I remembered what I’d seen of my mom and Crystal. My mom not being able to prepare dinner.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. Save some energy for later in the day.”

“No,” my mother said.

“No?”

“I’ll push myself to the limit, reach the point where I feel like I have nothing to spare, then find a way to dig deeper.”

She cracked some eggs, putting them in the frying pan—for Crystal and herself. In another pan, english muffins were lying face-down in a little bit of butter, alongside some mystery meat patties that were frying up. The pan had warped a bit because Crystal had a habit of rushing the heating-up of the pans by lasering them, which concentrated too much heat in one place. My mom used the fact the pan naturally tilted to manage the way the butter and meat juice pooled.

I cut the lettuce.

We wrapped up. Bit of mustard, bit of lettuce, meat patties, egg for Crystal and Mom, toasted english muffins, coffee in industrial size travel mugs with lids, like I imagined truckers using.

The fact my mom used the travel mugs was maybe the first real tell she had given me about where she was at emotionally since she’d broken down in tears.

Crystal floated in. “Holy hell, is that sweater mine? It looks great.”

I turned to face her, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, zipper front. Huh. Now I remember it.”

“You got it for your birthday,” I commented. “One of a few things.”

“I remember now,” she said.

“From me.”

She had the decency to look embarrassed. “To be fair, that looks way better when worn than it did hanging in my closet.”

“You could have taken my word for it,” I said, looking over my shoulder. I studied her expression. “Do you want to wear it?”

“Red’s more my color than yours anyway,” Crystal said, dodging the thrust of what I was saying.

“That’s not an ‘I didn’t even try on the sweater you gave me for my birthday’ apology.”

“It’s as good as you’re going to get. You’re on probation and you’re technically in my custody. I can give you orders, can’t I?”

I pulled off the sweater, passing it to Crystal with a roll of my eyes. She wasn’t trying to be nice, either.

“I see,” she said. “The fabric and texture change a bit when it’s stretched out.”

“Which you’d know if you actually tried it on!” I called back, as I was already halfway to her closet.

Everything close to normal. Pretend-normal, like the conversation last night hadn’t happened.

In her closet, there was a bulkier black sweater with a deep groove to the fabric and a hood built in. It had been my first choice to wear, but I’d wanted to make a point with the abandoned birthday present.

I reached out, and on impulse, activated my forcefield.