CHAPTER THREE #2
She was quiet for a moment and then shook her head. “No. I always wanted to go to Harvard. They have one of the best medical programs in the country.”
“Did you not get accepted to Harvard?”
“I never applied,” she simply responded, almost drily.
I wanted to ask why not, but maybe that was too straightforward. We were still strangers, after all. I shouldn’t be asking such personal questions. It wasn’t very… ladylike.
“Right,” I simply said before biting down on my lower lips. What else could I say? I wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
God, this was only getting more awkward.
I was about to excuse myself, to retreat to my room and the familiar comfort of solitude, when Elyssa straightened from the closet and turned to face me fully.
“I’m about to order dinner,” she said, pulling her phone from her back pocket. “Do you want anything? My treat.”
The offer was so ordinary, so casually generous, that it caught me off guard. No one in my world offered things without expectation.
I had long learned that favors were transactions and kindness was currency.
But Elyssa’s expression held nothing transactional—just the simple, open warmth of someone who believed that sharing a meal was a perfectly reasonable way to begin knowing another person.
I guessed this was normal to share a meal like this… in the normal world.
“What are you in the mood for?” I asked, and the question felt like a small act of courage.
She scrolled through her phone, her thumb moving with slow ease. “I heard there’s a place down the street that does really good burgers and fries.” She looked up with a grin. “I’m craving a good burger. Does that sound good?”
Burgers and fries.
My stomach twisted, the idea sounding forbidden. I had never, not once in eighteen years, been permitted to eat food that could be described as greasy. Meals in the Morelli household were curated affairs: lean proteins, steamed vegetables, and olive oil measured in teaspoons rather than poured.
And the sisters at St. Clare’s Academy had spoken of appetite as something to be managed, contained, and redirected toward prayer.
Indulgence was a weakness. Discipline was a virtue.
And virtue, as I had been reminded daily, was non-negotiable.
But there was no one here to enforce those rules. No father watching from the head of the table. No mother with her quiet, disappointed gaze. No sisters of St. Clare’s Academy monitoring my plate with the vigilance of wardens.
The realization should have felt liberating.
Instead, it left me unsteady, as though every rule I’d ever lived by had been pulled from beneath me all at once. Nervousness gnawed at my stomach.
“Oh,” Elyssa said, her smile slipping as she took in my expression. “You want something else? A healthier option, perhaps?”
I opened my mouth but then closed it again, unsure what to say. How to respond.
For the first time in my life, the choice was mine. Truly mine.
“No, I’m good with burgers and fries.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Thank you.”
Always polite. Always calm.
Elyssa placed the order. Two double cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, and two Cokes.
And we waited in the living room.
She sat on the opposite end of the couch, legs crossed, phone resting on her knee. She didn’t fill the silence with chatter, which I appreciated. The quiet between us wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the quiet of two people allowing each other space to exist without performance.
I liked that.
I liked her.
The food arrived in twenty minutes. Elyssa answered the door and brought the paper bags to the coffee table.
The smell that emerged when she opened them was overwhelming—grease and salt and something charred and savory that made my stomach contract with an insatiable hunger I hadn’t known I was carrying.
She handed me a burger and a carton of fries.
I unwrapped it carefully, the paper warm and slightly translucent with oil.
The bun was soft. The patty was thick and uneven, cheese melted into its crevices.
I held it the way one might hold something fragile—carefully, with both hands, unsure of its weight.
My lungs squeezed.
I inhaled, taking in a deep breath, and then I took a bite.
The flavors exploded across my tongue. Beef, cheese, and pickles… the mixture of taste was tangy and sharp. The bread was soft and the grease was warm against my lips.
It was nothing like the food I had been raised on. It was messy and unrefined and utterly, devastatingly good.
The richness of the burger settled heavily in my stomach, and I felt it twisting, unaccepting of the food I was eating, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
God, it was so good that I hurriedly took another bite… and another… and for a moment, I forgot my composure. I forgot to… perform. To be polite and adequate. To eat like a proper lady.
I hastily reached for a fry. It was crisp on the outside, soft within, and I ate three of them in quick succession before I caught myself.
My eyes landed on Elyssa. She placed her burger down and looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand. It wasn’t amusement, nor was it pity, but something closer to recognition.
“Is this your first time?” she asked slowly, her voice quiet. The question was gentle, stripped of judgment.
I could have lied.
Maybe I should have.
“I’ve never had burgers and fries before.” I swallowed. The shame arrived before I could stop it. My cheeks heated, my throat tightening with unsaid emotions as I realized that I was showing myself to be… inexperienced.
But Elyssa didn’t laugh.
She simply picked up her burger again and took another bite, chewing thoughtfully.
“They’re good, right?” she said. “The first one’s always the best.”
The tenderness in her voice was so unexpected, so foreign that it slashed through something buried deep inside me, dislodging emotions I’d spent years carefully entombing. “I think this might be my favorite meal.”
Elyssa’s lips twitched with a genuine smile at my words, and she motioned for me to continue eating.
I took another bite.
The grease dripped onto my thumb, and I didn’t reach for a napkin immediately. I let it sit there, warm and real, evidence of a choice I had made for myself.
However small it was, this choice belonged entirely to me.