Vaelor
I don’t remember deciding to get up.
I just wasn’t on the mattress anymore and then I was in here, and the pantry was open. My hands were already moving and I can’t seem to stop.
That was an hour ago. Maybe two. I’ve stopped checking.
There’s eggs. Someone stocked this place well before everything fell apart — Lena probably, or Mara, one of the women who’s been keeping the Hollow running while we’ve been falling to pieces.
I find a cast iron pan and set it on the burner and stand there watching the heat ripple up from the surface.
Scrambled eggs. Then the rest of the oats. Then something with the potatoes in the back of the pantry that are going to go bad if nobody uses them.
I work through it methodically. One thing at a time. My hands know what to do even when the rest of me doesn’t.
From the hall I can hear Rane talking. And Kyron’s voice, tight and wrong.
It’s quiet for a while and then I hear Kyron again.
It’s not until something falls over and there’s a sound I feel in my back teeth — bones cracking, a rustle of wings — that I finally pause.
The double doors bang open and the cold comes in for a second before they swing shut again.
I keep my eyes on the pan.
I don’t know what to do with any of that. With any of this. What I know is that people need to eat. That’s something I can do. That’s something that makes sense because nothing else does.
I find flour in the back cabinet.
My hands are already measuring before I realize what I’m making.
Bread.
I stop and look down at the bowl. At the flour on my hands. At the way my body just went there without asking me first.
She reached for it before anything else. Every meal, every table — her hand would go to the bread like she needed to confirm it was real before she let herself believe the rest of it was too. I started making extra. I never said anything about it. I just made sure there was always enough for her.
I don’t know when I started doing it. I just did.
My face is wet.
How did…
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter.
I stand there with flour on my hands and the bowl in front of me. I can’t make myself move. Or make myself dump it out and I can’t make myself keep going and I just — stand here like an idiot. The burner is still on. Something’s going to burn.
I don’t have it in me to care.
The kitchen door opens.
I know it’s Cal without looking. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask if I’m okay or tell me it’s going to be fine. Which is good, because I might punch him if he did. He just looks at the bowl and looks at me and pulls out one of the stools at the counter and sits down.
That’s it.
My hands start moving again. Not because it makes sense. Just because I don’t know how to stop now that I’ve started again.
The bread takes a long time to make. Cal stays the whole way through. Neither of us says a word.
When it’s done I put it on the counter and look at it for a long moment.
I stand there looking at it. The bread on the counter. The way she’d come in here and steal a piece or three and I’d let her because some habits don’t end because your situation changes.
Cal’s hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy and steady and he just leaves it there.
I put my hand over my face.
I don’t know if I can make the tears stop either.