Greg sniffed. “Is it?” He reached for his water.
“If you drink water, it gets worse.”
Greg froze. “Oh.” He looked helpless. “What helps?”
“Milk or bread.” Dustin paused. “Ice cream, after.”
Greg stared at the bowl, betrayed. “Doesn’t the food hurt you too?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I grew up on her cooking. You build up a tolerance.”
“A tolerance.” Greg gestured at his own face, which had progressed from pink to a general state of emergency. “So this is something you went through as a child, and you simply decided to continue doing it anyway.”
“Pretty much.”
“And your mother continued feeding it to you.”
“She makes it spicier at Christmas.”
Silence.
Greg looked at Cathy.
Cathy, who had been eating with total serenity, looked back.
“Honestly, I went easy on the spice tonight,” she said.
“Oh,” Greg said faintly.
He lifted the spoon again.
“You don’t have to keep eating,” Dustin said.
“No, that would be impolite.”
Stubbornly, Greg continued.
A minute passed.
Then a tear ran down his cheek.
Greg touched it, startled. “My face is crying,” he said, deeply offended. “I’m not even sad.”
Cathy set her spoon down and pressed her lips together.
Greg ate another bite, swallowing with visible effort.
“Why,” he said, with a depth of feeling Dustin hadn’t known him capable of, “when you could be having a burger?”
Dustin put his face in his hands.
He laughed.
It came out hard and wrong and unstoppable, shaking loose from somewhere deep in his chest. Across the table, Greg made an indignant noise that only made it worse, and then Cathy broke too, one hand pressed over her mouth, shoulders trembling.
