The day struck her on top of the head. Sleep threw her off the soft bed and onto a concrete floor.
"Mommmmmmmm."
She used to sleep in all the time. She didn't begin waking up early for the sake of Cameron, although that was one benefit. Instead Victoria began waking up early because she stopped going out and partying.
It'd been so long that she'd forgotten this feeling. The rude awakening of a morning after a late night.
"Mom!"
"Hi sugar plum," she spoke soft.
"There's someone at the door!"
Suddenly the sleep vanished from her eyes, and she sprung out of bed. She made sure to remove any eye boogers and she fluffed her hair once and then she put on a robe and walked outside.
"Got ya!" Cameron laughed. "Make me breakfast!"
"Cameron you can't lie to your mom like that."
"Well you were the one who was lying! You weren't tired at all. You were just laying there! You know how I know that?"
Victoria didn't respond in any meaningful way. Just uttered a "hmm" sound while heading to the kitchen to put
coffee
on.
"I know that because you got up right away when I said someone was at the door."
After her coffee and brushing her teeth she got dressed. She had a relatively empty day today. She had planned it this way in case she was too hungover... which it turned out she wasn't. That rude awakening of a morning was now gone and she felt decent.
"How about we go to the park, bumble bee?"
Cameron was too fixated on the
TV
to give an excited answer. He said "okay" slowly.
"Okay well turn off the TV and get ready then."
"Okay..."
She went into her room and saw the
duffel bag
. She figured now was a good time to go see if her neighbor was in. When her hand touched the handle she noticed how luxurious the material felt. Being rich was nice, she thought.
This thought was cut short when her arm went to life the bag up. Lighter than she remembered. She opened up the bag but it looked like the same stuff was inside of it.
hangover
strength, she thought to herself and shrugged.
"I'll be right back. I want you to turn that off and get ready."
"Okay..."
Outside the lights hit hard. Bright day. She felt a hint of one of those migraines right by your eyes. She squinted and shielded the top of her eyes with her hand as she went over to the neighbor's door. She knocked on it with the hand she'd used as a visor for her eyes. She was still squinting.
The door opened immediately this time to her surprise.
"Oh. Hi. Sorry to bother you but your friend left you this."
"Great. Thank you!"
"Alright well see you around."
"Bye!"
She went back to her apartment. Her neighbor had said words that would make you think he was expecting the bag, but his face spoke different. He did not know who the bag came from. Or what it was for.
She wasn't a registered
nurse
yet, but her experience working with patients had already given her a good read on detecting lies. She'd always been good at that in her younger days, but the kind of lies patients told were different than that of
shitty boyfriends
. Patients were never lying to deceive you fully. They were instead crafting some type of narrative for you that they thought would help you help them. Even though often it was not helpful at all.
But it was none of her business. That bag had been given to her to be delivered to him. She was just glad to have finally gotten it off her hand. It was not worth questioning further why the recipient seemed clueless about the bag itself.
Upon returning to her apartment Cameron was ready to go. With his stuffed animal and a fanny pack around his waist.
