ELIANA
meal prep: /mel prep/: noun
1: the practice of preparing meals in advance.
2: the masochistic weekly ritual of a nerdy control freak who really misses homework and regretfully acknowledges the value of adequate protein intake.
Saturday morning hits different when you’ve spent Friday night doing… whatever you call what I just did. I wake with that particular brand of emotional hangover that comes from enabling someone you love to hurt themselves, plus theactualhangover from all that Chilean Carménère. My mouth tastes like a used ashtray from The Little Mermaid’s underwater collection. I loathe myself.
I squint at my ceiling, where a water stain shaped like Australia has been slowly growing for the past six months. My landlord keeps promising to fix it. You know what would be better than Mr. Estrada fixing it, though?
Bastianfixing it.
Just like that, my depraved little brain is off and running. It’s conjuring up images of a shirtless Bastian in blue jeans with a toolbelt looped low around his waist. It’s imagining him sweating just slightly, a drop of it nestling in his chest hair, as he hammered and sawed and nailed or whatever the hell one does to fix a leaky ceiling.
It pictures those hands—Good Lord almighty, thosehands—doing other stuff that maybe wouldn’t fix the ceiling but would probably go a long way towards fixing something else that’s leaky.
Ew. I’m gross.
I roll over and bury my face in my pillow, but that’s no better. It just makes me remember how he smelled in the car. God, I’m pathetic. The man had to pay me eleven thousand dollars a day to tolerate him, but here I am getting butterflies simply because he almost-maybe-sorta-kinda touched my face.
We all come from somewhere, Eliana.That’s what he said.
What kind of “somewhere” shaped a man like Bastian Hale? He knew the words to “Baby Got Back,” for God’s sake. What combination of forces produces a man like that?
It’s like some sicko pervert raised on romance novels went into Build-A-Boss Workshop and put together a truly insane array of components. He’s an asshole and a joker, a bon vivant and a petulant prince. He is an enigma with an incredible palate and the things he is doing to my brain, heart, and body should be brought up in the Hague for war crimes against womankind.
I lie there for a while, thinking myself in endless circles. I would probably keep on doing just that if Yasmin didn’t text.
YASMIN KAUR
Trader Joe’s in 30 or I’m eating cereal for every meal this week.
It’s our weekly ritual: grocery shopping and meal prep together, because we both know that, left to our own devices, we’d make your standard TikTok-inspired “Girl Dinner” look gourmet. I’ve caught Yas eating dry, unboiled ramen noodles before when I canceled on our Saturday Shop ‘N’ Yap. Just munching on a brick of the stuff, unseasoned. Terrifying.
So, for her sake and for mine, I drag myself vertical, throw on my least offensive sweatpants, and attempt to rearrange my face to make it look less like I’ve been crying into my pillow. The result is marginal at best, but whatever—Yasmin’s seen worse.
By 9:15, we’re navigating the special circle of hell that is Trader Joe’s on a weekend morning. The place is packed with every demographic of Chicagoan: yoga moms with their post-class glow, couples arguing over which hummus to buy, college kids loading up on Two Buck Chuck like the apocalypse is nigh.
“Produce first,” Yasmin announces, grabbing a cart.
“As is tradition.”
We have this down to a science. I grab bell peppers while she debates between spinach and kale. She handles the onions because they make me cry even on good days, and today is decidedly not that.
But something’s off. Yasmin keeps pulling out her phone, squinting at it, then shoving it back in her pocket with a shudder.
“Okay, spill. What’s happening?” I ask as we stand before the meat section.
“Nothing.”
“That’s your ‘something’ face. The one you made when you accidentally sexted your dad that eggplant emoji.”
“We agreed never to speak of that again.” But her laugh sounds forced and brittle around the edges.
She pulls out her phone again and reluctantly shows it to me. What I see are texts. Dozens of them, all from an unsaved number. The preview is enough to make my stomach drop.
I miss you
