“What is this?” Thallor asked, pulling me from my thoughts as he eyed the bowl in front of him. He cocked his head to the side as he looked up, settling me with a quizzical look. Everyday.Every day,without fail, I eat at least one bowl ofFroot Loops. Being honest with myself, it was probably closer to three or four. Maybe I had been a little presumptuous in the attention he paid me because this should have been obvious.
“Cereal?”
He patted at the top of the colour little rings with his spoon and grimaced before looking up at me. “This…is dry.”
Thallor said that about ramen. He said that about toast before I explained that you added jam. And he had said it about that one time I cooked pizza. That time, in his defence, I had forgotten it was in the oven and burnt it.
“This texture resembles wall plaster or…gravel.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting back the smirk and mustering up my wall to remain serious as I looked up at Thallor.Demon or fussy child?That is truly a question I didn’t think I’d get the answer to.
“You have to wait for the oat milk to soak through,” I said, as if I was some kind of cereal sommelier.Once properly soaked through, the colours will begin to run–you should pick up notes of artificial sweetener and food dye.“Give it a second, then you’ll get the perfect balance of mushy and crunchy.”
“Because the words‘mushy’and ‘crunchy’ really scream delicious,” he grumbled, looking tentatively down at the bowl.Succumbing to whatever emotions were tugging at my insides, I let a smile stretch across my face before giggling softly. “Why are they all different colours?”
“Those are the flavours! Come on, try it.”
Whether it was everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, whether he was simply trying to appease me because he did, in fact, enjoy my company, I wasn’t sure. Regardless, Thallor looked down at the bowl, the swirling of colours now making it look more like a greying soup than anything else, before reluctantly spooning some into his mouth. The look he settled me with–one of pain and betrayal, one that said ‘I trusted you’–hadFroot Loopsspraying out of my nose.
“What flavour? This tastes like cat litter.”
“It does not, you big baby,” I scoffed before pulling his bowl toward me and standing up. “Pray tell, how do you know whatcat littertastes like?”
“What I imagine cat litter tastes like…” he growled. “It certainly doesn’t taste like fruit.”
“If it’s not strawberry jam, why even bother, right?”
“I didn’t realise you were paying so much attention.”I don’t think I really realised how much I was either.
“I wasn’t. I’m not. I?—"
He looked up at me but didn’t say anything else. I hesitated for just a second before turning toward the sink. I hoped I could hide the magenta blush that began to creep up the sides of my cheeks under the guise of the hot water making me feel flushed. But slowly, like it always did, the telltale wisps of smoke that crept up my nose, blanketing me in late-night camp nostalgia, the sweet, syrupy smell of burning wood enveloped me. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to see the look on his face. I couldn’t allow my mind to churn over every inconsequential tick of his jaw or glimmer in his eye…not when he was going to leave. We could be friends, sure, but?—
“That’s a shame. I guess it’s justmethen.”
I’d takena couple of days to sleep off my emotional exhaustion. I knew that pushing the events of the attack to the back of my mind wasn’t healthy. I knew that the emotions of that event would eventually rear their ugly head in the minutiae of everyday life. There were things I would never be able to look at the same way, but that was better than trying to stitch back together every broken part of myself with nothing but trembling hands and tears in my eyes.
So my brain did what brains did best: fill itself with thoughts of Thallor. I’d gone back to university a few days later, fearing the repercussions of Caldwell’s wrath if I missed another one of his lectures. It was like I was suffering from a lecture-inducedStockholm Syndrome.As much as I loved my subject, the week following my attack had been nothing short of painful. Between the overpriced cups of coffee –with too much caffeine that made me feel anxious, Caldwell’s recycled insults, and the headaches I got from trying to read his chicken-scratch handwriting, I’d questioned whether a passing grade was even worth it.
Stomping back into my apartment after a long day, trying to catch up on lectures, I whipped off my shoes, grabbed a pack of jelly snakes from the cupboard, and dropped onto the sofa next to Mortimer. I patted my leg once, hoping that the little hellion himself would at least do me the courtesy ofletting me pet him,but he sauntered over to Thallor, settling in beside him and placing a paw on his leg. When I scoffed in response, all he did was roll his eyes at me. I wasn’t sure if it was possible for a cat to roll its eyes, but I swear I saw him do it.
Thallor clicked a few buttons on my remote before pulling upThe Breakfast Cluband pressing play. I looked up at him with a confused look, but he simply shrugged at me. “I’m not sure you were in the right frame of mind to show me last time. And I’ve come to realise I quite enjoy your running commentary through films.”
Try as I might to try and stop it, the smile that stretched across my face was wide enough to make my cheeks ache, but it was worth it to see the smile reflected back at me. One that I saw so rarely. One that I felt was just for me. I’d slowly been introducing Thallor toJohn Hughesand his brilliance, in addition to a few other films that came out around the same time that I simply adored. I was convinced that he had protested for the sake of protesting, but after the first two,Say AnythingandSixteen Candles,it had become something of a routine for us. I would tell him fun facts, titbits of behind-the-scenes knowledge, and Thallor would complain about how little humans actually communicated before stating that ‘these films would be a lot shorter if people just said how they feel.’
As if it were that easy. But, of course, it wasn’t as simple as that.Or maybe it was.But when I looked at him, I felt all those messy and complex feelings I knew I’d never utter aloud. Because it was always the simplest, most obvious feelings that were the hardest to share. LikeClairehiding behind her stereotype orBenderacting tough on the outside because ultimately, he didn’t see himself as good enough, people kept their emotions close to their chest out of a misplaced fear of being misunderstood. Or worse, because feelings make us vulnerable.
How would you react if I told you how I feel?
How would you react if I said I put off making wishes because I like having you around?
How would you react if I told you I was desperate not to feel those feelings because I knew they’d break me in the end?
‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ by Simple Minds echoed through my living room a little while later. I looked up at Thallor with a smile on my face, leaning into that fuzzy feeling I got in my stomach after watching one of those films. But the look he was giving me was one that replaced that fuzzy feeling with hundreds and hundreds of butterflies. They took flight inside me, fluttering about in waves of nervous energy that I needed to combat the only way I knew how.
“I hope Jude feels like that about me after our date,” I blurted out, averting my gaze so I didn’t have to see the shock on Thallor’s face…and the ghost of hurt I saw there too.
But even keeping my eyes plastered on the television, I could feel his reaction. I could feel his body tense next to mine. It felt like a bucket of ice-cold, glacial water had been dumped on both of us, pulling us from that dangerous space we both seemed to linger in these days. “You’re not still going, are you?” he said quietly. I kept my eyes focused on the credits that rolled across the screen.
