“No, no pets allowed. I read your lease,” I reminded him.
“The guy next door has a few. For a while, I was thinking that you might want to have that room.”
“Me? I have a house.”
“Your parents do,” he corrected. “But you don’t want to de-mesh from them. Is it un-mesh?”
“I do want to de-mesh,” I said. “I always planned to leave when I graduated and head to…I don’t know, somewhere else. I still could, maybe.” I paused. “Were you really going to ask me to live here?”
“I had considered it. Do you have to get to class or do you want breakfast?”
I decided to stay and he started to cook. I watched him pull ingredients out of his refrigerator and cupboards and it was easy to see where his salary was going: food. He used three different kinds of produce (organic produce) and he also broke ten eggs into a bowl (they were free-range and also organic). I beat the bright orange yokes, which we didn’t see at Walter’s, to help out.
“Did you ever work in the kitchen at the restaurant?” Shane asked as he diced a tomato. His knife skills weren’t bad at all.
“I’ve done everything,” I said. “Watch. If you hold it like this…” I moved his hand on the tomato. “Now you can go a lot faster. It’s not so important when we’re only cooking for two, though.”
“That’s much better,” he approved. “Do you like cooking?”
“Honestly, after being at Walter’s for most of the day, I don’t even feel like eating.” That food aversion had never shown much in my physique, unfortunately. “I don’t mind doing it now, with you. It’s kind of fun when there’s no pressure. You must like cooking for yourself because you’re so particular.”
“You mean picky.”
“If you’re the chef, then you get what you want,” I responded.
“But actually, I hate cooking,” he told me. “I always have an idea of how things should taste but the end product isn’t ever what I was imagining.” He reached for the baby spinach. “It’s a metaphor for life.”
“Your life isn’t turning out like you imagined?”
“Can you hand me the goat cheese?” he requested, and I did.
To my surprise, his omelet was very tasty despite the spinach and all the other vegetable items. Shane seemed pleased with it, too, and not disappointed with our output. Those pretty eggs were going down easy.
“You don’t have class this morning?” he asked.
“I’m skipping it,” I said. “It’s the one I have with Corbin, the guy from the party, so I don’t care too much.”
“Is he hassling you?”
“No, he’s embarrassed about what happened with the video. He blushes and hides his face when I look over at him. Which I only do by mistake,” I explained. “I’m the one who should be embarrassed.”
“You didn’t do anything that other people haven’t done. You had a little too much to drink, the same way that your sister did. How did she feel the day after her big night with three tequilas?”
“And a whiskey and Coke, and gin and grenadine,” I added and he made a gagging sound. “She was sick the next morning but in general, she’s been acting a lot different. Happy.”
“That’s different?”
“She didn’t even leave the house for a few years,” I said. “I mean, sometimes, but it was mostly when she was forced. Now she’s talking about some European guy and she’s been at the restaurant a lot more, too. She’s bathing, which I think is better for everyone.”
“She wouldn’t leave the house or shower? Sounds like she was depressed or she still is. My little sister went through somethinglike that,” he told me. “It was awful for a few years while she tried to get herself back on track. We tried to help, too, but we couldn’t do very much.”
“Did she really try?” I asked, and that question seemed to confuse him.
“She didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t want to sit at home with no energy, feeling terrible while her old friends were off enjoying high school and having fun. I was already in college but I started coming home most weekends to, I don’t know.” He shrugged slightly. “I guess to watch her.”
“I do that,” I confessed. “I check on Morgan a lot. But I don’t do it because I care so much. I’ve been so damn mad at her for shirking…I know how that makes me sound, especially since you just said something nice about wanting to take care of your own sister. You’re nicer than I am, without a doubt.”
“I’m not particularly nice. They would do the same for me, if I needed them. In fact—” He looked at my side of the table. “Are you done?”
