Good morning. Once again the rain/snow has returned and today promises to be a bit of a nasty mess. I was snuggled deep into my covers this morning and thoughts of getting out of bed did not thrill me. I actually got a decent amount of sleep, I was just too comfortable to move. I thought about actually pulling the laptop into bed with me and working that way, but then I remembered the laptop was in the living room. Which meant that I would have to get up and cross most of the house to get it. And by then I’d be up. So since I talked myself out of bed, I suppose starting the morning prompt while the coffee brews wouldn’t be a bad thing. Anyone joining me? Good, then put fifteen minutes on the timer and off we go!
I think this has a bit of potential. I like that I could start it off with a conversation too. I’ll need to figure out where the money came from and what else has been going on with these two, but it isn’t a bad story start all in all.
Thursday, January 20th: “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that.”
“You can’t honestly expect me to believe that,” She said. He threw his hands up in the air in defeat.
“It happens the be the truth.”
“But how?” She asked. “That’s what I want to know.”
“It just happened,” he said.
“You just happened to lose all that money?” She asked. Her eyebrow went up and her hands were placed firmly on her hips.
“I didn’t lose it,” he said.
“So you just happened to spend all that money?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he replied.
“What did you spend it on?” she asked.
“This and that,” he replied. He stared at the ground not meeting her eyes. “Things just add up. And before you know it…”
“You’ve spent three million dollars?” She replied.
“When you put it that way it sounds bad,” he replied.
“So show me a few of the this and that things you bought.”
“Well I can’t, exactly.”
“You can’t exactly show me any of the things that you spent three million dollars on. Not a single thing?”
“Well you see it wasn’t so much things that I spent it on.”
“Then what did you spend it on?” Her question came out more as an order than as a query and he swallowed hard.
“Well you see there is this site,” he began.
“Was it a gambling site?” she asked. He could see the fury rising in her eyes.
“Well there were games…”
“What was the one thing you promised me that you weren’t going to do with the money?” She demanded.
“Gamble,” he said, the word coming out more of a mumble than an actual word.
“And you gambled it away didn’t you?” she said. “after you promised.”
“It was just a game,” he said. His eyes were still focused on the carpet. In front of him she was quiet. He waited for her to say something, anything. She didn’t. Instead he heard her move. He looked up as she turned and walked away. She moved to the back of the apartment and he let out a long sigh. He knew she’d be mad. He expected her to yell. This quietness was somewhat unnerving. He knew it was a reprieve, but that the reprieve wouldn’t last long. He heard the door to the bedroom close.
The silence around him felt thick. He thought about following her just to get the fight over with and clear the air. He decided he wasn’t that brave. He would wait it out. The silence though was too much. He walked over to the couch and picked up the remote. He turned the television on and sat down. He watched the show, that was playing waiting for her to return. She4 didn’t. His stomach rumbled and he wondered if he should remind her it was dinner time. He decided to let her be and went to the kitchen to retrieve a bag of chips to tide him over until she got around to making dinner. Time ticked past. She still did not emerge from the bedroom.
He fixed himself a bowl of cereal. Only silence came out of the bedroom. Eventually he felt sleep tugging at his eyelids. The bedroom door was still closed. He set the sleep timer on the television, set an alarm for the morning on his cell phone and pulled the blanket off of the back of the couch. He curled up and went to sleep.
In the morning he woke with his alarm. The bedroom door was still closed and there was no sign that she emerged in the night. He decided to use the spare shirt from his locker at work. He called out letting her know he was leaving and then he left. He went about his day, hoping that by the time he returned home, she would be ready to yell at him and get it over with. When he walked into the apartment, she wasn’t there. Neither were any of her belongings.
Ten til Midnight 