Cracked

They said back at the beginning, either you come out of this knowing how to make a sourdough starter or you develop a drinking problem.

Ariana doesn’t particularly care for bread, or the solitude and desperation that might lead you to make it.

Instead, she finds herself in January 2021, making eggs for dinner. This happens to be the only skill she picked up during quarantine, and when paired with tortillas, happens to complement tequila quite nicely. The tortillas, she doesn’t remind herself, are not bread or homemade.

Ariana tries to crack an egg onto the edge of the pan but instead misses, and egg lands all over the top of the stove.

She laughs and it brings her roommate into the kitchen. Her laugh is not a happy laugh; it is bitter and tasteless, and she wonders if she’s crazy. She wonders if the last ten months have led her to insanity, or a lesser, sadder version of it. She wonders if any of this has occurred to her roommate, the only living soul to have seen her during this time of total seclusion, this slow descent leading to a stovetop mishap and graceless sarcasm.

“Are you okay?”

“Am I… okay?”

Ariana makes a hand gesture, the one where you make quotation marks with your fingers.

She doesn’t remember much after that, but she does remember the touch of her roommate as he tucked her in. Touch she hasn’t felt in months. Touch she doesn’t know how to respond to. What a feeling, to know it still exists.

“It will get easier.”

She still doesn’t know how to make that sourdough starter, but there’s still time.