Free Date Shark by DelSheree Gladden

wanted to get a drink last night. I know I’m not very good at seeing people’s real intentions, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to ask me out for any reason other than just to get to know me. I don’t know, what do you think, Eli?”
    Eli couldn’t prove Conrad right. He couldn’t prove Ana right. “You were really interested in this guy?”
    “Yeah. I do want to see him, but I don’t want to keep making the same mistakes.”
    “Leila, that wasn't a hard and fast rule I expected you to follow. I only wanted you to think before you accepted a date.” Eli’s emotions tried to talk him out of his next sentence, but he beat them back. “If you feel confident about this guy’s intentions and you really want to go out with him, then say yes when he calls.”
    Her sigh of relief echoed through the phone.
    “And call me if you have any questions before you go out … and after so you can tell me how it went.” Eli was sadistic, he realized that, but he couldn’t force himself to leave it alone. Even if he had to listen to Leila tell him about a date with another guy, he wanted to hear her voice.
    “Thanks, Eli. You’re so great. Thanks for letting me bug you in the middle of your run.”
    “It’s no problem. Call me any time, Leila.”
    When she hung up, the urge to thrown his phone against a wall almost got the better of him. He probably would have if it hadn’t rang again. Without looking at the caller ID, he picked it up blindly, hoping Leila had remembered something else she wanted to ask him.
    “Mr. Walsh, this is Dr. Evans.”
    Eli’s hand went numb instantly. The feeling slowly started spreading to the rest of his body. “Yes?”
    “I’m calling in regards to your mother. The medication we started her on yesterday is having adverse effects. We need your permission to make a change in her care plan.”
    “What kind of adverse effects?” Eli asked.
    Dr. Evans cleared his throat before answering. “Well, the delusions became worse almost immediately. She began calling for your father and couldn’t be calmed without a sedative. While under sedation she suffered a minor seizure. But most troubling was a sudden drop in kidney function.”
    “Her kidneys? That wasn’t one of the listed side effects.”
    “No, Mr. Walters, but with the widespread damage to your mother’s system, the possibility for additional side effects is always present.”
    Widespread damage. There was a lot of that going around. “What do you want to put her on?”
    “I would like to go back to Haloperidol.”
    “But that wasn’t controlling her delusions.”
    Dr. Evans sighed. “It worked the best. We don’t have many options left. Your mother’s body can’t withstand any drug with too severe of side effects. She tolerates Haloperidol and gets moderate relief from her symptoms. Unfortunately that is all we can offer her at this stage. Do I have your permission to change her care plan?”
    “Yes.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Walsh.” Eli began lowering the phone in hopes that he could cut him off, but his words slipped in anyway. “She asks for you every day, Mr. Walsh. It might help her if you came to visit.”
    Completing the motion Eli had started, he ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket. He was on his way home, but the anxiety burning under his skin spurred him to pick up his pace again. He ran. The distance, the growing ache in his side, he ignored them both and forced his feet to keep slapping against the pavement until everything had been sweated out of him. Thoughts of his mother dropped off of him and splattered on the pavement. He wanted everything gone. It all evaporated except Leila.
    She had called him for advice. That was his job. He collapsed under the awning of his apartment building, holding his phone and willing her to call him. Eli was the one who needed to talk this time. He needed advice, but had no one to ask. He sat there until a line of ants crept out of a crack in the sidewalk