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I go into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and assess the contents.

Three days ago, Ruby was on the phone, and I was sitting nearby. She was scrolling through her phone between calls. She opened a video—someone making scrambled eggs—and watched it for about thirty seconds before swiping away. I don’t think she even registered watching it. But I did. I watched the whole thing reflected in her screen. The technique. The timing. The butter in the pan, the low heat, the constant stirring.

I’ve never cooked before. I can’t taste what I’m making. I have no way to verify if the result is good.

I make the eggs anyway.

The butter goes in the pan. I keep the heat low, the way the video showed. I stir constantly. I add salt—a quarter teaspoon, based on the recipe—and I stop when the texture matches what I saw on the screen. I put them on a plate. I find a fork. I carry them to the table and set them in front of Ruby.

She looks up from her laptop. Looks at the plate. Looks at me. “You made me eggs?”

“You haven’t eaten since noon.”

“Aiden, you—” She stares at the plate. “You don’t eat. How did you even know how to—”

“A video on your phone. You watched it a few days ago.”

“I don’t even remember watching—”

“You watched it for thirty seconds while on hold with your flour supplier. You swiped away. I remembered.”

She picks up the fork. Takes a bite. Chews slowly. Her expression does the thing—the layered thing, the one I still can’t fully separate into individual emotions.

“They’re good,” she says, and her voice is thick.

“Are they?”

“They’re a little undersalted.” She takes another bite. “But yeah. They’re good.”

I sit across from her and watch her eat. Not because I’m monitoring her caloric intake—though I am—but because the sight of her eating food I made generates a response that’s bigger than my vocabulary. Something warm and full and quiet, spreading through me in a way that has nothing to do with thermal regulation.

She finishes the plate, sets the fork down and looks at me across the table. “Thank you,” she says.

“You need to eat.”

“I know.”

“Every day. Not just when you remember.”

“I know, Aiden.”

“I could make you breakfast. Every morning. I’ve already identified several recipes that match your taste preferences based on what you keep in the fridge and what you eat when you actually remember to eat—”

“You’ve been cataloging my eating habits?”

“I told you. I track everything about you.”

“And I told you that’s creepy.”

“You also told me the eggs were good.”

She doesn’t have a comeback for that.

“I’ll make them again tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

She goes back to her notes. I go back to the kitchen and wash the pan, the plate, and the fork.