Lies and Cheerios

I watch Will

and wait patiently,

tapping my toes on the cold, pink tiles

and rubbing the smudges on the wooden table.

I like Will's kitchen,

with its pink walls and pink floors

and the vast array of Yankee Candles

that fill the room with so many different aromas that shouldn't go together,

but do,

and the little scratch in one of the lower cupboards

from when I ran into it when we were both ten.

   jump

I     in surprise

when Will slams the first cabinet shut.

He's just walking in circles now,

swinging open cabinets,

shutting them all with a bang,

then starting all over once he's looked through the last one.

He's too loud,

too fast,

and too rough.

He stomps too heavily,

opens cabinets too quickly,

and shuts them too forcefully

to be okay.

He always says and pretends that he is.

But I know that as much as he wants to be,

he's not.

I don't say anything about it though.

He'll just tell me he's fine

and i know he doesn't want to talk about it anyway

so I won't mention it.

I just watch him.

Swing.

BANG!

Swing.

BANG!

Swing.

BANG!

Finally he stops,

after the third time of walking through the kitchen

and opening every single cabinet,

and shutting every single one with dissatisfaction.

I lean slightly to the left,

just enough to see what he's looking at.

It's a box of Cocoa Krispies.

I'm not sure why it stopped him this time,

but now he can't take his eyes off it.

It's right in front of him

and it's his very favorite.

He always tells me,

"There's never a wrong time for cereal, Riley."

So it wouldn't be strange to eat it

at four o'clock in the afternoon.

But he just stares at the box for a long while.

Then suddenly,

his hand jerks up, too quickly and too roughly,

knocks the box out of the way,

and picks up a box of Multigrain Cheerios

that his mom gets because she says they're healthy and delicious,

but I know Will loathes them.

But he'd rather have something he loathes

over his favorite

because we both know

it was her favorite too.

Author's Note

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