Sincerely, Mike

12: SORROW NO MORE

The succeeding week was as quick to pass as a good night's sleep, the likes of which Mike had long since forgotten until his waking on the morning of the fateful day in question.

Slowly and peacefully, he came out of his unconscious state, the soft sunlight peaking through the window blinds comforting him into wakefulness. He shifted and squirmed towards his wife's side of the bed, rustling the sheets haphazardly tangled around his bare body as the warm, pleasuring memories of the previous night's events flooded his mind.

In complete honesty, he couldn't remember the last time they had been intimate. It had to have been, he conjectured, at some point before this whole mess had begun, as the dour state of affairs of the past few months had, essentially, rendered him sexually useless and served as yet another bone of contention between him, his wife, and the previously failing state of their marriage.

The previous night's encounter, however- in conjunction with, of course, the miraculous news of the week-had finally seen an end to that unfortunate chapter in the story of their marriage, and Mike had to admit that he couldn't have been happier to experience its conclusion.

Sighing, he moved closer to her still, lightly tracing his long, spindly fingers along the small of her back in a loving gesture.

How beautiful she looked to him at that moment, smooth porcelain skin aglow with the gentle light of early morning, face softened by the bliss of sleep, mind a sky full of dream-filled stars.

After so much time spent holed up in the depressing echo chamber of his mind, perhaps he had forgotten just how much he loved moments like these, and, at times, perhaps just how much he loved her.

A surge of emotion overcoming him, he snaked his arms around her tightly and pulled her close, holding her until the steady, synchronized rise and fall of their chests slowly began to lure him back towards the blissful abyss of sleep.

But, just as he was beginning to drift off, the world decided that it'd had enough of his happiness and thus, in turn, provided him with the unwarranted interruption that was the universally-hated ringing of a cell phone.

Desperate to hear an end to the obnoxious buzzing, he loosened one arm from his loving grip on his wife and reached across the bed to the nightstand, fumbling about its surface blindly until finally grabbing hold of the infernal device and answering the call.

"Hello?" His voice was sweet and mellow, weighed down by the sleep still lingering in the room's atmosphere.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I think I have the wrong number," a familiar, snarky voice responded. "This guy sounds well-rested and like he banged his wife last night."

"Well, good morning to you, too, Trè." Mike found himself laughing at one of Trè's flippant remarks for what must have been the first time in ages.

"Yeah, yeah, it's a great morning," Trè singsonged, the words barely audible above what sounded like the clanging of dishes in a sink. "Hey, look, I'm gonna be a little late to pick you up, maybe, like, thirty minutes or so, the boys have been being major pains in my ass all morning, two year old and a twelve year old, you know how it is."

Processing the words, Mike furrowed his brow in genuine confusion, thoughts lingering on the second statement.

"Pick me up...?" He questioned softly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the back of his free hand.

Confused by Mike's confusion, Trè was silent, giving his certainly-not-a-morning-person friend on the other end a brief second to think before jumping straight into making yet another sarcastic comment.

"Oh, shit, fuck me, that's right," Mike continued before Trè could even think to open his mouth once more, slamming a hand to his forehead in anguish. "How the fuck could I possibly forget, today is...today is, well, the day."