Nova.
I stare at it.
I don’t know what to do with this. Someone made me a plate. Someone covered it and labeled it and put it in the fridge for me to find, and I don’t know who or why or what they expect in return. My mom used to…
My hands are shaking again.
I take the plate. Close the fridge. Stand there in the dim orange light holding food with my name on it and trying to remember how to breathe.
The bathroom. I can eat in the bathroom. Door locks, no windows, easy to clean up if I need to, and if someone wakes up I’m just—I’m in the bathroom. That’s normal. That’s not suspicious.
I move before I can talk myself out of it.
The bathroom is down the hall from my room. I passed it earlier. Small, clean, tile floor. I close the door behind me and lock it. Flip on the light. Sit down on the floor with my back against the tub.
The foil comes off easily. Underneath: roasted vegetables, bread, a piece of chicken. It’s cold but it doesn’t matter. Nothing has mattered less in my entire life than the temperature of this food.
I eat slowly.
Small bites. Chew until there’s nothing left to chew. Swallow. Wait. Listen.
Another bite.
My stomach cramps around the first few bites, angry and confused after so long with nothing. I breathe through it. I’ve done this before—reintroducing food after a long stretch. You can’t rush it. You take what your body can handle and you stop before you’re full and you don’t throw up, because throwing up wastes food and food is—
I stop that thought. I’m not in the alley. I’m not scrounging. There’s a whole refrigerator twenty feet away and apparently people in this house make plates with my name on them.
I don’t know what to do with that.
I eat half the plate and make myself stop. Wrap the rest back up. I’ll figure out what to do with it later—hide it in my room, maybe, or put it back in the fridge, or—
The door opens.
The door opens. I thought I locked—
I freeze. Fork still in my hand, plate in my lap, caught in the bright bathroom light like an animal on the road.
Rane stands in the doorway.
He’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts and his hair is messed up from sleep and he freezes too, one hand still on the door, eyes going wide as he takes in the scene—me on the floor, the plate, the foil, my face.
One second. Two.
I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t do anything except sit here and wait for whatever comes next.
His expression shifts. The surprise fades into something else that I don’t understand. He doesn’t look at the plate again. Doesn’t look at how I’m sitting on the bathroom floor at 3am eating in secret like a feral animal.
“Sorry,” he says. Quiet. “Didn’t know anyone was in here.”
I still can’t speak.
He nods once. “Take your time.”
Then he steps back and closes the door behind him.
I sit there for a long moment, heart pounding, waiting for the knock, the questions, the check-in to make sure I’m okay. Waiting for him to tell someone, to make it into something, to turn this into a conversation I don’t know how to have.
Nothing.
