“I can help.”
“Help by sitting and icing your injuries. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
I grinned. “True, but I am wilderness EMT certified, though. So technically, you’re still under a medical professional’s orders.”
She laughed, settling onto one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. “Fine, fine. I’ll be a good patient.”
I pulled out ingredients for pancakes. They were one of the few things I could make that felt breakfast-like without being too fancy. Maya watched me work, and I was hyperaware of her gaze tracking my movements.
“Can I ask you something?” she said after a moment.
My shoulders tensed. “Sure.”
“Why do you live all the way up here? I mean, I get wanting space and quiet, but don’t you get lonely?”
I whisked the pancake batter, considering my answer. “Sometimes. But it’s better than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Being around people who only see what I am, not who I am.” I poured batter onto the griddle, watching it bubble and cook. “In town, I’m always aware of being different. Too big for normal spaces, too strong to relax around fragile things, too other to blend in. Up here, I’m me.”
“But you go into town sometimes, right? You have friends?”
“A few. Everest, you know him as TankMaster87, lives in Calamity Creek. We get coffee sometimes, run errands together. There’s a gaming shop I go to, and I volunteer with search and rescue.” I flipped the pancakes. “But it’s different. Those are scheduled interactions with people who know what to expect from me. Up here, I don’t have to perform.”
Maya was quiet for a moment. “I think I understand what you’re saying about the performing thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, it’s not the same obviously. But there’s always this pressure to be a certain way, you know? Especially online. Pretty enough, funny enough, cool enough. Gaming helped with that. I could be GimmeAChallenge007 and nobody cared what I looked like or whether I was awkward in person.” She traced patterns on the counter with her finger. “Meeting people face-to-face means all those masks have to come back on.”
“Is that why you were nervous about meeting me?” I slid pancakes onto plates, adding butter and syrup.
“Partly. But mostly I was nervous because,” she paused, and her cheeks flushed with color. “Because it mattered. You matter. And I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
I set her plate in front of her, our fingers brushing as she took it. The contact sent electricity up my arm. “Maya, you could never disappoint me.”
“You say that now. You haven’t seen me try to do a cartwheel.”
I laughed. “Is that something you do regularly? Attempt gymnastics?”
“I did once, at a party. There’s a video. I hope it’s not online because it’s horrifying.” She cut into her pancakes. “My point is, everyone’s disappointing in person. We’re all just disasters hiding behind our best angles and edited captions.”
“You’re not a disaster.”
“I crashed my car in a snowstorm.”
“Did you do it on purpose?” Maya shook her head. “Then the storm crashed your car. There’s a difference.”
She smiled, and something in my chest loosened. Sitting together felt good. It felt right. This was us, finding our rhythm again with the easy banter, the comfortable back-and-forth.
We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. I’d made enough pancakes for a small army, a habit from growing up in a household of Yetis, and Maya eyed the stack with amusement.
“Are you expecting company?”
“Nah. I always make too much. Leftovers are good.”
