A girl who thought Saturday mornings would last forever.
Those tears she had tried to hold back welled up, but she quickly blinked them away. Cyren exhaled through her nose before pouring the first pancake into the pan. She watched thebubbles form for a few minutes before flipping it at the last second.
“Ugh. It’s too dark,” she fussed, frowning.
Her eyes welled up with tears again, and her stomach suddenly dropped, feeling completely irrational. Cyren sniffled as her nostrils flared in annoyance. When her frustration eased, a wave of sadness washed over her.
“No,” she whispered harsher this time.
Her chest stuttered, and her next breaths came unevenly. Then another.
Before she knew it, tears fell faster while she stood over a stove trying to recreate something that died with her mama.
“I can’t even get this right,” she cried softly, as her voice cracked. “I can’t…”
Emotions all over the place, Cyren laughed softly. She was embarrassed despite being alone.
“This is stupid,” she muttered, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. “Why are you crying over pancakes?”
It wasn’t just about the pancakes.
It never was. She knew that. Her body knew that too, and it always reminded her. Grief magnified small failures, turning them into overwhelming challenges. It was unpredictable, appearing wherever it wanted to. In Cyren’s eyes, Nicole handled everything effortlessly. Love and motherhood seemed like second nature to her. Even grief might have felt less harsh if Nicole had lived longer for her daughter to see it.
Cyren hated herself a little for not remembering every detail. She hated that time kept moving while memories blurred around the edges. By the time she poured the third pancake, her vision was blurry.
“None of these are right,” she cried, ready to throw them away. Or against the wall.
None of them being made correctly shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Because her mama’s always came out perfect, with crispy edges while being fluffy in the middle. Her grief had stolen the moment, and no matter how hard she tried, she’d spend the rest of her life chasing fragments of her mother in ordinary moments. Whimpering with her chest hiccupping, Cyren didn’t notice Heavy entering the kitchen.
“Baby.”
That one word almost made her lose it all over again. Cyren didn’t turn around immediately because she thought maybe if she got herself together fast enough, he wouldn’t notice. She underestimated him. His voice reached her before his touch did.
“Why you in here crying? What happened?”
She closed her eyes tightly, and the worry in his voice made new tears appear.
Cyren quickly sniffled and focused hard on removing the sausage. “Nothing. I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not. Talk to me. What happened?”
Cyren stared at the spatula in her hand because looking at him right now wasn’t the safest thing to do.
“I wanted to make breakfast,” she whispered.
His brow slightly furrowed. “I see,” he said, gently taking in everything.
“And...” She laughed shakily, embarrassed. “These stupid pancakes didn’t come out like hers.”
Heavy understood quicker than most people would’ve. His shoulders dropped slightly, and his chest tightened.
“Your mama’s?” he softly asked.
Cyren finally glanced his way with her bottom lip unintentionally poked out and nodded. “She used to make them all the time, and I can’t… I don’t know. I can’t get them right.”
Heavy didn’t respond right away, and she appreciated that he didn’t rush to break the silence or fill it with empty words in an attempt to fix something neither of them could.
Instead, he reached around her and turned the burner off. Cyren hated how exposed she felt standing there in his clothes, crying over memories.
