In My Neighbor's Bed

Ch. 33: Bad Luck

One thing I loved about spending time with Mason was how quickly it made the day pass by. I could visit him first thing in the morning, and the next thing I knew, the sun would already be setting. A bittersweet feeling where goodbye always seemed to come too soon and tomorrow never seemed to come soon enough. Our weekend together was like a dream, stretching for hours but only feeling like mere minutes.

Which only made it all the worse when, come Monday, I had to awaken back into the nightmare that was my everyday life.

I never knew a week could move so slowly. Every minute lasted an hour and every hour was an eternity. I tried to fill the time with cleaning, cooking, and mundane visits to the neighbors, but every time I looked at the clock afterward, I was always disappointed to find that only an hour or two had passed at most. And each time I did, I couldn't help but think:

Wow, was this really the life I'd been living?

It was, of course. I'd been living the same life for years now. I knew nothing had changed about it in such a short amount of time. Despite that fact, this week seemed to be dragging on at an especially slow pace for some reason. And I think three main things helped contribute to that:

The first was Eli. Unsurprisingly, after throwing the hissy fit he did and overexerting himself, he had completely drained his body. Chemo recovery was taking a lot longer than usual as a result and I didn't dare to visit him in the meantime for fear of making his condition worse again. A fact that I relayed to him through Ronnie. Who, in turn, relayed to me Eli's extreme displeasure with this decision.

It was sad not being able to see him this week, but I feel like I could have dealt with that little setback if not for problem number two: Mason. Or, more specifically, the lack of Mason.

It seems he wasn't joking when he said he was really busy on the weekdays. I guess that first week was just a grace period while he was moving in because as of Monday, I didn't see hide nor hair of him around the neighborhood.

I tried texting him the first couple of days, but the replies were sporadic at best. The most we texted was for about an hour on his lunch break and even that was a little on and off since he, of course, needed to eat lunch too.

Even when he finally got home, it was clear he was too exhausted to participate in any of our little "shows." Not that I could blame him. It's not like I didn't understand the plight of your average nine-to-fiver. He worked hard all day, and the last thing he needed was me pouting like a spoiled teenager that he wasn't giving me enough attention. That wasn't his job to do.

Of course, these two things alone would naturally be enough to make my week seem long and empty. But bad luck always comes in threes, doesn't it? And the third factor was the worst of them all:

Phil.

As I'd feared he started coming home more often during the week. Not making the massive commute for lunch or anything like that, but home not long past average dinner time and less time spent on overtime. A thing I gravely feared would start to carry over into his weekends as well.

After all, how was I supposed to sneak off and go meet Mason on the weekends if Phil was always home now? Ugh. Why did he have to pick now of all times to start pretending to be a half-interested husband?

Although, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a pretty good idea of what his reason was: his age.

He wasn't the young, twenty-something rookie at his office anymore. The golden child, the prodigy, the one to look out for. The young hotshot who already had his life together with his lovely young housewife and his polished home in the suburbs.