the list my mother sent me via text. I'm gathering most of the groceries from the produce and organic aisles. Normally, mom would request snack cakes, three-minute meals, and red wine, but today's list doesn't contain the normal items.
I picked up a package of tofu that's listed double checking that I read it correctly. Mom made the list so I'll collect everything, but this seems odd to me.
"Your mother wouldn't be a vegan by chance?" Jack asked as I placed the tofu in the cart.
"Not at all, she'll take a ribeye over kale any day," I explained but my eyes linger on the items in the cart. "She must be starting a diet I'm guessing, I'm not sure. If this is what she wants this is what she gets."
I shrugged it off picking out a bunch of oranges bagging them up and placing them in the cart with various other fruits.
"It blows my mind what people consider food these days." Jack nonchalantly converses with me turning down another aisle.
I nod agreeing with him. "I will say you are not too bad of a cook, you know your way around my kitchen better than I do."
Jack smiles, "that ain't nothin'. I use to make fresh bread every day with my father when I was a boy."
Ever since our talk nights ago, Jack has been a wee bit more open about himself. I'm enjoying our talks, we have a lot more in common than I thought. To think when I first met him I wanted to shoot Jack when he broke into my apartment. Talk about things have changed over time.
"I don't think I ever had fresh bread," I grabbed a bag of oats.
"You don't know what you're missing, fresh bread with honey. Oh boy, better than those doughnuts you eat every day."
"That's a pretty bold statement to make against my doughnuts." For the first time in a while, I smile up at Jack happy to see him happy. "If I'm not mistaken you slither your crumb snatching hands onto my doughnuts from time to time."
It's refreshing, a wonderful distraction from everything else that is happening. If I could just live in the moment for just a while longer.
I breathe out, "okay. I think that's everything."
Later I arrived at my mother's home with a bag of groceries piled on the kitchen counter. This time when I entered my mom isn't sitting at the table with wine in her hand. She was in the bathroom and had a pot of tea brewing on the stove.
"What?" Besides the teapot is a large box of green tea.
Thinking as far back as I can I don't recall, I've never seen my mother drink tea. She always called it "dirty leaf water".
"Hi my love, how are you today?"
Mom came up behind me and gave me a quick hug before sitting at the table. She must've gotten out of the shower because I smell her signature lavender soap. I turn facing her direction holding up the box of green tea.
"Since when did you start drinking this?"
Mom flipped open a magazine as usual, "I read this new diet recently that will melt pounds right off."
YOU ARE READING
Holding On To You
Vampire"When I said I've had a hard life, it wasn't meant as a challenge for the universe to up the ante into a living hell. Let me start from the beginning, this spiral of madness began the night I died after running into a burning building. That's when h...
