Isaac shrugged as he reached over for his milkshake. “Still pretty hard,” he said, as his gaze momentarily shifted out of focus. I watched him for a beat or two, wondering if he was having a completely different conversation in his own head. “But I’m managing okay. I mean, it’s totally worth it. Options are good. Semi-pros’s still on the table. Business school, too.”
I watched him closely. A gnawing sense of concern itched at me below the skin before he looked up at me and smiled. Something bright and cheery and warm. Something I knew was far more forced than he was willing to let on.
“You know you can take a break if you need one, right, Isaac?”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with one,” he laughed as he bit into a strawberry covered in whipped cream.
“Well, okay. Just don’t burn yourself out. And I’m here too. And Ez. We both are. Always,” I smiled at him before plopping my own spoonful of strawberry waffle into my mouth.
“You know I would tell you if I was struggling.”I really hope that’s true.
“I don’t know how you fucking do it, I certainly couldn’t,” I mused.
“Youcould,and more importantly, you do, likeall the time.It’snot easy juggling studying, having a job, and having to help out at home.” For a moment, I could see my own sadness and tiredness reflected at me. Somewhere hidden between forced smiles and glazed-over eyes.
He knew all too well how much Maura being ill was affecting me.
“You have to give yourself a little bit of credit. Add one more thing to the mix and you might internally combust.”
Add one more thing to the mix.I laughed. It sounded awkward and a little bit off. Not nearly as happy or carefree as I had envisioned it sounding. Isaac instinctively narrowed his eyes as if he was reading me the same way I had been reading him only moments ago. I threw him off by miming an explosion around my head as he shook his.
“On the topic of adding things to my plate,” I started, “do you think I should start dating?”
“Are you really asking me that? Misslove-is-a-four-letter-word.” Isaac huffed out a soft laugh as he looked at me, an amused grin etched across his face.
“I’m willing to admit that I might be too cynical for my own good. It’s just that a guy from my course asked me to study with him and the way he was looking at me…” But it wasn’t images of Jude Watlings that pooled into the forefront of my mind. It was the grumpy demon I now called a roommate. The one that left me feeling angry and confused, short of breath, and all too pent up in his company.
“He was looking at you like…?” Isaac laughed a little louder. “Like he wanted to fuck you?”
“Ew, don’t sayfuck,you’re like my brother.”
“What would you like me to say instead?Ravish? Devour? Make love to?”
“Never mind! How’s Ez?” I asked as if I didn’t get her stream of consciousness in text form at all hours of the day.Today was the third time this week that I’d woken up to around seventeen texts and a five-minute voice note on two strangers she’d made it her personal mission to psychoanalyse.
“We are doing really well. It was hard there for a minute…making time for each other. But we are communicating a lot more. She comes to all my practices, and I’m trying to be more present when we talk. It’s better. We are both trying and I think that’s what counts.”
“Of course it does,” I said gently, staring up at him like a proud parent. “I was scared there for a second…”
“Not that I want to put pressure on you guys. I’ll love you both equally, whatever happens.”
“You’re a good egg, Quincey.” He looked at me seriously. “How are you doing? How’s Maura?”
“She’s doing okay. Some good days, some bad. She still likes to push herself to prove that she can do things. I think that’s quite hard for her. Which I completely understand. Gramps is being a trooper as always.” I let out a shaky breath and take another bite of waffle to give myself something to do.
And it was that look.Thatlook that he gave me, the same one everyone gave me before saying, ‘I hope they get better.’I don’t know why I hated it but I did. It felt like they were already writing her off as gone before even being given a chance. But that wasn’t going to be my grandmother. Not if I had anything to do with it. I’d spent a couple hours each day in the library scouring for occult texts on demon contracts for ideas on how to proceed. As expected, there hadn’t been anything pertaining to my specific circumstances in there, but the takeaway overall was that demons were tricky with their wording. So, I had to be too.
“Work’s shit too. Some creep won’t stop coming in. I’m pretty sure he’s figured out my schedule.”
Isaac finally perked up a little. “How creepy are we talking?”
“He put a handful of peanuts in his fucking pocket.”
His brows furrowed as his brain furiously worked to make sense of what I’d just said. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I settled Isaac with wide, over-exaggerated eyes and let every word roll off my tongue with purposeful pronunciation, “he put a handful of peanuts in his fucking pocket.”
“Like…loose?”
