Page 52 of Not How I Saw That Going

My stomach pitches and rolls. I jump to my feet and sprint for the nearest trash can. I don’t make it.

The mac ‘n cheese comes tumbling up. Not on the grass, but on the walking path. The only walking path in the park.

“Are you kidding me?” a jogger a few feet away yells.

Is that a rhetorical question?

I pop my head up in her direction, saliva dribbling down my chin. “Sorry?” Also rhetorical.

She blanches and skirts around me at a ten-foot distance. “Keep it to yourself next time.”

“I usually do,” I holler after her. Man, some people’s kids. So inconsiderate.

“Ahh! What’s that?” Maddie screeches as she rounds the bend again with Crew.

How does she run so fast?

“What’s what?” I ask innocently, then pretend to notice the mess for the first time. “Oh. Yuck. We should probably go.”

Crew pees in restaurants and I puke in parks. It must be a bad gene.

I snatch my water bottle from the stroller and down half of it until the acidic taste goes away.

Maddie waits until we are out of the park before she speaks again. “You threw up, didn’t you?”

I roll my eyes. “Of course I did.”

I’ve never been the best at holding the contents of my stomach. When I was pregnant with Crew, I threw up every day. I even threw up while I was pushing him out. I heard I did some other unspeakable things as well, but I refuse to believe those lies.

Maddie tries to turn in the direction of my apartment, but I take the stroller from her and flip around. She promised me donuts, she’s buying me donuts.

The donut shop isn’t busy like it probably was a few hours ago, so we order our pastries and have a slew of benches to choose from.

“So, how’s the internship going?” I lean back in the booth, letting the air conditioner revive my overheated body. I’ve never understood how people work out in such hot climates. It’s unnatural.

Maddie pinches a tiny piece of her gluten-free donut and delicately places it on her tongue.

I love her, but sometimes I just want to shove a piece of triple chocolate cake down her throat.

“It’s terrible. Conner steals all my ideas, and makes fun of me endlessly.”

“So he’s in love with you?” I take a bite of my triple chocolate donut. Heaven in a pastry.

Maddie laughs like a maniacal hyena. “Yeah, right.”

“Isn’t that what kids do in school when they have a crush?”

“Maybe elementary.” Maddie pinches off another microscopic piece. “Granted, that’s about where his maturity level is.”

“Mom, can I have another one?” Crew asks. Chocolate is smeared all over his cheeks. This will be a fun mess to clean up, but after running around the world and back again, I don’t have the energy to care.

“Only one more,” I give in. He ate his too fast for me to enjoy mine, and I need some chocolate-induced me time.

“Thank you!” He reaches for a white one this time. Good. That should balance it out.

“Are you Frosty Mom?”

I jerk up to see a teen girl standing beside me. “Excuse me?”