Breakfast. Three plates. Upon each, imitation egg and strips of seitan sit sandwiched between biscuit halves. Pitiful. Only if one were to miss the veritable rainbow of food spread about, waiting to be plucked from their serving dishes.

Platter of blueberries; a much larger platter of blueberry muffins; grocery store strawberry jam, transplanted into a more aesthetic jar; Dad's experiment at homemade yogurt. Quiche.

That's not all, either. The options are only limited by the Hopper family's sizable dinning room table.

Deep inside Avery's gut, something churns; warm saliva slicks her throat with a sickening funk. She should be dancing in her seat waiting for Dad to take his. Or, she should be stuffing her face to the tune of Mom's protests.

Today is different. These past couple weeks have been different.

She loses herself in the coils of steam wafting off her biscuit. What's wrong with me?

Around and around the steam goes. Up, disappearing into nothing. Circling, wiggling, whatever until it does.

Dad's voice echoes through her head. "Everything okay, Avery?"

Avery's vision snaps back and she's staring into the face of an incomplete quiche. Directly across the table, Dad's already got a slice on his plate. She blinks away her surprise and reaches for a muffin. "Oh— sorry. Still tired, I guess."

To her left, Mom cuts her egg biscuit into bite-size quarters. "Got any plans today"

"Not really. I'm going for a run after breakfast."

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"You always do that; I mean something fun."

"Running is fun enough."

Spearing a muffin quarter, Mom fixes Avery with a glare. "You know what I meant, Avery." She catches Dad's eyes and juts her head at Avery — several times, frustration edging in with the man so focused on eating.

Subtle as a brick through their window. Avery braces herself.

Dad chokes down his mouthful of quiche, clears his throat, and conducts his words with knife and fork. "Ehem — Hey, Avery, how about we go do something today? You could go show me that café you and Sophia like. Interlude, was it? Oh, and that aquarium up in Rooterdale is having—"

Mom hunches over the table and hisses at Dad. "Ed!"

Mentioning an aquarium isn't enough to faze Avery. Someone worrying that that's all it'd take, on the other hand, is. Her heart twinges.

Shouldn't I be better than this?

Yes. They're going to get tired of tiptoeing around your feelings. Sophia, too. Send her a text; apologize to her.

Faster than she can think, Avery's phone is in her hand. She strangles it. The phone's rounded edges burrow into her palm. She clamps down harder, refusing to let her compulsion driven fingers near the power button. It's excruciating. Not the pain in her palm, but an otherworldly force bearing down on her mind. Like her head is about to explode. Tendrils lashing, light disappearing, breath escaping. She forces her thoughts to churn. Better than what? Is it actually my fault that they think that? Did I do something? Say something?

"— Avery?" Someone says. Dad, Mom; Avery doesn't know which.

But, that dangling question sits at the forefront of her mind. An expectation. That's what this all is; they've got something in their head, Avery's got something in hers, and — after the hospital — she knows what to do.

She locks eyes with her mother. "Mom, I don't care if someone mentions an aquarium; I go into one every day, for god sakes. You all don't need to tiptoe around me. Please. Don't."

Mom relaxes back into her chair, picks up her mug, and sips coffee between pursed lips. "Fine, okay. Maybe I overreacted a little. But Avery: don't use God's name like that. It's rude."

All the pressure and pain disappear. Avery's head doesn't explode. In fact, it feels quite empty. Clear. Back to normal.

Swiping a blueberry muffin off the communal stack, she rips it in two — not counting the explosion of crumbs that pepper her surroundings. "It wasn't his name. I used a lowercase 'G'." She says.