Photo by Portuguese Gravity on Unsplash
The anniversary dinner talk continued from salad to steak. Life complications had kept Alledria, Wayne, and Dara busy and four months of family, friends, work, and life gossip, plus covering favorite shows and books meant the dessert discussion didn’t occur until the plates had been scraped clean and the food server stood over them asking if they wanted anything else. She walked away with the used plates and an order for one molten monster, officially for Wayne, but the meal, and conversation, extension included a request for three clean forks.
While pushing back her twists as the three friends return to concentrate on each other, Dara felt a tickle on her arm. She muttered “drat” when she discovered blood welling from a hole on her forearm and reached for her purse she had hooked onto the table.
“You really shouldn’t scratch your scabs like that,” Wayne commented as Dara applied a band-aid to the wound.
“I didn’t—”
Alledria interrupted, bumping her husband. “I’ve told her that a thousand times. It’s an old habit from school. One time, she…” Alledria started a story from their high school years which Dara had hear a hundred times and Alledria’s husband at least six.
The muscle cramps from laughing relaxed in Dara’s face; the edges of her smile took on a brittleness, crumbling the wideness away, removing the best parts of the joy. “Never mind,” sighed from suddenly numb lips, her quiet words unheard across the table. She inserted laughter appropriately when the Alledria ended the story.
Wayne responded with a short anecdote about a family member’s childhood. All of them had been sharing toddler and baby stories all afternoon in between other news because of Alledria’s pregnancy announcement. The molten monster, a mixture of chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and hot caramel, arrived as he delivered the punchline. With the forks distributed, Alledria grabbed out the first bite of bitter fudge and sweet ice cream. Beside her, Wayne carved out a piece of cake and caramel.
Dara scraped the tines of her fork through the decorative chocolate drizzle on the edge of the plate. After tasting the cocoa delight, she set the fork down to watch the others devour the dessert.
About midway through the oversized caloric sugar rush, Alledria paused to wipe the edges of her mouth and noticed Dara’s quietness. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.” The corners of Dara’s mouth pushed against the crumbling, forcing a politer smile into place.
A quick frown crossed Alledria’s face. “Don’t give me that. Something’s wrong.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, no.” Alledria reached across the table to grab her best friend’s hand. “Don’t think about Kase. He’s not worth it.”
“It’s not him.” Dara eased her hand out of Alledria’s grasp. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. You only shut down like this when—”
“I’m not thinking about him at all, I promise.” Dara tried a better smile to deflect her personal bloodhound of a friend. “Don’t let the ice cream melt.”
“Wayne will take care of it.” Alledia pushed the plate out of the middle of the table to in front of her husband. “If you are not thinking about him, what made you shut down.”
“Nothing. I’m good. Everything is fine.”
“No, no.” Tapping her chin, Alledria started rewinding the conversation, “Jess sleeping on a toddler toilet, scrapping off a couple of scabs for making slides for biology, the band-aid…” Her face froze in consternation, “I cut you off.”
“No, you didn’t—”
“I did. I did. More than that, I didn’t listen.”
“It’s fine.”
“No. I promised you I would always listen, but I haven’t been. Not about your scabs.”
Blood raised against Dara’s cheeks in a shadowy blush. She shrugged. “It’s fine. No one ever listens. I’m used to it.” Dara’s eyes grew round when she realized what had come out of her mouth.
“Oh.my.god.” Alledria grabbed Dara’s hand. “I’m so sorry.
“It’s—”
“If you say fine or okay one more time, I will hurt you. Don’t make a pregnant woman hurt you.”
Dara gave a small chuckle. “Are you going to use that excuse for the next six month?”
“Of course, wouldn’t you?”
“She’s been using it on me for the last month.” Wayne said as he finished the dessert. “Welcome to the club.” He paused then added. “You know how bulldog she is about finding things out, abstemiously for her writing, but really because she likes to poke her nose into everything. Yeah, triple that because of hormones after the morning sickness wears off in the morning.”
“You poor man.” Dara commiserated.
“Don’t,” Alledria waved a finger first at Dara and then at Wayne. “Don’t distract me.” She returned her focus to her friend. “We are going to get refills on our drinks and then we are going to back up and you are going to tell me about your scabs.”
“You know about them.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Alledria started ticking off what she did know. “You have had them forever. They just happen whenever. You’ve seen doctors about them. Have you ever gotten a diagnosis?”
Dara nodded.
“What was it?”
“Non-psychosis Stigmata.”
Wayne choked on his beer. While patting his back, Alledria said, “I think I would have remembered if you said that.”
“I tend to say hematidrosis or psychogenic purpua, since that is the most common type of unexplained bleeding, but it isn’t sweating blood and it isn’t stress induced.” Alledia pulled out a small notebook from her purse and patted it. “It didn’t increase or decrease for Christmas crazy in the retail stores, nor did the divorce impact it. I’ve kept track.”
“So what does the diagnosis actually mean?”
“Same as most diagnosis, it is Latin or whatever that translates into the symptoms you have, not what is causing it. Like COPD means ‘Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease’ or you have chronic issues causing swelling in the lungs which makes it hard to breath. In my case, I have random unexplained bleeding from the skin not tied to a high religious fervor.”
“That’s helpful.” Alledria deadpanned.
“Yep. And expense,” Dara said. “I stopped investigating when the store dropped health insurance for the hourly workers.”
“Alright, let’s wind back to the beginning and you tell me everything.” Alledria waved at their server and indicated more drinks for everyone.
(words 1,056; first published 4/11/2026 – Getting closer to the story I was trying to write, but still not there. The characters just keep chatting like they are friends.)
Anniversary Dinner Series
Chapter One: Anniversary Dinner (9/11/2022)
Chapter Two: What’s Wrong (9/8/2024)
Chapter Three: What’s Wrong with Me? (12/29/2024)