Sweet Tooth | joshler

II

After taking a good twenty minute walk from the bakery, Josh finally made it to the hospital.

The workers there were already very familiar with Josh and his family, so when the people at the desk saw him coming in, they opened the door to the back up for him instantly.

Josh nodded once as an unspoken 'thank you', and then he headed to the back and walked down the hall to the elevator.

Once he had taken it up to the fifth floor where his mom was, he stepped out when the door opened and he made his way down to her room.

He knocked on the door as a warning to her before he walked inside, smiling softly as he entered.

His mother kept her eyes, which had the white part as a light shade of yellow because of her condition, on the door until it opened and she saw her eldest son, and then she gave him a smile back, "oh- hi, honey."

"Hi, momma," he greeted back as he shut the door behind him and started to go closer to the bed she was resting in, "how're you feeling today?"

She weakly shrugged and replied, "as good as I can be right now..."

The response made Josh frown and saddened him even more. Obviously he knew his mom wasn't enjoying one bit of her situation, but just hearing her make comments like that made his heart ache even more for her.

Besides having remorse, he didn't fully know how to respond to that, so he just sighed and let out a soft "I know..."

They both stayed in shared silence for at least twenty seconds after that, until his mom looked to him again and asked, "...what about you? Did you do anything today?"

"Uh... yeah, a couple things," he answered as he pulled over the nearest chair and sat down in it. His mother looked curious to know more, so he went on and told her, "I had another interview today..." She gave him sort of a hopeful look, but it quickly faded as her son finished, "...it didn't go well. 'Said they wanted someone more experienced and that could work more hours."

She could sense his disappointment and hopelessness from when he said that, and so she gave her best shot at reassuring him, "aw... it's okay though, hun. It's just a stupid job, there's plenty more out there that'll probably love to take you in, you've just gotta find the right one."

Josh gave a weak smile and shrug. He wanted to believe her and feel better from her encouragement, but he knew that he had already tried applying for most of the jobs in the area. Even though he had already lost hope and motivation, he still responded to his mom and said, "I guess so... thanks..."

Despite her son trying to play it off that he was fine, his mother knew that her words didn't help and that he was still stressed and worried. So, instead of bringing up the job stuff again, she tried to avert the subject to something else, "...so... what else did you do today?"

Now, Josh figured that it was a good time to bring up the bakery thing, "well, uh... I bumped into a guy on the sidewalk."

His mom just looked a bit confused, "...how did you bump into s-"

"Because I'm an idiot."

"You are not, stop that."

After that small scolding from her, he shrugged and then continued, "either way, I wasn't paying attention I guess and I ran into somebody. And you know how I am with interactions like that, sooo... I freaked out but I stayed and just apologized. They didn't really care though, they were cool about it, thank god. But, he was holding a bunch of boxes and so I offered to help 'cause I felt bad, and so I helped him carry them to his work. He works at some bakery that's like, twenty minutes away from here and-"