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Holding her gaze, I do something I’ve never done in my entire life and bare my teeth at her.

In my head, I imagine that I look vicious. Like a savage beast standing over an unprotected cub ready to fight my way to the death.

In reality, I know I’ve got to be nowhere close. A yappy dog nipping at someone’s heels, more like.

But still, Pamila’s scowl wavers before she twists forward again, a silent way of telling me to screw off. This time, I let her.

I catch the barista’s watery eyes behind Pamila and give her a thumbs-up. This is only a job for her, but she’s still a person with real feelings, and I don’t enjoy the thought of them hurt because of this woman.

She tugs her mouth up into a small smile before mouthingthank youto me and finishing up the new drink. That unsettled feeling from earlier smooths out slightly, enough for me to stop thinking about it.

Delaney is waiting for me by the door, appearing naive to what just happened. I think there’s too much going on in her mind right now for her to have been paying attention to me.

Yanking open the door for her to exit, I keep my sights trained forward instead of back to gather one last glance at Pamila. It’s not worth it, and as I follow behind Della onto the street, I make a silent promise to myself.

The next time someone attacks a person I care about, I’ll be just as brave as I was just now for that stranger. Especially when it comes to a certain ice queen who really isn’t all that frozen after all.

20

BRYCE

I’m a godawful fucking cook.

I used to blame my inability to create anything even half-edible on my parents, my mom specifically. She didn’t cook for shit. Still doesn’t. Instead, she orders in from every place willing to deliver to their Cherry Peak–adjacent neighbourhood and dumps hefty tips to those who initially refuse. My dad is either purposefully naive to her antics or just doesn’t care enough to question why the garbage is always taken out right before dinner is served and the same meals are on a constant rotation. As long as he’s fed, anything is fair game.

Personally, I’d have preferred growing up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or hot dogs instead of the dishes Mom ordered. I’ve never liked fish. Not salmon or cod or any other variation of it. But every second night, it appeared on a plate in front of me.

“Don’t complain and just eat, Bryce,”she’d say, her frown lines deepening as she shook her head at me.

So, I did, and the moment I left home, I wrote that shit off. I’ll go as far as to do an entire lap around the supermarket just so I don’t have to pass the fish department and get a whiffof its smell.

Amongst other things that I focused on once I escaped my childhood home, I made an effort to teach myself kitchen basics.

Eggs, boiled or scrambled. Grilled cheese, soup from a can, and a handful of different easy recipes that I found online or begged Darren and Poppy to teach me. It’s pathetic, really, how little I’ve managed to teach myself and master, but it’s something. A tiny, stupid fucking skill that I was never all that grateful for until today, when I saw the pale yellow lunch box on the counter while I was grabbing my to-go coffee cup for work.

It was empty inside. Not even a single non-refrigerated snack packed and ready to go.

Daisy was in a rush all of yesterday, holed up in her room finishing plans and colour coding her planner, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that she’d forgotten a lunch. Regardless, it still frustrated me to think of her putting herself and her body’s needs on the back burner.

That’s when I texted her. It was an impulse decision driven by pure concern. I didn’t need her to text me back before I decided that I would be the one to fix the problem for her.

Leaving work early was an instinctual reaction that snapped into fruition once my mother started to call and text, demanding a meeting.

What am I hearing about you and a woman?

Is this an attempt to scold me? A punishment?

Daisy Mitchell? That’s who you were with last night?

Why have I heard this from anyone other than you? Tu m’as blessée.

Answer my calls. Come to the house right now.

I didn’t.

Instead, I turned my notifications off for her number and ignored her completely.

Both my mother and the state of the kitchen are disasters that I’ve been conveniently blocking from my mind as I sit in my car in the school parking lot, hesitating to go inside. All of my priorconfidence that led me here has scuttered away, turning me into a coward once again.