The proposal (cramp)

I could feel my heart beating hard against my chest wall. My hands began to get clammy, the telephone becoming much harder to grip. I leant against the kitchen bench to help support my shaking knees and stared at the sink, wondering whether my stomach was going to share last night’s dinner with it.
         I could hear the voice coming through the other end of the telephone clearly, yet I could barely even recognize the language it was speaking as my own. The airy, feminine voice flowing into my ears was just becoming the background noise for the thoughts screaming around inside my head.
         The woman had just laid out a proposal that I could not refuse, I knew that if I said no to the offer I might as well start planning my own wake, not only that I would lose a part of myself that was more important than life itself. I was left with no option but to accept.
         My body felt cold, almost as if the blood had been drained from the veins that ferried it to my flesh and I was left lifeless, a shell of a human being. I was snapped back to the conversation, which I had been politely adding “yes” and the occasional “mhmm” into the breaks during her monotonous speech, by a subtle change of tone from which I assumed she was bidding me farewell.
         The deadline was one week from today. I had 7 days to acquire all the skills that I required. As long as the usual work week felt, 7 days is not a long time, not long at all. My body went into panic mode, my mind ablaze with images of the multiple ways this could end disastrously. I moped into the lounge room and flaked out on the couch staring up at the roof, losing myself in the simplicity of the solid cream. 
         
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                Friday night, 6 p.m. The time that my life was set to be balanced on the sharpest knife edge you could possibly imagine. Looking down at my wrist watch I saw it was 5 O’clock, Friday the 13th of April. The week had passed faster than seemed probable.
         My chest heaved with a heavy hearted sigh. I was subjecting myself to torture, but I knew I had no choice. I picked up my freshly pressed shirt from my bed, slipping my arms inside the sleeves before doing up each button at an excruciatingly slow pace. However, no matter how I tried I was never pushing the deadline back, slowing down time, or both which would have made me ecstatic. No, the time had come. There was no running, no hiding or turning back.
         Breathing in deeply, I sucked up all the courage I could muster and headed towards the door. The only comfort I have as I twist the door handle revealing a needling cool breeze outside was that my father had set out to do as I am now, and lived to tell the tale. As I stepped into the car I was as close to knowing how I was going to pass the test, but deep down I really knew that no matter how painful an experience this may be that if all I have to do to spend the rest of my life with the girl of my dreams is to get through one dinner alone with her mother, then it is a risk I am more than willing to take.