Nate squinted at the back of the cookie box. “Have you ever read the label on these?”
“Nope,” Layla said cheerfully, pulling carrots from the shopping bag and putting them on the counter with an eye-roll.
“Seriously, you eat this? I can’t even pronounce half of the ingredients.” He sounded horrified.
“Yeah, well, you make your own green juice. No one’s perfect.”
“Hey, at least that’s healthy. You can pronounce all the ingredients in my juice.”
“Except for all those supplements, or whatever. I don’t think that number of acronyms is healthy in any context.” Layla leaned against the counter, watching Nate put the cookies in the cabinet. He held the box gingerly, like he didn’t want to touch it, and the sight made her stifle a laugh.
Apparently she didn’t do a very good job, because he looked up at her with a bereaved expression. “What? Why are you laughing?”
She tried to keep a straight face. “Nothing. It’s just, they’re cookies, Nate, not an atomic bomb.” She picked up the carrots, barely touching the stems with her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate.
He grinned, despite himself. “Okay. You got me. I haven’t eaten cookies like that since I was a kid.” He shrugged, even though she saw a bit of sadness in his eyes.
She sighed, and crossed the room to hug him. “I know your dad couldn’t afford much when you were a kid.”
“And didn’t know how to cook.”
“And didn’t know how to cook,” she agreed.
Nate sighed, leaning into her embrace. “We ate so many packaged things when I was a kid. I don’t think I had a vegetable until college.”
She rubbed his back, not knowing what to say. Nate hadn’t talked much about his childhood, beyond saying that it hadn’t been great. If he wanted to share now, she wasn’t going to push him.
“He tried, I think.” Nate’s voice was so quiet, that if she hadn’t been resting her head on his shoulder, she probably wouldn’t have heard him. “But after Mom left, it was like he was lost. He had never learned to cook, was working twelve hour shifts, so when he came home, he could barely throw a frozen meal in the microwave. And you know me, I became self-sufficient at a pretty young age, and I think it bothered him that I had to do it. So we just, didn’t talk much. He was either gone, or too tired and stressed to do anything.”
Layla could feel her throat tightening, her eyes filling with tears, but she fought them back. He needed her to listen, not put more emotion on him. She squeezed him tighter, reassuring him that she was there.
“I think he thought he was a failure, or something,” Nate continued, and the grief in his voice nearly broke her. “Like, Mom left us, and we were always so close on rent payments. And eating out of the gas station, most days. I never had a college fund, didn’t go to summer camp.” He sighed, playing with the ends of her hair. “I think he was lost. And didn’t think he deserved a map, or a guide.”
“Oh, Nate,” she breathed.
That seemed to bring him back to the room, out of whatever memories where running through his mind.
“I can understand him now. But when I was in high school, college… I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have.” He took a shuddering breath, and she felt something drip onto her shoulder. “I hadn’t spoken to him in three years, when he died. Three years. And I never,” he gasped, tears falling faster, soaking into her sweater, “I never got to tell him. That I understood. That I forgave him, and that I needed him to forgive me.”
After that, he didn’t have any words left. They stood in the kitchen, time passing by without them feeling it. Finally, Nate took a deep breath, and she could feel him straighten, pull himself together.
“Well,” he chuckled hoarsely, leaning back so he could look at her. “Who knew grocery shopping for the first time after moving in together would be so emotional.”
She laughed, hugged him tight once more, then moved away, back to the counter and the waiting groceries. They chatted happily about the dinner they planned to make, if they wanted to watch a movie tonight, releasing the heavy conversation from their thoughts. Layla did decide, as she watched Nate chop carrots, then took over herself, that she was going to start eating better, and call her mom more often.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020