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He continues to the kitchen, “You ate,” he observes—a hint of satisfaction in his voice. I hum a 'yes.' I am terribly worried, and he brushes off the threat like it's nothing. Likeheis nothing. I hope he doesn’t prove him otherwise.
“It’s late. Still want to join me for dinner?”
“I’ll join you, but I’m not hungry,” I answer.
"All right," he leaves it at that.
“Do you…need help with dinner?” I ask.
Evan glances at me. “Sure.”
***
Evan watches as I unskillfully cut slippery olives, but it is more like butchered with the mess that's left behind.
“Need help?” he asks. The recipe has a lot of ingredients, but it was supposed to be quick and simple. Evan already had
the pasta boiling, and now we are waiting for me to dice the olives,
tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and—my goodness. Who likes this many
vegetables in their pasta anyway?
“I didn’t know you could dice olives,” I mumble.
Evan chuckles, “Here, you’re only supposed to cut it in half,” it happens so quickly. He grabs my hand to guide my movements, but I flinch. A look of realization flashes across his face.
“Oh—Isabella, I apologize—”
I shake my head, “I-it’s fine. It’s not you,” I lean against the counter for support and place the knife down on the cutting board. He watches, not knowing what to do or say. It's okay because nothing I tell myself works anyway. Calm down. Breathe. Focus on your surroundings. It's all useless. I need to wait and let it pass like a hangover. There is nothing else that helps.
“If you need to sit…”
“No, I want to finish,” I grab the knife again and pick up a new olive.
“...Okay,” he clasps his hands together.
“In half?” I ask, attempting another slice of the small vegetable. It is more manageable than trying to split it four ways.
“Yes, like that,” he says. I go through the rest of the olives while he grabs a cutting board of his own, “Let’s get through this faster, huh?” he starts on the tomatoes, and I move on to the cucumbers.
He takes the last plump tomato and slices off the ends. His fingers grip the fruit as he keeps it intact while crisscrossing his cuts. Then the diced pieces fall off like magic.
“What in the world?” I don’t mean to say that out loud, but I don’t bother to play it off. Evan scrapes the tomato off the cutting board into the bowl of mixed veggies.
“It’s not as complicated as it looks. I could teach it to you another time. In the meantime, I think it’d be helpful if you learned how to do simple cuts first,” his attention is focused on my ‘unique’ cucumber slices.
I laugh, “Not sure if you can tell, but I don’t cook,” I give him a crooked smile. He returns an amused smile.
“Parents never taught you anything?” he inquires.
I shake my head, “Too busy,” I simply state.
“My father taught me,” he begins, reaching for the carrots. “That would be the nicest thing he’s done for me.”
I look up at Evan. His eyes are distant, but the corners of his lips weakly grin.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I offer.
