Page 16 of Diesel
It’s some kind of pasta and sauce, but the smell of it churns my stomach. Everything makes me queasy lately.
I don’t move to pick up the fork. I can’t eat right now, even though he went to the trouble to make it. He eventually grabs it and offers it to me. “Eat, firefly.”
I remember the first time he called me that, the way it made butterflies flutter in my belly. Now it feels wrong, like it doesn’t belong to me.
“You’re the light that always guides me home,” he’d said. “My little firefly.”
Back then, I felt like I was the only thing tethering him to the world. A tiny beacon of hope in the night to find him when he was lost.
I don’t know when I stopped being that for him.
“I told you I’m not hungry.”
His throat bobs like he’s swallowing down the frustration he wants to unleash. It wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone else, but I see everything about him. “I didn’t ask if you were hungry. I asked you to eat.”
I raise a brow at him. “And I’m just supposed to do what you tell me to?”
The words are sullen and make me sound like I’m sixteen again. I don’t care. My emotions are wrung out and I’m past being polite.
A tendon twitches in his neck and his fingers curl around the fork like he’s about to snap it. “When was the last time you put food in your belly? And I don’t mean shitty snacks you grabbed from a petrol station. I mean actual food, Makenna.”
When I was home…
I don’t say it. He’ll lose his mind if I do and he’s already teetering on the edge of sanity.
I snatch the fork from him. “I don’t need you to manage my eating habits.”
His shoulders loosen as I stab a piece of pasta, but don’t lift it to my mouth, not yet. I feel like I’m under a microscope.
“Are you going to watch every mouthful?”
“Yes.”
At least he’s honest. “Fine.” I lift it to my mouth and chew. My belly grumbles as I swallow, the warmth of it filling my belly. I didn’t realise I’d missed this. Food. Him. Us.
I eat a few more bites then rest the fork against the edge of the bowl. His eyes narrow and his lips press into a tight line as he surveys how little I’ve eaten.
“Makenna.”
I slide it toward him purposefully. “It’s your turn.”
It’s a small gesture, but it lands like I handed him the world. This is how we used to survive. Sharing food. Taking care of each other. He’d feed me first, always, and then I’d make him eat. He’d usually lie and say he already had, but I knew better even back then.
The way his brows come together, that little dip between them deepening before picks up the fork and eats.
His eyes don’t leave mine as he chews methodically, just like everything he does. “It’s not bad,” he says.
“We’ve definitely eaten worse.”
He eats two more forkfuls before he offers me it back. “You eat the rest.”
“I ate enough.”
“You didn’t. A woman of your height and weight needs at least eighteen hundred calories a day to survive. Three forkfuls of questionable pasta isn’t enough to keep a toddler alive.”
I lean back in the chair. I don’t care about the food. “What’s the plan here, Zane? We can’t stay in this place forever.”
His fingers drum on the table just once then he stillscompletely. “The plan is you come home with me and we sort this out.”
