Velli

I watch my mom wolf down the waffles I got her as I vent about the day and, frankly, how annoying Lue and Jeremy were. It’s funny and odd how her appetite returns to her when she’s in that bed. She gobbles down both the ones covered in honey and the ones covered in syrup before looking up at me again. With a full mouth, she points to the Tupperware I have with a few more waffles.

“Eat,” she says after a big swallow and a clear mouth.

“No, I’m fine. I’m stuffed,” I say genuinely and pat my stomach to confirm.

“You’re getting so skinny.”

“I am not. I’ve weighed the same for months.”

“Eat, please,” she pouts.

“You worry too much.” Still, I grab the Tupperware and prepare to munch on the waffles.

One bite, and my stomach has room for more. Pooh was right, honey’s the best choice.

We dwell in the pleasurable near silence that only good food can offer. Forks stab, knives slice, and we both gulp down pure contentment.

“Velli, how’s Dream?”

She catches me midswallow, so I can’t pretend to chew and think.

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“Dream? Never been better.”

“Why isn’t she here? She’s your girlfriend now, isn’t she? After the date.”

“You don’t want to hang out with just me?”

“I miss her. Can you tell her to come by?”

I stuff a waffle bite in my mouth and signal that I need a few seconds. She looks at me with knowing brown eyes, and I realize she’s the one person I can never lie to because she always knows.

“I don’t want to see her again, and frankly, I don’t want to talk about it.” My mind draws my arguments on a chalkboard of how she is not perfect, my privacy should be respected, and that my relationship with Dream is my decision and my decision alone.

“How are Lue and Jeremy?” she asks, and I’m in awe at the subject change.

“Fine. I told them I wanted to hang out with just you for a bit, so they… I’m not sure where they went. Just out, I guess.”

“Hmm.” She’s hiding an idea in her pretty graying head.

“What?”

“Do you like them?”

I shrug. “They’re all right.”

“Jeremy looks up to you.”

“When he’s not looking up a skirt. The guy’s obsessed with girls. Did I tell you at lunch today he—”

“He’s more than that.” She interrupts in a way that makes me uncomfortable saying more. “All that looking-for-a-girl thing is sometimes just a need to feel loved. To just feel that you aren’t ugly when it feels like everything else tells you so. Did I tell you he’ll sit by my bed at night? Right there and just ask to hold my hand. He won’t say a word more. He’ll just hold my hand and fall asleep because that’s what he really wants, whether he knows it or not. Just to feel loved.”

“Hmm.” This time, it’s my turn to leave a grumble that has the weight of the unsaid.

“You are brilliant, and yet there’s so much you and I don’t know. Just keep your eyes open, please.”

I keep my mouth closed as I pretend to chew on a waffle I already swallowed.