From Dawn (published)

Two

Friday
3:45pm

"This is why you are still single!"

The closed bathroom door and running shower water couldn't muffle the lecture that her mother was delivering from out in the hall. Dawn had stopped answering several minutes ago, not that her mom had noticed, and was instead concentrating on picking the last of the green slime out of her hair. It had taken several shampoos, but she was fairly confident that she no longer smelled like the stagnant water.

That was it, she was never letting anyone goad her into doing anything ever again. Not even Kay. The walk home had taken nearly an hour. That was an hour of letting the stink dry into her hair, and an hour of her nose burning uncomfortably. At least now the stink was gone, but her nose still burned like fire.

It was while she was using one of the fluffy, sky blue towels to dry off, that she first noticed the blood. Just a couple of drops, and it took Dawn a second to figure out where they had come from.

A tickle on her upper lip gave it away. Her fingers came away red when she swiped at her nose and lip. Dawn spent the next several minutes sitting on the toilet, head tilted and a tissue bunched up under her nose. She thought that it seemed like an unusually persistent nose bleed, but then, Dawn didn't usually get nose bleeds. So, maybe it was usual for one to last this long, and she just didn't know any better. Snorting all of that disgusting water up her nose was proving to be a real pain in the butt.

Finally satisfied that the bleeding had stopped, she tossed the used tissue on top of the small pile of bloody tissues now in the waste basket. Her mom had finally taken the hint and fallen silent on the other side of the door. Dawn had no doubt that the woman was still out there, waiting to continue her tongue lashing face to face, but for now the tirade had stopped.

She was proven right when she opened the door several minutes later. There, leaning up against the wall, was her mother. All five feet and no inches of her. Dawn knew better than to underestimate the older woman, however. She was as tenacious as a bull dog when she wanted to be. And there was one subject that was always guaranteed to get her mother going.

"Dawn, you can not keep carrying on like this."

"It's fine mom. We had our fun, but I don't think you need to worry about me swimming in our old spot again. That was nasty."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it," her mother ran frustrated fingers through her short hair. "You are not getting any younger. It's time to get serious. Find a real job, maybe settle down with some nice man. Do you really want to live with me forever?"

Her own temper raising, it wasn't like she wasn't aware of time slipping by, Dawn's voice came out colder than she liked to be when she was talking to her mother. "You think I don't know that, mom? Do you think it's fun for me to serve crappy food at the only restaurant in town? Or to have to give up my apartment because I couldn't pay the rent? You think I don't know that most of the men my age are already with someone, and that leaves the deadbeats and the weirdos for me to pick from?"

It was the first time that she had ever talked in such a way to her mother, and it shocked the woman into silence. Pushing her way past her, Dawn stalked down the beige carpeted hall and into the room that she had grown up in.

A couple of hours passed. Dawn spent them listening to music, sprawled out on her bed. She had a shift at work a little later on, and after snapping at her mom the way she had, she wanted to hide out until it was time to leave. It wasn't like her to talk to her mother that way. Dawn may have had a history of giving her mom prematurely grey hair, but she actually did love the woman. She was feeling pretty guilty at the moment.

She blamed the headache that had started to pound at her temples. Today had just been too much. First, a long walk in the hot sun when she really just wanted to stay inside and hide from the summer heat. Then her less than perfectly thought through swim. Followed by a long lecture from her mother, and now a raging headache when it was almost time that she was going to have to deal with the customers at her job. Joy, oh joy. Customer service really stunk.

And her nose still burned.

She was half afraid to find out what was going to go wrong tonight. Dawn was a firm believer in following your gut instincts, and her instincts were screaming that something bad was coming.

Reluctantly, she rolled to her feet and pulled on the black jeans and t shirt that made up her work uniform. The house was quiet as she tiptoed her way toward the front door. Sighing in relief that she'd made it out without having to face her mom, Dawn closed the door behind herself and headed for her old car.

In a town the size of hers, it didn't take long to get from one point to another. Within minutes, she was pulling into the parking lot behind the town's only restaurant. The heat from the kitchen blasted her as she went in the back door.

She swayed on her feet a little, and the pounding inside her skull increased as her vision swam. Blinking heavily, Dawn grabbed for the nearby wall and waited until the dizzy spell passed. She'd known running around outside all day had been a mistake. Now she was going to have to spend the next four hours fighting what she was sure was heatstroke in the hot confines of the kitchen.

As the dizziness receded, she steadied herself and walked the rest of the way inside.