Numb even to the irony of being told what to do by an expensive appliance, she trudged over to the kitchen table and plonked down heavily into a metal chair.
He brought her eggs over, plated with an eye for presentation that she would have expected at a nice brunch place. He’d covered the eggs with crumbles of goat cheese and finely chopped chives, and he’d found the pretentious salt Ophelia kept on hand for entertaining—big, flaky pyramids. The fork clattered as he set it on the glass table beside her plate. He even set a tall glass of orange juice out for her.
Despite everything, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “This is… really nice.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet.”
She picked up her fork.
“I just meant the gesture,” she said, digging into the silky eggs. “It’s been a long time since anyone made me breakfast.”
The feet of the chair next to her scraped across the floor, and he sat down beside her with that rigid good posture, hands folded on the table. “Logan does not make you breakfast?”
Her eyes went heavy-lidded as the flavors of the simple dish burst across her tongue, and the android patiently waited until she finished chewing to answer.
“He doesn’t have time.” She pushed the eggs around her plate, suddenly defensive. “He used to, in the beginning. Especially the morning after we…”
A flush rose to her cheeks, and she quickly filled her mouth with another bite of egg.
“Had sex?”
She coughed, hand over her mouth to keep from spraying food all over the very expensive robot sitting next to her.
“You’re easily embarrassed around the mention of intercourse.” He pushed the glass of orange juice toward her. “Why is that?”
He wasn’t helping at all.
She choked down some of the juice and cleared her throat hard, ignoring the burning sensation over her cheeks and neck. “I-I don’t know. My mother was very… intense about sex when I was young. Even though I’m twenty-seven, sometimes it still feels like I’m doing something wrong.”
“What do you mean by intense?”
She ate another bite, contemplating how to word it. “It was like… my only value was in capturing a man to take care of me, like she had with my father. But at the same time, she hated men and thought they were impossible to trust. So, if I didn’t go out, she was weird about how I was going to end up alone and regret all my choices.
“But when I did finally get a boyfriend and I lost my virginity with him, she showed up at my school to drag me out of class and yell at me over the condom she found in the bathroom trash. It was mortifying. She stood there on the front steps of the school, shouting at me, asking if I was stupid, and didn’t I know the kind of things I could catch, and did I think he was going to take care of me when I got pregnant.”
The memory sent a shiver of horror down her spine. Her appetite faltered, and she set down her fork.
“You should finish it,” he said.
“Sorry, I’m just… I’m not very hungry suddenly.”
He surprised her by sitting forward, his eyes intense as he studied her face.
“You’re stressed.” One of his hands slid across the glass table toward her. His fingers, warm and so convincingly human, slid over her wrist. “Let me help you, Ophelia. I can ease your tension.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and hope pricked within her. She pulled her arm out of his gentle grasp, fishing for the device. When she turned it over, she was dismayed to realize it was only another text from her mother.
Fine, I see you’re too good for me now. I hope you’re happy when I’m gone and this is how you treated me.
She sighed, setting the phone down on the table with a soft clink, staring at the message until the screen went dark.
“My understanding of human psychology leads me to believe your mother is attempting to emotionally manipulate you.”
She chirped a surprised laugh, looking at him with astonishment. “Does it?”
He nodded seriously. “That will impact your mental health. Between your sexual incompatibility causing relationship strife and your mother’s demands for your attention, I believe you are being placed under excessive mental strain, especially considering the nature of your mental illness.”
Her amusement cooled to bitter anger. “My mental illness?”
