Page 129 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

My burns felt better today, and yet despite my protests, she hadn’t allowed me to handle anything other than the giant spoon I was currently stirring in the eggs. Even then, it’d been a battle.

The attention…was kind of nice.

Even if it wasn’t her fawning over me, and my job, and my “big city life”.

“I’m fine,” I said, even though she was right. The last thing I needed was for her to worry more about me. I really was fine. Having an existential crisis, yes, but fine.

“I’m your mother, I can tell something is wrong,” she replied. Like a hound with a bone, that one.

I sighed.

Stirring the eggs more vigorously than was healthy for them, I attempted to calm myself. It wasn’t her fault I was agitated. It wasn’t Alex’s either. He’d done nothing wrong, not last night, not this morning—and yet here I was, “fussy” again.

As enlightening as yesterday had been, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. Without Alex breathing down my neck and distracting me, there was nothing to get me out of my head. A good orgasm—oh fuck, had it been good—would help.

But again.

Only eggs.

No Alex.

And ha! Wasn’t that a mind fuck in itself?! That I was now associating him with sex. That I wasexpectingsex. That Iwantedsex.

Who the hell was I anymore?

Maybe I really had been replaced by a pod person.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mom asked, not dropping the subject like I’d hoped she would. Her tone was loving, which of course filled me with guilt.

“There’s nothing to talk about, because nothing is wrong.” I’d come to Ohio to bond with her and here I was…shutting her out. Why? Because I didn’t want her to think I was broken.

Even though I clearly was.

It was nice having one person think the world of me. Fine, two. Because Joe. Maybe…even three? Dad, though he’d never outright said it, had always seemed proud.

Ahuuughh! I jerked a hand through my bangs, pulling on them in frustration.

“Alright.” Mom’s hand waved in front of my face, blocking my view of the eggs. “That’s enough of that.”

Apparently I couldn’t evenpretendto be normal.

“I know you were out with Alex last night.” Of course she knew. Alex had literally charmed the cookies right out of her hands. It wasn’t as though we were hiding it. “Is that why you’re so out of sorts?”

My cheeks immediately flamed bright red and I had to twist away so she wouldn’t see. She didn’t know we’d been…physically intimate, of course. Despite how out in the open we’d been, no one had come close enough to see us.

At least…I hadn’t thought so?

Oh, dear god.

What did she know?

“No. Yes. Maybe?” I said carefully, trying not to give anything away. Momwas aware that I was a sexually active adult. It was a fair assumption to make. But—to openly acknowledge it? Absolutely not. Nope. We werenotdoing that. Not today, Satan.

“Two peas in a pod,” Mom tacked on, a knowing smile on her lips.

“What?” What did peas have to do with anything?

“You and Alex,” she replied, looking pleased. “You certainly looked cute together last night. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you smile that much.”Had I been smiling?

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