A shadow glitched out of the corner of my eye. Well, glitched in my sense of the word. I wasn’t sure how else to explain it. One second, it was a full-bodied, dark apparition,and the next, it was like static, flickering in and out around its midsection.
I glanced at it before shaking my head. Sure, I didn’t want to kill myself anymore, but I wondered when the fuck they’d start to go away. “I know. Well, logically, I do. But I guess it’ll take time for me to truly believe it.”
“That’s what I’m here to help you do. How often do you usually have episodes?”
“I have episodes more often than I don’t. It’s hard to keep up anymore. I never know what’s real, what isn’t, or when it’ll end. Or, really, if it ever will.” Taking a deep breath, I looked down at my shirt. There was a stain on it, though I wasn’t sure what from. “I’ve been sad since the day Elio left. I’m not sure I know what happiness feels like anymore.”
“Then let’s work toward knowing that feeling again, shall we?”
Lee made it sound so simple. As if he truly believed it. I didn’t have the energy to tell him I didn’t, even as the shame from the couch began to swallow me whole.
Chapter Twenty-One
The first thingI heard was the clashing of dishes and pans coming from the kitchen. It startled me a bit, dragging me out of sleep. Peeling my eyes open, I squinted at my surroundings before feeling the spot beside me. My hand grazed over the sheets and blankets, all piled up haphazardly on the bed. Crescent wasn’t there, and the spot wasn’t warm anymore.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed, finally crawling out from under the blankets. The door was shut, which was odd. I didn’t like it to be shut.
The clanging only got louder the further I got, along with the sound of Crescent humming softly. I absentmindedly rubbed my exposed stomach, raising my hand until I could pull on the hem of my crop top. This one was gray and just as soft as the black one. My new favorite things to sleep in.
“Cres?” I called, my voice cracking at the end of his name. When I padded my way to the kitchen, I saw him.
Crescent was swaying his hips, most likely with earbuds in his ears. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, swishing slightly with each movement. The counters were covered with different bowls, streaks of flour making a trail between each one. He was humming something under his breath, his movements following the melody.
He hadn’t heard me yet, so I slowly tiptoed my way to him, coming up on his side. “Cres?”
I watched as he jumped, gasping in surprise. “Jesus! Oh, you scared the fuck out of me.”
“I can see that.” I couldn’t hide the smile on my face if I wanted to. “What are you up to?”
He put a hand over his heart dramatically, reaching into his pocket. “I’m making muffins. Wanna help whisk it all up and pour them in?”
I looked at the bowl in front of him, which looked pretty whisked already. There was a muffin tin sitting on top of the stove, with little papers tucked into each slot. “Sure, yeah.”
“Just take this and mix it all together for me. I’ll start cleaning stuff up.”
Bowl in hand, I started to stir the batter in circular motions, periodically alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise. I made sure to mash down any parts that were clumped together, mixing them all with the liquid. “So, what kind are these?”
Crescent carried some utensils to the sink, running water over them. “Plain old blueberry. I have a cup of them over here if you want to grab them and fold them in.”
After folding the blueberries into the batter, Crescent helped me scrape it into the muffin tins. “This looks like a lot of muffins, Cres. Are we going to eat them all?”
He shrugged,throwing them into the oven. “Eh, probably not. We can put them in the fridge for Sarah, though.”
I nodded, helping him clean up the massive mess he’d made. For someone who worked in a bakery, he sure didn’t know how to be clean about it. Looking down, I noticed some flour and batter had splashed across my crop top, some of it dripping onto my stomach. I swiped away at the drops, which only made things worse.
Ignoring the mess for the moment, I turned to Crescent, who was drying his hands off with a paper towel. “When did you wake up?”
“Uh, I never really slept, honestly.” He shrugged. “Maybe for an hour or so, and then I lay there forever, trying to sleep more. I decided to come in here to watch some TV on mute and scroll TikTok instead.”
He acted like it was no big deal. Meanwhile, if I hadn’t slept all night, I would be pure dead weight. “And then you decided to bake some muffins?”
“What else was I gonna do? I thought I might as well put my mind to something I love doing. I’ve spent many nights baking until the sun came up. Just get lost in it, you know? Or, try to, I guess.”
I nodded because I did know. Back when art and painting had been everything to me, I’d stay up until the birds started to sing sometimes, putting paint to a canvas as if I were going to die the next day. Something as silly as time didn’t matter when I loved what I was doing—when I was creating something entirely my own, straight from my brain itself.
“Come on.” He pushed off the sink counter, walking past me. “Go ahead and put on a new shirt, and we can put something on to watch while we wait for the muffins.”
After throwing a new crop top on, I followed him to the couch, sitting right beside him. Despite what he was tryingto lead me to believe, he looked tired. There were purple bags underneath his eyes, making them appear sunken in from the side. His eyelids drooped, like they were going to fall shut whether he wanted them to or not. I watched as he slowly flipped through the different channels and programs available, not staying on any one of them.
