“Are you fucking cuckoo, Vik? Have you lost your goddamn mind? Really, tell me,” Cal demanded, having followed me into our room. “Are you nuttier than a fruitcake? Am I nutty to not have noticed it before?”

“Calm down,” I said flatly, wondering if maybe I was losing it. I was probably losing it. People who had it together did not launch bowls across their living rooms. They didn’t feel the need to destroy inanimate objects for their betrayals.

“Calm down?” he cried, his green eyes going impossibly wide. “You’re telling me to calm down? Am I the one who just launched breakfast across the room, because I thought that was you? You’re the one who is throwing ceramic bowls clear across the fucking room. That’s the person who needs to calm down. You.”

I closed my eyes and fell face-first onto the bed, pulling a pillow over my head to muffle the sound of his bitching. He was right. I knew he was right. I was wrong, absolutely, unequivocally, one hundred percent wrong, but I could not bring myself to admit it. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to throw shit. I wanted to break it and I didn’t want to answer for it. I had held it together for years and I wanted to tear it apart, if only for a few minutes.

“You lost every one of your accounts. You watched Towertown shut down. You’ve struggled, and you have never complained as much as you are about milk. Milk, Viktor. Milk!” Cal yelled, tearing the pillow away so I could hear him. I heard him, but I didn’t want to listen. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but it felt like a really big deal. It felt like the worst thing to happen because I’d had quite enough of bad shit happening. I wanted there to be a day when I woke up, poured myself some milk and cereal, had tons of sex, and didn’t worry at all. I wanted there to be one day where everything was easy. “You’re crumbling like a stale cookie over milk.”

“I feel a certain way about cereal,” I muttered, turning onto my back. I was unable to stop a smile from stretching across my lips when I saw Cal peering down at me like I was crazier than a bunch of bananas.

“I can see that,” he nodded, sitting on the bed beside me. He rested a palm on my chest and hummed at my racing heartbeat.

“I’ll clean it up,” I promised.

Cal shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You thought it was a big deal two minutes ago. You looked like you wanted to have me committed.”

“You know I don’t have that power.”

I smirked. “Lucky for me I guess.”