Sudden Trouble

"You cannot be serious." I scoffed but he didn't respond as he disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

Damn everything! This is the last thing that I needed after the shitty week I've been having. I believed that I couldn't possibly get anymore stressed out than I already was—I was WRONG. "Work was great for me by the way, thank for asking." I called out sarcastically. No response...

"Damn it!" I threw the tissue box on the night stand across the room and it bounced off the wall clock, reading 7:33.

Great. I had missed that Three's Company rerun I promised I would catch before I fell asleep after what my husband considers 'sex'. I slid out of bed and slipped on my loungewear.

The bathroom door creaked open and Charles came barreling out, rummaging through the walk-in closet. I resisted speaking to him for a while as I fiddled with the remote control, but the fact that he wasn't even looking in my general direction make me feel insecure. "Charles, honey, what are you doing?"

He glanced at me for a second but returned right back to what he was doing, slipping his scrubs on. "I'm on call. Don't know when I'll be back. Have dinner without me, alright?"

"Charles, we need to talk about this—"

"Yvonne, please. Not now." His voice was weak.

"When?" I asked.

"When I've calmed down? When I'm ready to give this conversation another shot." I couldn't even believe the gall.

"You know you're not the only unhappy person in this marriage, Charles."

He didn't respond to that, as I figured. He only slipped his shoes on and tightened them. When he left the bedroom I resisted, but only for a minute, and then followed him. I watched him from the top of the stairwell as he gathered his things. Just as he grabbed his keys from the stand by the front door, the lock clicked and it swung open.

Finn had a couple of Domino's boxes in one hand and a gallon of Pepsi in the other.

"Hey Dad," He offered, nodding to him.

"Lock the door behind me." He said coldly, passing him by the door and down to the driveway. Finn stood at the front door, looking out into the yard. I heard the engine of Charles' Taurus rev to life and sighed as the taillights disappeared from the glass that lined the face of the house beneath the blinds.

Finn looked up at me as I sat down at the top of the stairs. He used his elbow to push the door shut and then vanished into the kitchen. When he reappeared his hands were free. He stood at the bottom of the staircase and looked up at me. He was dressed in a plain black cotton tee and fitted jeans with those black Ajax Doc Marten combat boots; he really liked the color black. "You okay?" He asked as he stared me down with a vindictive gaze.

I smiled a bit and said, "No."

He used this thumb to point over his shoulder, but didn't actually say anything. "I don't know." I muttered.

He grabbed the rail with one hand and it looked as if he was about to climb the stairs but he paused, one foot on the first step and the other on the landing. He looked up at me, his eyes calm, quiet, and giving away no semblance of emotion. "Do you want some pizza?" He asked.

I raised a curious brow, could feel my smile growing bigger. "Pepperoni with extra cheese?"

His mouth curved into a smile as well. "Does any other kind of pizza exist? Cause if so, I've never heard of it."

I pulled the slices I want out of the cardboard box and placed them on my plate before settling down at the kitchen table. Finn is shoveling whole slices in his mouth with one hand as he looks down at his cell phone in the other, typing and scrolling.

"So, what brings you here tonight?" I asked, wondering why a 19-year-old college boy seems to be hiding out at his parents' house on a Friday night.

He didn't hesitate. "My roommate's banging some coed in our room and doesn't seem like he's going to be done anytime soon."

I cleared my throat, baffled by how candid he was being, usually he was quite round-a-bout when it came to things like this. "Well, then."

"Yep." He assured, looking up at me briefly. "Plus I'm supposed to be putting that desk together and helping you with something else, remember?" He added.

"Ah, the pool, that's right." I'd completely forgotten about both of those things.

"Was I too forward there?" He asked, most likely noticing how I blanched at his words.

I took a bite out of my pizza and shook my head. "No, no—in fact I wish you were more forward with me. I can't really get a read on what's going on in that brilliant head of yours most of the time."

He laughed at that, setting his phone down on the table and leaning back in his chair. "Brilliant? You think I'm brilliant?"

I looked around, unsure of what he meant. "Well, yes of course sweetie."

He shook his head with that smile still curving his features. "Mom, you have never called me brilliant before. You've never even called me smart."

I let out a harsh breath of air. "Of course I have."

"Not to me, you haven't." He assured, unable to hide the amusement in his eyes. "Unless you count: smartass, smart-aleck, smarty pants, Einstein, know-it-all, or my favorite, charlatan." He ticked off each one on his fingers, never breaking eye contact with me. Then he tilted his head, waiting for my response.

"Now I'm regretting it." I said matter-of-factly.

"Not complimenting my intelligence?" He asked.

"No, finally giving in and doing it."

"Don't get me wrong. I know that I'm smart." He began, but I held up a hand to shut him down immediately.

"I didn't tell you that you were smart because I didn't want to feed your psychotic little ego. I don't think you've noticed this Finn...or maybe you have...but you're a bit of a pompous douche. It's better now, but when you were younger it was actually horrifying."

When I said that his eyes widened. "You sound like my ex."

I cackled through my cup before setting it back down. "Too bad she's your ex, sounds like a keeper to me." I thought on that for a minute. "Mia, right?"

"Marcy." He clarified. Ah yes—Marcy. The one that got away.

"I really liked that girl. She didn't put up with your shit and she wasn't hypnotized by you like all the other little tramps you brought in and out of this house." I say that but 'hypnotized' is a bit of an understatement. The women that Finn usually dates are completely infatuated with him. It's actually extremely disturbing, and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Seeing any woman overly obsessed with a man makes me feel shaky and awkward, but my own son? Insurmountably bizarre.

"You 'liked' her, mom? 5 seconds ago you'd apparently completely forgotten her name." He laughed, glancing at his cell on the table when it lit up.

"I'm getting old, okay? Why did you break up with her anyway?"

He looked up at me after a while and grinned. "She couldn't handle it."

I felt my brows scrunch together. "What?" I asked in a high pitched lull.

His grin slowly pulled into a lopsided smile as he added on, "She said I was too...intense."

I shook my head, still confused. "I don't understand."

He laughed again. "We just weren't compatible, mom."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He ended his relationship with a perfectly suitable girl because she wasn't good in bed??

"You can't just throw a relationship away because of sex." I said, flabbergasted.

"Strongly beg to differ." He retorted with an amused look on his face. "Besides it wasn't just that, she claimed that I was too much for her in a lot of ways."

"You have to look past that, Finn, sweetie—you've got to put the work in. A relationship will only go as far as you let it." He rolled his eyes, looking away from me completely and right down at his phone. I could tell that this was not a conversation he was willing to have with his mother of all people.

"Speaking of which, how was work today?" He asked, still not looking at me.

"Don't try and change the subject..." I admonished.

"How was it?" He pressed.

I took a bite out of my pizza and swallowed before I spoke, agreeing to let the subject come to pass. "Can't complain."

"You never do." He said sullenly.

"There are just some things you don't talk to your kids about. You'll understand when you have your own." I thought about that for a moment. "You do want kids, right?"

His eyebrows jumped a bit and he finally looked up at me again. "Sure?" He said unconvincingly.

"What am I thinking? You're still a child yourself. I was just...I mean I had you when I was about your age. Well, 2 years older than you, but I had already been done with college by then. Took a year off before law school...you know." I'd already told him this and didn't know why I felt the need to talk about it again.

"You're awfully interested in my future today, aren't you?"

It was probably my husband that was bringing about this entire sudden obsession with the future.

"You're a good kid, Finn, I'm sure you'll make the right choices. Just try not to make any mistakes."

"That's impossible," He said, and I narrowed my eyes. Now what happened next was something that I wish had never happened, something I wish I'd never heard. "We have to regret our mistakes and learn from them. The trick is to not live with them for the rest of your life."

I held my breath and covered my face with my hands. "Are you crying?" He asked nervously.

"No I'm sweating from my tear ducts." I muttered behind my hands. "It's a serious medical condition I've been seeing a doctor for it lately, it's just getting worse."

"I didn't mean to make you cry."

I pushed myself away from the table and stood, waving him off with my free hand. I attempted to brush the tears away but the kept falling. "It's not your fault I've just been having a hard time lately."

"I had no idea." His voice was sad, maybe even regretful. "You're always so composed...I couldn't have guessed."

"Finish your food." I said as I placed my empty plate and glass in the sink. I felt the headache that was sitting at the back of my skull begin to rise again as I made my way up the stairs and towards my bedroom.

Remembering I didn't have anything to soothe it with made me cry even harder. "I'm a fucking mess." I muttered to myself. "Finn?!" I yelled, holding the side of my head as I did.

"Finn here." He answered from the kitchen.

"You wouldn't happen to have any Ibuprofen or Advil, would you?" Neither of those things was actually strong enough for the pain that I was experiencing, but they would have been better than nothing as far as I was concerned.

"I might...in my bathroom in the medicine cabinet? Not too sure..." That was all I needed to go bumbling into his room. I fiddled with the knob for a good 20 seconds before it finally opened. His bathroom was nearly empty, only a few things here and there that he'd left behind. I opened the medicine cabinet and found nothing but a bottle of antibiotics perched on the lowest shelf.

I cursed under my breath, slamming the cabinet shut." I just can't get a break, can I? Tonight of all nights." As I wiped the tears from my eyes I felt a sudden pang of loneliness, a feeling that I haven't experienced in a long time.

Then it dawned on me...the person having a mid-life crisis; it's not Charles...it's me. "Well, geez..." I slumped out of the bathroom and sat on Finn's bed, staring at my house shoes. I squeezed the comforter in my hand and tried to calm my breathing, feeling the impending sobs coming up. "Push it down, Yvonne, push it down." I chanted to myself.

I saw something plastic peeking out from beneath Finn's bed just below my feet. Reaching down I snagged it and gasped when it came into full view. It looked like...a bag full of candy? Colorfully assorted candy like twizzlers, m&ms and other things slid through the clear plastic ziplock.

I cracked it open and grabbed a handful without really looking at it before zipping it back up and plopping it back under his bed. Candy didn't help my headaches but it did make me feel happy so I couldn't help but indulge myself. I pulled his bedroom door shut and yelled down the stairs, "There are clean towels in the linen closet if you need them, Finn."

"Thank you." He called back immediately.

I closed the door and collapsed on the bed, dropping the sweets I'd stolen on the nightstand. I sifted through the few pieces I had and locked my eyes on the small circular brightly colored Smartees. They were a little broken, looked as if they'd fallen out of the packet. I unwrapped a mini snickers bar and chomped them down simultaneously. "Feels like Halloween when he was a kid." I said to myself. When Finn was little he hated trick-or-treating but loved getting candy, and I loved going through it and taking what I wanted before returning it to him.

I sighed as I chewed the junk, ashamed of myself. "Now I have to go to the stupid gym tomorrow."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OH...MY...GOD!!

I sat up in bed with a deep, grotesque intake of air. So much at once that it made me wheeze and cough. I could feel my chest rising and falling as I stared into the complete and utter darkness, seeing absolutely nothing and not hearing a single sound. I reached over, feeling for my husband in the bed but instead felt this overwhelming sensation against my hand that was not flesh. Feeling around even more, I searched for the light on my bedside, twisting the knob and hearing multiple clicks before the bedroom came into my view.

I squealed, half out of breath, and that's when I noticed that I was sweating. "What?" I looked at my drenched body and quickly scrambled to get out of bed. I looked around and felt nothing but euphoria and heat enveloping my body. "What?!" I don't know why, but I felt this unbelievable urge to feel up and down my own body, touching the fabric of my sweats, my shirt, the skin on my neck. I looked around again, and when I saw my own reflection in the mirror on the dresser across the room I screamed at the top of my lungs, louder than I think I've ever screamed before.

My face was beet red and I could hardly breathe. My eyes were dilated so much you wouldn't believe there was any inkling of darkness in this barely lit room. My pupils were so fucking huge my green eyes looked like black pools with scum around the edges. "Jesus Christ!" I breathed, and screamed even harder when my door swung open and slammed against the wall.

"Mom?!" Finn came running up to me, grabbed my arms and shook me. "What's wrong?!" As quickly as he touched me he let go. "Why are you sweating so much?" He wiped his hands on his shorts.

I wasn't looking at his face, but I'm sure he looked confused and half asleep. I was only looking at his chest, which was so incredibly defined and taut that I couldn't even think straight. Without any form of volition I reached out and pressed my hand against his right pectoral and slid my hand down his torso slowly. My eyes were actually beginning to dry out from not blinking for so long and it took every muscle in my face to finally force them shut.

Finn grabbed my cheeks and forced me to look at him. I was breathing so hard that my throat was growing sore and desiccate. "Mom, close your mouth." He ordered, and I complied without question, not even realizing that it was open. "Wait here." He left me standing there in the middle of my bedroom, hands still extended out from where I was rubbing his naked chest when he stood in front of me.

When he came back he had a jug of water in one hand and a bag in the other. He showed the bag to me, held it up right in front of my face and I reached out to feel it, rolling the plastic between my fingers. It was the one filled with the candy I took earlier. "Did you take anything from this bag?"

My eyes hurt from being open so wide, but I couldn't rest them no matter how hard I tried. "A couple of things."

He yelled, which reflexively caused me to yell something incoherent in return, slowly curling myself up where I stood, lifting one leg so high that my knee was close to pressing against my sternum and I stretched my arms out to protect my head. He grabbed them and pushed them away from my face, forcing me to look at him again. "What did you eat, mom?! You need to tell me exactly what you ate from this bag!"

"Who is this 'mom' person you keep speaking of?" I asked breathlessly, in complete disbelief. After a long awkward silence I pointed to my nose with my index finger. "...Is that me?"

Finn's brows turned inwards and his eye began to twitch. "Who am I?" He asked quietly.

"Greg Louganis?" I asked weakly, holding my hands out and unable to resist running them down his torso once again.

He grabbed both of my hands in one of his and pushed them down so they were dangling between us. "Who am I?" He asked again, more forcefully this time.

"Who am I?" I returned sullenly, and then without a second to waste I began laughing like a maniac.

I watched as his face slowly morphed from complete bafflement to absolute annoyance. "Sit down," He ordered, lowering me onto the burgundy chaise at the foot my king-sized bed. He placed the huge bottle of water on my lap and forcefully wrapped my hands around it. "Drink."

I shook my head. "Don't wanna."

"You need to drink water...lots of it." I could just tell he was holding back from saying a thousand things.

I started to cry. Whether it was a real cry or not was information far behind my immediate mental processes. "Why?"

"Because you're high as a kite, that's why." He said calmly, and I cringed at the way his teeth grinded together as he did. "And not on just one drug either, several—so drink."

"You drugged me, Finn?" I asked with a shaky, whiny voice.

He bit down on his lip and balled his fists so hard his knuckles turned white. "No...you went into my room and took something you weren't supposed to and drugged yourself."

"My son drugged me! My own flesh and blood!!" I yelled dramatically, allowing the bottle of water to slip from my hands and fall to the carpet. "I'm going to be raped!" I cried out, holding my chest.

"Shit!" He set the bottle up and most of what was inside had already seeped into the carpet.

I don't know what compelled my hand to move but before I could even comprehend what I was fixing to do my hand had already found its way across his face. "You watch your FUCKING mouth young man!" I seethed, my heart racing.

His eyes were wide as dinner plates as he stared back at me. He'd fallen onto his ass and was holding the spot where I'd hit him. I've never hit Finn in his face before—never. Then again Finn had never cursed in front of me before...not even once. I'm sure it had just slipped out. He couldn't believe what I'd just done and neither could I but I didn't have the sense about me to feel any remorse for it.

That's when it hit me like a bat—the regret. I watched him looking at the floor and the tears flooded my eyes. I don't think I've ever felt this level of guilt in my entire life. My hand hurt like a bitch. I looked at it and it was bright red and pulsating...I'd slapped him very hard. He started to gather himself, seemingly shaking it off as he sat up from the carpet and moved to stand.

"Please just drink the water, okay?" He said with no emotion in his voice, almost as if what just happened...didn't. I felt tears running down my face. What have I done?

Before he could stand up I dove forward, causing him to fall back down before he could rebalance himself. I landed on his chest and pinned him beneath me, my arms wrapped around his neck. I could feel his chest rising and falling against my own and just cried and cried without shame.

"I'm so sorry, Finn. Mommy didn't mean it baby...mommy didn't mean it." I cried.

"It's fine, now get off of me." He deadpanned, using his forearms to push me away.