Andrew isn’t laughing at all. She doesn’t notice he’s stopped. He’s behind her, and all he’s doing is staring.
“There you are!” she says, rushing at me with a spoon. “Here! Oh my god, taste this.”
There’s a red sauce in her spoon, but I look at it as if it’s poison, my eyes flitting to Andrew for a second, but looking back to the spoon because he’s still looking at me, not smiling, and if it is poison, I think it’s still my better option.
“What…is it?” I ask, pulling my bag back up to my shoulder and adjusting the weight of it.
“It’s marinara. Drew made it, and it’s so freakin’ good. You have to try.” She holds the spoon to my lips, and I lean forward, letting her feed me like a child, my eyes glancing to Andrew—Drew—as I taste it. His mouth tugs up on one corner into a smirk, and I can’t help but hear his voice in my head.
Her cookies made me sick.
“It’s good,” I say, my eyes on him the entire time. It’s delicious, but good is polite. It won’t make me sick, and it won’t make me well. It’s just a taste that somehow feels very much like the boy I knew…know.
“Made it from scratch,” he smirks. Lindsey joins him in the kitchen again, and he takes the spoon back from her, but his gaze lingers on me. “Dinner’s served in ten minutes,” he adds, waiting for me to react. My stomach sinks.
I was gone the entire day. My body hurts, and all I want is a hot shower. I wanted to miss this, yet somehow, I timed it just right.
“Oh…it’s okay, I’m not that hungry,” I say, looking down to my feet. His stare—it hurts. And he won’t stop.
“You sure? We made plenty. We didn’t want to leave you out,” he adds, turning back to tend to the stove. Lindsey’s looking up at him with stars, hearts, and probably rainbow unicorns in her eyes; it makes my breath feel heavy.
“I’m sure, but…thank you,” I say. His arm stops moving, no longer stirring the noodles in the water. Lindsey steps away, carrying a pile of bowls and plates to the small kitchen table by our window, and the second she leaves the room, he turns to face me, the mask gone.
“You’re welcome, Emma,” he says, his mouth a hard, flat line and his eyes cloudy with what I’m pretty sure is regret.
We stand in our little pocket of silence with our eyes locked for a few seconds, and it’s like he’s memorizing parts of me he’s forgotten while I’m counting how many parts of him have changed—nearly all of him has as far as I can tell.
“Please join us,” Lindsey startles me, her hands wrapping around my bicep. I jump, and she laughs. “Sorry. Really, though, I was about to text you to tell you he was here, and we made dinner. It’ll be fun. We usually eat sandwiches or microwave meals, Drew. This is a big night out for Em and me. Ha…and we didn’t even go out.”
I manage to keep my attention on her, even though I can see Andrew standing in the same place behind her, his eyes never once leaving their hold on me.
“Please?” she begs, making tiny jumps on her toes as she slides her grip down to my fingertips. This is how a toddler begs for a toy. It’s effective.
I breathe in slowly through my nose and nod a few times.
“Sure. I just need a minute,” I say. I need several minutes. I need hours, maybe days. But minutes are better than nothing.
I carry my bag to my room and fall into my bed, crawling up to the pillow and pushing my face into the folds of the material. All I want is to stay here. I indulge in the coolness of my bed for a full minute, breathing in and out until I convince myself my anxiety isn’t going anywhere.
I sit up and look at my reflection in the mirror above my dresser, my hair now knotted in twists and tufts around my head. Leaning forward, I grab my brush, holding my hair near the base of my head and tugging it through the long strands until I look a little less wild.
I kick off my old clothes, putting on a clean pair of jeans and the purple sweatshirt slung over the end of my bed—throwing it over my head without even thinking until I step back out into the living room and Andrew’s eyes fall on me, registering the familiar shirt. His expression tells me he recalls the memory that goes along with it. I usually think of it, too. And I don’t know why I didn’t tonight. Maybe, my mind wanted to fool me into wearing it just to spite me, my subconscious in cahoots with the boy who built up the memory in the first place. I wore this sweatshirt when Andrew taught me how to ice-skate. It was new then, and I’ve thought about throwing it away or donating it so many times since. I could never seem to part with it, though.