Week 312 – She yawned and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Raising a son on your own was exhausting.

Maisie ushered her energetic little ball of energy towards where she’d parked the car. Milo might only be four years old but he seemed to need less sleep than she did.

“Mama, can we get pizza for dinner?” he asked excitedly, bouncing up and down and taking her arm with him since she was holding his hand.

Not having to cook dinner? Yeah, she could go along with that. She yawned and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Raising a son on your own was exhausting. This was not how she’d expected to become a parent. She’d been in love with Match, thought he loved her too, when he’d disappeared from her life like he’d never even existed she’d been hurt and confused.

Then she’d found out she was pregnant.

Maisie had done everything she could to try to find him, m but Match wasn’t even his real name and nothing he’d told her about himself seemed to be true.

So life as a single mom it was.

There was plenty of guilt about all the things she couldn’t do for Milo, all the things she couldn’t give him. But between working long hours to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, she gave him everything she had and had to make peace with what she couldn’t.

Days like today at the fair made up for it.

“You can eat more after the corn dog, and the hot dog, and the nachos, and the cotton candy, and the popcorn?” she teased as they headed further away from the fair.

“I’m growing, Mama, I need lots of food,” Milo giggled.

“Course my big boy does.” She ruffled his hair as an uneasy feeling filled her. The fair had been busy and they’d arrived a little later than she’d planned, meaning all the good parking was already taken. Maisie hated parking, needed somewhere quiet, without too many cars, so she didn’t risk dinting one of them.

The result, they were parked down a quiet one way street, and had left behind the last of the hustle and bustle a good two minutes ago.

“And ice cream for dessert?” Milo pushed the boundaries as any preschooler should do.

“We’ll see, sweet pea,” she said distractedly. Something felt wrong but she didn’t know what. “Come on, my big boy, lets get into the car, its getting chilly.”

Just as she was reaching around to open the back door and get Milo settled in his carseat, something sharp pricked the back of her neck.

Any hope it was just a bug biting her quickly fled when almost immediately her vision began to blur and her legs wobble.

No.

Her baby.

She couldn’t let them hurt her sweet, bubbly little boy.

Maisie swung her purse at the figure she now detected beside her but her movement was slow and clumsy, the drugs already taking over.

As she swayed and fell, hitting the ground hard, she could have sworn it was Match looking down at her.

She had to be mistaken.

Match had abandoned her, and even if he’d come back what reason would he have for drugging her?

There were no answers to be found as she was swallowed by the darkness.