#blenz

‘Eat up,’ you said quietly as you set down the bowl of pasta on the fraying wicker placemat.

Billy didn’t look up from the bowl. He was quiet and, for once, terribly painfully lucid. He picked up a polished fork and stabbed the tines into the pile of spaghetti and twirled it up into a haphazard ball, splashing tomato and basil sauce at himself. You busied yourself with the homemade bread. It was no use staring at Billy while he was lucid. He was someone else when the cobwebs cleared and the lines of his face softened into melancholy rather than madness.

It was one thing not to look, but another thing entirely not to touch. As you went by, you ran a hand through his hair and he made a humming sound that might have been a purr or even a grumble. It was hard to tell through a mouthful of pasta. You sat opposite him with your bowl and tore a hunk of bread from the steaming loaf that was studded with rich black olives and flecks of rosemary. Billy watched the golden loaf ripping with a pleasing crackle and he swallowed carefully. You smiled and offered the crust to him. He took it and set it beside his bowl, saving it for the sauce at the bottom.

‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,’ you mused, chewing your first mouthful.