My hand finds the plate. Grabs it. Hurls it across the room with all the force I can manage.
The crash is spectacular. Ceramic shattering. Chips scattering across the floor.
"I don't need you treating me like I'm fucking broken!" The words tear out of me. Too loud. Too raw. "I'm not some goddamn invalid who needs special meals designed for the disabled! I'm not a child who can't feed himself!"
Silence.
Absolute. Suffocating.
Then I hear her breathe. One deep inhale. Slow. Deliberate. Like she's physically restraining herself from something.
When she speaks, her voice shakes. But not with fear. With fury. Barely contained.
"I'm not cleaning that up."
"What?"
"You heard me." Her voice is harder now. Nothing soft or gentle left in it. "I am done. Done being treated this way when I have done nothing except try to help you. Try to make your life easier while you sit here and wallow in self-pity and take it out on everyone around you."
"Lily—"
"No." The word cuts like a blade. "You can starve for all I care. I'm not making you another lunch. I'm not making you anything. You can figure it out yourself since you're so capable."
Footsteps. Fast. Moving away from me.
I hear her breath hitch. Just once. Like she's fighting tears.
Then the front door opens.
Closes.
The sound echoes through the apartment.
She's gone.
Silence settles over everything. Heavy. Oppressive. The kind of silence that used to be normal before Lily arrived and filled the space with warmth and cooking smells and soft humming.
I'm alone again.
But this time it's different. This time the emptiness feels bigger. Sharper. More acute.
And it's not just because I can't see.
It's because I can feel her absence. The specific shape of the space where she should be. The void left behind.
My own fault. I did this.
And the darkness feels deeper than it did before.
9
LILY
The bus lets me off three blocks from home. The same corner I've been dropped at for years. I walk the rest of the way automatically, feet following a path worn into muscle memory.
My shoulders ache. My feet hurt in my work shoes. The commute took over an hour. Two buses and a transfer. Same route I've taken a thousand times.
This is my life. Repetitive. Exhausting. Unchanging.
