"You Are Strong Enough To Survive The Fall”

It isn’t much, but he grabs his stuff — shoved into a backpack that has seen him through nearly every grade, and a duffel he stole from his dorm’s lost and found on the last day of undergrad — and makes his way to the second bedroom. She warned him on the way over that it isn’t anything fancy, just a bed and a dresser and a little nightstand, with beige walls and a tiny bathroom that should work.

Considering he’s gone from sharing a room with his older brother, to shitty college dorms, to an unsavory apartment with more roommates than was technically legal, to a hospital bed in an abandoned inpatient wing, a bedroom to himself in a building that isn’t also his place of employment is a considerable upgrade.

Within a pitifully low number of minutes, everything he owns is put in its rightful spot. Venturing back into the kitchen, he goes straight to the fridge and finds the leftovers amidst nearly empty shelves. Opening cabinets at random makes him feel like an intruder, but by some miracle, the bowls are in the third one he checks.

He fills one up for her, and then one for himself, doing his best to make sure he isn’t taking any more than he’s giving. Already he can feel his stomach straining, desperate in a way he’s grown used to. Patience is a virtue, though, and it’s one he’s always had in spades, so he takes the bowl and throws it in the microwave, staring at it for every second it spends spinning behind the glass.

While he waits, he thinks about her name. He can’t help it. Old habits are easy to cling to when there’s nothing else to hold.

Saint Trinity. Grandma would be beside herself.

The beeping startles him, knocks him out of his head and back into reality. Grabbing the bowl, he cheats right at the end, abandoning his self-proclaimed virtue for a scolding bite of rice, beef, and vegetables he can barely even taste.

By the time she walks into the room, wet hair leaving damp spots on her hoodie, he’s on his last mouthful. Her eyes go wide, and he braces for the comment, but she says nothing, just walks up and grabs the other bowl. A minute later, she’s suffering the same consequences as him, letting her tongue bear the brunt of the heat in a worthy sacrifice for hunger’s sake.

There’s a kitchen table further down, but neither of them make a move to sit. They both stand on opposite ends of the counter, nearly empty tupperware and a thousand unspoken questions filling the space between them.

“I’m going grocery shopping tomorrow.” He looks up at her, but she’s staring down, studying her food like it has something to say. “If you’re off, you can come with, otherwise just text me a list of what you want.”

“I don’t need anything, I can manage with whatever you don’t—“

“Whitaker.” Her eyes pin him in place, cut his words off with efficient brutality, but there’s something delicate in them. Something careful. “I can afford this. I wouldn’t offer if I couldn’t.”

It’s something he knows he’ll never ask, but he wonders how it’s possible, the same way he’s spent years wondering how anyone his age on his track survives when there’s no pay and no time for anything that would.

Rich family, maybe. That seems to be the answer for everyone else.

“Okay,” he relents. “I’ll go with you.”

“Now, was that so hard?” She teases, before grabbing her bowl and tossing it unceremoniously into the sink. “I’m gonna go put on the stupidest show I can find. I’ve used too many brain cells today. I’ll keep it quiet if you’re gonna call it a night.” She’s on the other side of the half wall when she adds, “Or, I guess you can watch, if you really want.”

Does he want to call it a night? Two hours ago he was exhausted and ready to collapse, but now the thought of turning the lights off and lying down with nothing but his mind to keep him company is unexpectedly daunting.

“Sure, I’ll watch.”

She puts on Keeping Up With The Kardashians. He’s proud that he does, in fact, know who they are, but his knowledge starts and ends with general name recognition.

It fascinates him, mostly from an anthropological standpoint. They are unlike anyone he has ever seen, perhaps anyone who has ever existed. It can’t all be real, he’s not that naive, but enough of the behaviors feels too genuinely ridiculous to be fake. He tries to sit and observe in silence, hardly moving a muscle to avoid shifting too far into the gap on the couch, but curiosity gets the better of him, the way it has his entire life.

“Wait, why is this guy so important? Is he another celebrity?”

“He’s a basketball player. Or, was.”

“Oh. And they’re dating?”

“At this point, but this is an old—you really never heard about them?”

“Never been a pop culture guy, I guess. Or a reality TV guy. We didn’t get a ton of channels back home. Why, was it news or something?”

Santos grins at him, and the sight makes his palms sweat. “Oh, Huckleberry, you have no idea.”

—

The next morning, they go grocery shopping, and after pointed glares and a threat to simply guess what he might eat, he makes his necessary selections: off-brand cereal and milk, sandwich bread and deli meat, frozen nuggets, a box of pasta, granola bars, and a bag of potato chips.

She tells him she doesn’t know how to cook for one, but if he doesn’t like whatever she’s having, he can make something else. He’s not a great cook and he’s not picky (beggars and choosers and whatnot), but he’s decent at baking, so he offers to make up for the meals with sweets, which is how flour, eggs, sugar, and butter get added to the cart.

“Last thing,” she says as they walk into the frozen aisle. An overwhelming selection of pints stare back at them. “You’ll need your own. I don’t believe in eating ice cream any way except directly out of the carton.”

“Whatever flavor you like is fine.”

“Huckleberry,” she groans. “Aren’t we past this?”

“Fine,” he says quickly, reaching in and grabbing one from the top shelf.

Santos leans over his shoulder to see. “Mint Chip? Are you deranged?”

“What’s wrong with Mint Chip? It’s a classic!”

“It’s toothpaste! You’re eating toothpaste for dessert.”

“It is not! It’s delicate!”

“It’s disgusting.”

“Mint and chocolate are complimentary,” he protests as she reaches in and grabs one from the bottom. He peeks at it, then scoffs. “Rocky Road? Really?”

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “What’s wrong with that?”

“That’s kid stuff!”

“What are you talking about? Rocky Road is the fucking best.”

“It’s, like, seven toppings slammed into one! You’re shaming Mint Chip when you eat the whole kitchen sink covered in chocolate. At least mine’s a real flavor.”

His eyes go wide at his own words three seconds after they’ve left his body. She’s buying him groceries he can’t afford, to take back to her apartment that he’s living in for free, to make something she’ll allow him to eat at no cost, all while asking for essentially nothing in return, and he’s bickering with her?

It’s impossible. He’s polite. He’s respectful. He doesn’t shoot gift horses in the mouth by insulting their taste in ice cream. How could he turn so quickly into the version of himself that only used to exist with three very specific people, all hellbent on riling him up?

An apology is halfway out into the world when her laughter cuts him off. “Damn, dude,” she says, “if I knew that’s what it took to break your little soft and sweet act, we would have stopped here first.”

She grabs the cart and starts moving, not looking back to see if he’ll follow.