KOOKIE:
I hang up before my mother can say anything else. I don’t trust my voice to hold, and I don’t want her to hear me cry. She will worry, and that is the last thing I want. I can take care of myself, I mutter as the silence in the kitchen thickens. It presses on my chest, wraps around my lungs like a fist.
I glance down at the meal Levi left in the microwave. I pull it out and set it on the counter. The moment the lid comes off, a familiar aroma fills the air, curling into my senses like a memory I didn’t know I still carried. My breath hitches as I realize it is from Anns. It is the little corner shop Levi and I used to sneak off to when we were younger, long before life swallowed us whole.
We’d share a plate and argue about who got more pieces of the meats. The meals were expensi
