Thursday — Spaghetti

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The worst part is that you deserve it, really, the pit in your stomach you get, sometimes, when you look at her. You left her, not the other way around. You are the one in the wrong. You knew she couldn’t do what you were asking, or if you didn’t then you should have. God knows you’ve known her long enough.

She’s weird, now. Clementine. She looks at you like you’re going to disappear, like you aren’t real. You offer her spaghetti, and she takes it. She brings the bowl up to her mouth the way Hannah says they do in Japan; she eats like she’s a starving animal. Maybe she is. You saw how she was living in there— the empty fridge, empty cupboards, empty everything. You saw the rope, and for the worst week of your life were sure you’d lost her.

You offer her more spaghetti. Michael doesn’t like it, but that’s why you cut up some apple slices for him and stuck them in the fridge earlier. You could ask Ranboo to grab them, or Clem, but you’re restless and worried and need an outlet so you stand. The chair scraping against the cold tile of your kitchen floor is loud, but hardly the worst sound you’ve ever heard. It could be worse. It could be fireworks.

The fridge is covered in Michael’s drawings— he still isn’t talking much, but he’s always drawing the three of you and Clementine. You think he might think Clementine’s his mom, and it doesn’t bother you the way it would have a few years ago. It means Clem’s here, that she knows your kid, that she’s stayed. That matters a lot more to you than anything else ever could. You open the door and grab the apple slices off the bacon tupperware. When you close it, you do so gently.

The table’s only a step or three away from the fridge, but you walk around behind Ranboo to give Michael his apple, just to have an excuse to kiss him on the temple. You’re still learning, all over again, how to be gentle. You swear it used to come naturally to you, but you hadn’t had anyone to be gentle with for so long before you met him you forgot how. There was always Clementine, but she’d been so far away you didn’t get to see her much. For all that it cost, and for all that you wish so desperately that you could go back and un-do it all, you’re glad she’s here, now.

Michael rams his forehead directly into yours, and you hiss in pain as you open the Ziplock and dump the apples in front of him.

“Christ, kid, that hurts,” you say to him, but he grins up at you and you can’t be mad. You were the same way as a kid.

Ranboo reprimands him, says something about not headbutting hard surfaces, especially other people’s heads. You glance over at Clementine, and she’s smiling, slightly. She does this sometimes, is apparently charmed by this domesticity you’ve somehow found. You walk behind her on the way back to your seat and— gently, carefully— knock your head into hers. She leans back, rests her head against your shoulder the way you used to rest yours on hers when you were little boys fighting wars neither of you understood.

She talks even less than Michael these days. It’s a stark difference from the summers you spent hiding behind her and letting her do all the talking for the both of you, loud and boisterous as she was, but you figure that’s what war does to a person or whatever. God knows you don’t fare much better.

She smiles, though, and whispers: “Thanks.” You know what she means. You always know what she means.