“I don’t care if it’s one, it’s mine. He should’ve asked before he ate it!”
“Why do you keep saying one?” he asks as he continues to chew my food, genuinely confused.
I go still.
I don’t say anything.
I just walk past them, chest tight, legs heavy, and open the freezer.
Empty.
The boxes are there, but they’re light.
All five soy patties are gone.
The one thing I saved specifically because I can’t eat what everyone else eats.
The one thing I ration is food, since it’s one of the few things I control in this house since he came back.
He took over our living room, our TV.
What’s next?
Will he find his way into my bed?
Then I see the ice cream container.
Opened and scraped clean.
My chest caves in.
The hand-churned vegan Grape-Nut ice cream my mummy made only when she’s feeling nostalgic for Jamaica.
Gone.
I stare at it for a long moment, throat burning. It’s stupid.
It’s food.
But it isn’t just food.
It’s mine.
Zaza wouldn’t do this.
Which means he did. And had the nerve to leave the empty container in the freezer.
He came into my space. Ate my things. Took without asking.
And I’m so fucking sick of it.
I close the freezer slowly and turn back around.
“You bloodclaat?—”
And then everythinggoes black.?
“Cici…” Zaza drags. “You took it too far.”
