To Caress My Day

“Tahliah, when were you gonna tell me about your mother’s cancer?” Seth gingerly asked his girlfriend as he sat across from her at her small dining table. It was a lovely Thursday morning spent leisurely making sweet love in Twig’s bed and then in her shower before he ventured off to whip her up some breakfast. It was an all American breakfast with scrambled eggs, buttery toast, and crispy bacon since that was all in the fridge. He had forgotten to make the tea and instinctively had gone for coffee.

Seth’s mind was on yesterday, and the reason why he came to visit his girlfriend in London in the first place. It was an imperative matter that he was prepared to jump into the second he walked through her door, only he found her in tears and he clung to him like a desperate woman. It no longer seemed like the right time to discuss it, and so he gave her comfort instead and at her urging, made love to her. But now they were having breakfast together, both looking physically sated and yet still tired from their passionate morning. It felt like now was the time to touch base on that sensitive subject.

Twigs went still in her seat, the warm crispy bacon slipping past her loose fingers down to her full plate. She swallowed hard as her rosy-colored morning became bleak all over again. Too weak to meet his brown eyes, Twigs faintly whispered after a moment of silence. “How do you know about that?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Seth eluded, unwilling to name the person who enlightened him of the appalling news. If she knew, she'd retaliate on that person by taking her anger and her hurt out on them. Seth didn’t want to do that to Simone, not when she was absolutely hysterical over the phone when she told him. She was hurt too, and he could understand why. Seth was hurt himself. Instead of telling her own boyfriend what was going on with her mother, Twigs decided to shut him out alongside her friends.

Lord knows how long Twigs would’ve kept him out too if Simone had never found out and snitched.

“I know it was one of my friends.” Twigs grumbled under her breath, sitting back in her chair to glare down at her breakfast she’d hardly even touched. It’s not that she wasn’t hungry, in fact, when she sat down she’d been starving! But at the mention of her mother’s cancer her appetite fled and left her with nothing to do but to find something else to feel. She gravitated to her anger. Rising from her seat, she began to make herself some tea, not wanting a drop of coffee anymore because the pot was located right across the table right by her boyfriend. She didn’t want to face him yet especially not after the enchanting morning they had spent together.

Why must reality corrupt all of her treasured moments?

Refusing to confirm her accurate suspicions, a worried Seth turned in his seat to face her as he too deserted his meal to revert back to the subject of her mother. “Tahliah, I wanna help your mother too. I can pay for anything she needs to fight this cancer, anything at all! You just name it, baby, and I’ll do it with no questions asked!”

“No! Forget it, Seth! I don't wanna hear it!” Twigs snapped at him, slamming her mug down onto the counter to assert the ending of the matter. She still couldn't bring herself to face him, to see the look on his face. To see his pain. This was hurting him too, her mother’s cancer. It probably brought up the tragedy of his own mother’s cancer that fatally snuffed out her life. Twigs didn’t have to spare him a glance to verify it so when she could feel it emanating like a gray melancholy cloud between them. No matter what, she refused to accept his money or his aid precisely the same way…her mother, of course, would respond if it had been her he was speaking to.

“Well, that’s too bad, cause you're gonna hear it!” Seth barked back, rising to his feet with both hands splayed flat on her table top. With breakfast no longer a priority, he stood his ground with the determination to win nourishing his every word as he narrowed his eyes on her rigid back. “Cancer is a serious disease that can be an expensive battle to fight. I don’t care if you already have the money to pay for all the procedures she’s gonna need to beat this, I’m not gonna stand idling by and twiddle my thumbs when I can be quickly offering every ounce of help I could give to your family. I know she’s your mother, Tahliah, and you love her more than anyone else on this planet. I don’t want you to lose her! I CAN’T let you lose her! I won’t let you go through what I had to go through if I can help it, so what I need you to do is just cut all this ‘independent woman’ bullshit for fucking once and let me help you!”

Twig’s ire from before had only escalated with his every word to where she was now so highly irate she was irrational. Nothing running through her mind right now made sense just as much as her counter attack to his words was. Ditching the tea, she whirled around to finally face him, tears filling her eyes and thankfully clouding her vision before pouring down her satiny cheeks. “Fuck you, Seth! Do you hear me? FUCK YOU! Why the fuck do you even care about me!? About my mother?! You’re hardly ever around anymore nor can spare a single second to pick up your phone! You’ve practically abandoned me here to endure this cruel world without you! You’ve taken my entire life, my soul, the very fucking breath from my own lungs and yet you still expect me to walk on my own again like before we met? How fucking dare you!? Why don’t you go back to not giving a shit within your precious California and get lost!?”

Stunned, and painfully hurt by Twig’s words, Seth watched speechlessly as she fled from the kitchen and down the hallway. He flinched when he heard her bedroom door slammed shut, banning him from entering after her. He wasn’t going to follow her. Instead, he linger in her apartment, staying out in the living room and kitchen area until they both had cooled themselves down from their fight.

Seth tried to forget the words he had said, and the words she had said. It became more challenging when he sat down to gobble up his breakfast. Needing something to preoccupy himself with from these horrid playbacks so he wouldn’t end up buying a one way ticket back to California today, Seth set his dishes in the sink, put Twig’s leftovers away, and tried to plan for lunch hours later. Opening his girlfriend’s fridge up, he was reminded of the discovery he found that morning.

There wasn’t much in her fridge. As in she literally only had enough for eggs, bacon and toast, but other than that, she had butter. Breakfast had depleted everything else in her fridge. It was startling to Seth, because she was a young woman who needed to eat to keep herself healthy for her active career, and yet her fridge only had butter. Figuring he caught her close to a grocery shopping day, Seth grabbed his coat from her coat rack and got himself ready to go out. He didn’t know exactly what his girlfriend typically bought when she went grocery shopping since he’d never gone with her before, but he was gonna do his best to pick them out a delicious lunch that would chase the gray clouds in her life away.
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“Seth?” Twig’s voice whispered out as she cracked open her bedroom door. It felt like hours since they’d fought, and despite the heated words they exchanged she wanted to be in his arms again and be swallowed by the heat of his body. Pushing aside her pride, she exited her bedroom and crept down the hall in search of him. Entering the kitchen and living room area, she couldn’t see a trace of him.

Oh my god. Did she…did she chase him away?

Clamping a hand over her mouth, Twigs began to break down, her mind absolutely convinced she had indeed driven away the love of her life. Unable to keep herself on her feet, she stumbled into the kitchen on unbalanced legs and dropped herself in a chair with a sob. “W-What have I done?”

Twigs cursed herself. She cursed herself for being such an ungrateful woman. The man was only trying to help her and her mother, and thank him by baring her teeth like an animal and going off on him. And now he’s gone all the way back home to California without a word goodbye. Twigs didn’t think it possible to hate herself this much, but she did as she laid her head on her table and wrapped her arms around herself to weep in peace. She didn’t know how long she wept when all of a sudden someone was engaging with the locks on her apartment door. Jerking upright, her bloodshot eyes gaped as Seth stepped into her home with a few plastic bags of what smelt like steamy delectable heaven. Unable to fathom he was there in front of her again when she had just ran him off, Twigs weakly rose to her feet. “Y-You’re still here?”

Glancing up, he saw his distraught baby gaping at him like he was Zeus himself. Giving her a tender smile, he locked her front door and then set the plastic bags on her dining table for her. “What? You think you could get rid of me that easily? I hate to break it to you, but no. You’ll have to try harder than that, Pixie.”

Letting out something between a laugh and a sob, Twigs once again launched herself at him much like she had when he first arrived the day before. And just like the day before, he caught her and hoisted her up so she could wrap both her legs and arms around him. She cradled his head to her breasts, burying her face in his short hair before raining kisses over the silky strands then down his handsome face.

Just like before, Seth could tell she needed him. She needed his body right now. Willing to hand it over on a silver platter, he raised his head to clash with her lips as he lowered her down onto her dining table. Shedding his coat, and then his shirt next, Seth assisted Twigs with undoing his pants. He emitted a moan when he watched her hand dive deep into his briefs and then re-emerge with her dainty hands curled around his semi-erection. Reaching for her hair, he gently maneuvered the hair tie from her curls as she swept her oversize shirt over her head and then shuffled around on the table to aid him with her shorts and underwear. In seconds she was naked, he still had his pants still on. But he didn’t need to remove them. Pulling her closer, she tightened her legs around him as he masterfully steered his cock between her legs and delved inside with one deep thrust into the core of her body, making her scream his name.