Breakfast

Sunday morning. You can already smell the coffee as you saunter down the stairs. Seated at the kitchen table you find her sipping her 4th cup of coffee already. She's in one of your old worn-out oversized t-shirts from uni. The lettering is cracked and faded. It looks like a dress on her. The stretched-out collar is hanging loosely off her neck and her collar bone is exposed. “Good morning babe” you greet her with a yawn as you rub the sleep from your eyes. “I didn’t hear you get up.”

“You never do, you sleep like a rock”, she smirks. She sets her mug down and swings her bare little feet back and forth. Looking out the window and trying be nonchalant she says, “I like dippy eggs.” She’s doing the woman thing where she’ll make an observation instead of “being bossy.” What she’s really saying is, “I want you to make me dippy eggs.” And you have to be the one to do it. Her first time they weren’t dippy at all, they were hard boiled. The second time she left a paper towel too close to the burner and it caught fire. So, you’re on permanent stove duty. Which is fine. You don’t mind.

So you fill up the pan with some water, sprinkle some salt, grab the last 3 eggs from the fridge and set a timer.

“You know the salt doesn’t do anything. You’re just wasting the salt.”

“That’s how my grandma did it, and that’s how I do it. If you weren’t a walking fire-hazard you could do it how you want.”

“humph” she furrows her brow and pouts, but offers no more protest.

When the water reaches a rolling boil you set a timer and sit down at the table with her. Neither of you speak. She’s doing her dailies and you’re scrolling twitter.

The timer dings and both of you get up at the same time. You’re going to the stove, Shondo to put her mug in the sink then grab the plates to set the table. She gets up on her tippy toes, her slight, milky calves flexed. As she reaches for the plates the shirt rides up and exposes her butt. She’s wearing the panties you bought for her intentionally a little too small. The corner of her cheeks poke out the sides.  As you kill the heat a thought comes to you, and you take hold of the handle of the pan. When she turns around holding the plates you trip, showering her with the scalding water. She lets out a blood curdling scream as the plates shatter against the hardwood. The water hit her right below the nose, covering both of her lips, over her chin, and her neck and chest, and onto her forearms. Her pale complexion is now bright red and burning.  Blisters are already starting to form in a matter of seconds. Tears streaming out of her as she continues to cry and gasp, panicked flailing of her arms like a dog trying to dry itself off. She grasps at the shirt trying to pull it over head and remove it. The boiling water soaked into the cotton and is clinging to her skin. With the shirt stuck over her head she blindly walks forward over the broken plates; a jagged edge carves deep into the pad of her foot. Disoriented and blind she drops to the floor.

You sit back and admire your work but then you remember.

“Oh fuck! The eggs!”