One thing I loved about spending time with Mason was how quickly it made the day pass by. I could visit him first thing in the morning, and the next thing I knew, the sun would already be setting. A bittersweet feeling where goodbye always seemed to come too soon and tomorrow never seemed to come soon enough. Our weekend together was like a dream, stretching for hours but only feeling like mere minutes.

Which only made it all the worse when, come Monday, I had to awaken back into the nightmare that was my everyday life.

I never knew a week could move so slowly. Every minute lasted an hour and every hour was an eternity. I tried to fill the time with cleaning, cooking, and mundane visits to the neighbors, but every time I looked at the clock afterward, I was always disappointed to find that only an hour or two had passed at most. And each time I did, I couldn't help but think:

Wow, was this really the life I'd been living?

It was, of course. I'd been living the same life for years now. I knew nothing had changed about it in such a short amount of time. Despite that fact, this week seemed to be dragging on at an especially slow pace for some reason. And I think three main things helped contribute to that:

The first was Eli. Unsurprisingly, after throwing the hissy fit he did and overexerting himself, he had completely drained his body. Chemo recovery was taking a lot longer than usual as a result and I didn't dare to visit him in the meantime for fear of making his condition worse again. A fact that I relayed to him through Ronnie. Who, in turn, relayed to me Eli's extreme displeasure with this decision.

It was sad not being able to see him this week, but I feel like I could have dealt with that little setback if not for problem number two: Mason. Or, more specifically, the lack of Mason.

It seems he wasn't joking when he said he was really busy on the weekdays. I guess that first week was just a grace period while he was moving in because as of Monday, I didn't see hide nor hair of him around the neighborhood.

I tried texting him the first couple of days, but the replies were sporadic at best. The most we texted was for about an hour on his lunch break and even that was a little on and off since he, of course, needed to eat lunch too.

Even when he finally got home, it was clear he was too exhausted to participate in any of our little "shows." Not that I could blame him. It's not like I didn't understand the plight of your average nine-to-fiver. He worked hard all day, and the last thing he needed was me pouting like a spoiled teenager that he wasn't giving me enough attention. That wasn't his job to do.

Of course, these two things alone would naturally be enough to make my week seem long and empty. But bad luck always comes in threes, doesn't it? And the third factor was the worst of them all:

Phil.

As I'd feared he started coming home more often during the week. Not making the massive commute for lunch or anything like that, but home not long past average dinner time and less time spent on overtime. A thing I gravely feared would start to carry over into his weekends as well.

After all, how was I supposed to sneak off and go meet Mason on the weekends if Phil was always home now? Ugh. Why did he have to pick now of all times to start pretending to be a half-interested husband?

Although, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a pretty good idea of what his reason was: his age.

He wasn't the young, twenty-something rookie at his office anymore. The golden child, the prodigy, the one to look out for. The young hotshot who already had his life together with his lovely young housewife and his polished home in the suburbs.

Time moves on. People grow and change. And as they do, so do the expectations that society holds for them as well.

The nice house and pretty trophy wife were fine when he was in his twenties, but now? Well, they didn't mean quite as much now as they did back then.

Slowly but surely, the other men in his company started getting those things too. Wives, nice houses, money and status. And, to a degree, I think he was fine with that. After all, it was just as expected from them as it was from him. It only made sense that they'd catch up to him eventually.

I think the trouble came when they started "surpassing" him though.

Lately, it seemed like every other weekend was an invitation to some coworker or another's baby shower. Instead of showing off photos of the beautiful women they'd met at this place or that, baby photos were passed around instead. The water cooler conversations where they had their pissing contests of who had the nicest luxury items had shifted into pissing contests of whose kids had the greatest achievements. And as these changes happened around him, Phil slowly started to find himself becoming more and more of an outsider.

Were it just the coworkers alone, I think he might not have cared. Much like spouses, friends were only tools to be used to help him achieve greater success in life. However, I think the fear started to sink in when he realized that he was losing clients too.

Again, he wasn't that young hotshot that he used to be. He was getting too old to mingle and appeal to the new young money crowds that had started to appear. And as the old money got even older, they held fast to those same traditional expectations that society held for him as well.

In their eyes, their money was better spent on a family man. Somebody on whom other people relied. A modern-day provider, doing his duty to his family. A criteria that Phil didn't fit, and one that would be harder and harder to compete with the older he got.

From the beginning of our relationship, I'd made it no secret to Phil that I didn't want to have kids. In fact, I made sure to bring up this point as soon as things started to get serious between us. And, at the time, he claimed to have no problems with this.

Looking back on it now, I still can't say with one hundred percent certainty whether he meant what he said or not. Was it just a lie he told, convinced that he could change my mind later? Or did he really mean what he said and just didn't realize at the time how society's expectations for him would change in the future? After all, even now, Phil didn't seem to have much personal interest in having a kid. If anything, he hated them.

Whenever we did attend one of the aforementioned baby showers, he had a miserable time. And although I did enjoy the bit of karmic justice that came with his misery, I was also the one who was stuck dealing with him and his sour demeanor as a result.

As soon as the "grown-ups" were out of sight, he'd scoff and roll his eyes as if he were a teenager who'd been forced to break his plans to watch his little siblings on a playdate. Just having one of the kids accidentally brush or bump against him was enough for him to grimace as if they'd smeared him with shit. And God forbid, any actually tried to talk with him. More than once he'd almost outed his true personality to all of his coworkers by simply forgetting where he was and essentially telling a kid to go fuck off.

Of course, he always managed to bounce back with a quick apology to the child and a half-assed excuse for his "poor behavior." The parents bought it enough, but I could tell by the look on their faces that the kids always knew he was full of shit. They do say kids are great judges of character, after all.

No, whatever his motivation, I'm sure Phil didn't actually want any kids. Like me, they were a prop in the little fantasy play he put on for the viewing pleasure of society. Honestly, even if I did want to have kids, I don't think I would have wanted to have them with Phil. Nobody deserved to live through the kind of emotional hell that he had put me through. Especially not a child.

However, the fact that he was completely unfit to become a parent didn't seem to bother him in the least. No, he still seemed just as bound and determined as the other day to make sure he knocked me up somehow. To say that he laid it on thick would be an understatement. And I was the lucky girl forced to deal with it all.

Of course, with all of these factors combined, time seemed to move by at the speed of cold molasses as a result. A stroke of bad luck to be sure, but one that wasn't really anyone's fault. I mean, Mason had his job to do and Eli certainly didn't ask to be sick.

Phil sucked, but honestly, I couldn't even blame him too much either. After all, he always had been a self-serving bastard. As inconvenient as it was, I couldn't exactly say any of his behavior thus far had been out of character for him.

No, much like the others, it was just a case of bad timing. Too much shit piling up at one time. As shit is oft to do.

However, all of that bad luck was finally about to come to an end. Why? Because today was Friday. And that meant tomorrow was Saturday. And that meant that I would finally be able to see Mason again.

My head was already buzzing just thinking of him. I couldn't wait to be with him again. To see him, to touch him, to hear his voice, to feel his skin against mine as he made my body blaze and tremble in a way that only he could.

But that was Saturday. Today was still Friday. Which meant that I had to control myself.

After all, this was Phil's dreaded "day off." The last thing I needed was for him to see me too giddy and get the wrong idea about it. Or the right idea. Neither would pan out for me very well.

But it was fine. I'd just do what I always did. Keep myself busy, make excuses to stay out, and avoid him as much as one humanly could for living under the same roof as someone. A pain for sure, but it was just one more day. And one I'd already lived a hundred times before. I could handle it.

Still, the anticipation was killing me. All I wanted to do was pull out my phone and send Mason a million dirty texts to rile him up for tomorrow. Maybe after Phil went to bed tonight I could-

"Ah, don't forget to wear something nice for tomorrow," Phil commented suddenly, shattering the peaceful realm that had been my thoughts. "The clothes my mother gave you are... lovely, but you'll need to do a little better than that if we're really going to turn heads tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" I asked, a sinking feeling slowly growing in the pit of my stomach.

"Yes, tomorrow," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "We have that charity dinner to go to, remember?"

I didn't. I absolutely and completely didn't. And as the memory of it came rushing back to me, I felt my mood deflating just as quickly.

"Ah, right. I almost forgot," I mumbled, barely able to hide my displeasure.

"Well, now you remember, so make sure you wear something nice," he repeated.

I nodded along, but I wasn't really listening to anything that he was saying anymore. I glanced down at my plate in silence. I shoved food around on it absentmindedly with my fork, too nauseous to eat now. And as I did, the miserable thoughts slowly started to pile up inside of my head.

Once again, harsh reality stepped in to crush my foolish fantasies. Bit by bit, the odds were slowly stacking up against us. Nosy neighbors, work on the weekdays, parties on the weekends, and Phil on the warpath for a baby. Each one was like an anchor, dragging me further and further away from Mason as they drowned me in misery.

Mason... exactly how long would it be before I could finally see him again?