I take a forkful from my own bowl, watching as he reaches for his own fork with an unsteady hand. It clatters against the ceramic of the bowl as he scoops up the tiniest mouthful of electric-orange noodles, opening his mouth to place his baby-bird-sized bite on his tongue.
Then he puts his fork down.
Closes his eyes.
And chews so slowly I’m sure the noodles in his bowl will go cold before he takes another bite.
“Good?” I ask, shoving another forkful of macaroni and cheese into my mouth as my stomach growls its approval.
Shiloh nods as slowly as he chews, then swallows the small bite of food in his mouth. He opens his eyes and I’m stunned to see tears spill out from beneath his lashes. “It’s good. It’s… good.”
“Hey,” I murmur, putting my bowl down and moving to his side. He looks away from me, so I reach out and curl my finger beneath his chin, lifting his face up to mine. “What’s going on?”
Shiloh hesitates, then sighs, clearing his throat as he blinks back more tears. I move my hand from his face and step back, giving him space to answer. “I haven’t had this since she died. It makes me remember afternoons painting with her, learning how much I loved art. It’s… I haven’t thought about it in a while.”
He offers a melancholy smile, and I can’t help myself from leaning in and kissing him as my heart aches for the child he once was. Shiloh should have had more than what life handed him, and while I can’t say his means of dealing with it all aren’t anything short of horrific, I also can’t help but see who he could have been.
Who he could still be if he wanted to.
He picks at his bowl of macaroni, but I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t like it. Every bite seems like a rekindling of something long hidden inside him, and I sit back in awe, watching him and falling more and more in love every time he places a noodle into his perfect mouth.
“Fuck,” he says, wiping away tears. “This is stupid. It’s macaroni and cheese.”
I put my fork down and stare at him for a moment, watching his cheeks turn red like he’s embarrassed by how he’sresponding, but it’s more than that, I know. It’s Godzilla. It’s Mothra. It’s the love of a mother that he never really got to know.
It’s a purple skate lace.
I pull my wallet from my back pocket and open it, digging deep into the little pocket I keep my most precious item in. Shiloh watches me, confusion in his eyes as I pull it out and put it on the counter in front of him.
“I saw this in your wallet when I first took it,” he says, reaching for it. He picks it up, grabbing both ends and holding it taut between his fingers. “What is it? A lace?”
“The last skate lace my mom ever touched,” I reply. “She bought them for me for good luck, and I wore them on every pair of skates I owned until long after she was gone. One snapped one day and I threw it away, but I couldn’t get rid of both of them. They’re my good luck charms, like Mothra and the helmet you painted for me. You have macaroni and cheese. I have a skate lace. It’s not stupid. It’s just the pieces that were left behind for us when we lost what we should still have.”
Shiloh runs his fingers over the lace a few times before placing it on the counter again. I pick it up and tuck it away where it belongs, then put my wallet back into my pocket.
“You’re my Mothra, Donovan,” he whispers, before picking up his fork and taking another baby-bird bite of the food his mother once cooked him with all her love.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SHILOH
I stareat the art hanging around my apartment with a frown. Not only am I running out of things to put on my website… but if I keep going this way, I’m going to run out of things to put up altogether.
I know I can still paint, even if I don’t have my usual medium, but…
My eyes flick to the man splayed across my couch, watching hockey on the giant television that I barely ever use.
Fuck… it’s weird, wanting to be a better person because of someone you’ve only known for a few months.
Love isweird.
“You better not get used to that television,” I sigh, snapping a photo of the piece I did yesterday after class. It’s just a tree against a dark sky with red streaks spilling across it like a torrent of leaves, or crimson birds. It’s nothing special. It’s just regular paint, because I am well and truly out of my usual medium if I’m not bleeding myself for it at this point. I threw away the last bottles I had a few weeks ago when I told Donovan I’d try… and I haven’t been able to paint much since.
Just things like this tree.
I still put it up on my website for a few hundred bucks. It’s not enough to pay rent, but at least I can buy groceries with it.
“What do you mean?” Donovan turns to look at me. “I’m already used to it. I think I might be a little in love with it.” The smile on his face still feels so shocking, so sweet andnew. Not because he didn’t smile at me like that before, but because he didn’t smile at me like that when heknewme.
