Page 78 of Money Shot

SIENNA

May 11,2015

I opened my eyes, rolled onto my side, and tried to make sense of why my mouth felt like I had someone else’s tongue in it. My mouth was dry, I felt like I’d been ran over by a truck, and I could feel my heart beating in my eyes.

I drank way too much wine.

With the room illuminated naturally by the setting sun, I narrowed my eyes and studied my surroundings as if they were unfamiliar. A quarter of a glass of wine sat on my desk beside my monitor, which had the screen saver zooming back and forth across the screen.

Fuck, I must have fallen asleep.

I stretched, walked to the kitchen, and took some Tylenol for my aching head. After finishing my glass of water, I walked to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. After a few seconds, I lowered my head into my hands and prayed for it to stop throbbing.

Son-of-a-bitch.

After a considerable amount of time, my head felt good enough to stand, and I walked to my desk. The black screen indicated I had been asleep for long enough that my computer shut down, which happened after fifteen minutes. I rubbed my eyes and stared at the monitor. Although I vaguely remembered writing a review, I didn’t really remember writing all of the reviews I was supposed to write, or exactly where I left off or what happened.

I wiggled the mouse, cleared the screen of the wiggling blurry ball, and stared at the review. It didn’t look familiar in the least. After a moment of staring blankly at the monitor, I refreshed the screen and stared. The review still seemed strange, as if it was written by someone else, but the time stamp at the side left me slightly puzzled.

14 hours, 38 min ago

Fourteen hours ago? How can that be?

I glanced at my watch. 7:22. I stared blankly at my watch, tried to make sense of what was going on, but couldn’t.

If it’s 7:22, the sun wouldn’t be setting. It would be totally sunny.

I walked to the bedroom window, opened it, and peered outside.

Fuck.

I ran to the kitchen and looked at the microwave.

7:21

Fuck. It can’t be.

After a frantic search, I found my purse, got my phone, and looked at the screen.

7:23 AM Mon, May 11

No…no…no, please God, no.

* * *

After repeatedcalls to his home went unanswered, I finally left a message, which was not at all what I wanted to do. Three hours later, and still having received no phone call from him, I was scared I had disappointed him much more than I expected.

I sat in his driveway frustrated that I had passed out from being drunk and missed dinner. I not only that I had I down Vince, but Anita as well. She took so much pride in her preparation of the meals, arrangement of the table, and found such value in our conversations that my having missed dinner would have disappointed her greatly. I was sure of it.

“Gabriel’s Message,” by Sting played over the stereo as I sat and waited for Vince to return.

I can fix this.

Two and a half complete plays of the CD later, while “Do You Hear What I Hear,” by Whitney Houston played, I hoped Vince would understand, but I had spent enough time playing ideas over and over in my head of how he may react, that I feared he would overreact.

As gentle as he seemed to be, and as kind as he was, his temper was beyond what most would describe as hot tempered. His ability to forgive was minimal, and his ability to forget was nonexistent.

Fuck.