Re: Jamie & Hannah & Si (& open to any Mayer+ types): kitchen
She knew Si was going to meetings and seeing doctors, and she'd never, ever met a psychiatrist or a therapist that believed her. It said something, maybe maybe maybe, that she'd kept insisting on her truths, even when she'd realized that they would stop commiting her if she just lied. But she hadn't lied, not for a long, long time, and it was only at the end, when she had bruises to hide alongside her ghost, that she'd finally started to try to say what they wanted to hear. Those doctors, they'd always looked at her with doubt, and she wasn't a very good liar. But she really, really hoped it was different for Si, better for Si, and he looked good and healthy, and that made her think her cross-finger wishes had come true for once.
On the counter, and the kitchen felt warm and alive. It smelled of sugar clinging to the air, and it felt like a childhood before Mom had been demolished by a mold-black house. "He's right," she said of quickies, because they were kind of quick, and she crinkled her nose as she nodded her head at Jamie. "Si's bedroom is less crowded and has a bigger bed. His is probably best to use." Her own room was a mess of lights and wall hangings, and the bed was tiny, tiny.
Dad, Dad, Dad, and she sometimes felt like her dad wasn't other people's dad, but personality-wise Jamie was most like the father she remembered. He liked his obliviousness, and it was how he coped, and it had always been how he coped. Dad reminded her a little of David, too, and the way David talked to a woman long-since dead. But, mostly, Dad didn't like emotions really, not outwardly, and she kind of wondered if he was as scared of a relationship as Jamie was now. She blinked a few times when he talked about Seven and pasta, though, and she wondered when that had become a running joke. But she just smiled bright and bauble and a silly girl who had her head too far in the clouds to ever feel sting: "I don't think pasta really goes with ribs and burgers, so it's okay," she said, and she leaned to give Si a quick, quick side hug, because May was soon, and it sounded as if he really intended to come back.
And she slid off the counter next. Hop and onto messy socks.