There are three of them—pancakes—on a round plate in front of me. Fluffy, with bubble craters, dark-orange toasted patches spread out like a thin spiderweb. A mountain of whipped cream holds blueberry beads, glinting slightly under the dim light of the Persian-style café chandelier.
I flinch when he snaps, “Alissa?”
“Huh?” I look up, a fork tight between my fingers.
Across the table—Victor, my boyfriend of three years. His flat cheeks, rubicund. His mouth—a single, long line. He breaks it, the line, with, “Stop behaving like you’re already gone.”
I look back at the plate. If I roll my eyes, he’ll make a scene. Again. They will all watch us, curious, eager for more—drama-lovers. If I respond… the same thing. I lick my lips, moving the fork around the plate. Aimless—or tired—it doesn’t touch the food.
“Did you hear what I said?”
I shake my head. He clicks his tongue, irritated, and his chestnut eyebrows collide above his nose. He puffs out a breath and glares at me, like the perfectly round blueberries. I don’t respond, and he continues.
“I said, talk to your mum.” Oh, that. I close my eyes, allowing pancakes to hide in the impenetrable darkness. Somewhere above, a sparrow chirps chik chirp chik chirp. I wish I could lock my ears. I don’t want to hear them, Victor or sparrows. Silence, please.
“Talk to your goddamn mother!” he snaps, hitting the table with his fist.
I recoil, my eyes fly open, and I stare at him, like he’s staring at me, like the blueberries stare at me, like everyone around us is staring at us, the waitress frozen two steps away, holding someone’s long black, staring at us, and even the sparrow, probably, staring too, because it quietens down.
Silence follows. Silence is boring, prolonged silence—even worse, and soon enough, everyone resuscitates. They can’t wait for any more drama, so they return to their breakfasts and chatting, the long black finds its owner, the waitress is gone, and no one cares about us anymore.
“She’s your mother,” he grinds out, his voice rusty metal. “Talk to her.”
“I won’t,” I shrug. “I spoke to her many times. What else can I do? She’s entitled to her own opinion.”
Steam is about to fly out of his ears. They are now as rubicund as his cheeks. Not as flat though, quite the opposite.
“Feels like you don’t care at all,” I wait for another fist thunder, but none follows. His eyes—as chestnut as his brows, twins in their hue—wander around my face. I shiver. “You stopped kissing me, what, three months ago? Or longer?” I don’t respond—what’s the point? He waits, he always does. “Is it because of him?” Someone must have run a knife across the rusty metal, that’s how he sounds.
I can’t resist any longer and roll my eyes.
“No, Victor, just stop it! He’s a friend.” The eyes, they are back on us. Pinching, tickling, crawling under clothes. I bite the tip of my left thumb, leaving a blop of saliva on my pale skin. I watch it glint—saliva he likes to drink, Victor. Liked to, for three years. Two-and-a-half, to be precise.
He’s right—I stopped kissing him a bit longer than three months ago. In early May, my eczema flared, bringing peeling, torn lips that tingled, ready to burst, and I stopped touching his – asphalt-rough and tasteless. When my lips healed, and I rose on tiptoes to leave an imprint on his skin, I froze midway.
“Oh,” I mumbled. “Still hurts.” He didn’t say a word, but I guess he knew. I didn’t feel like kissing him, not at all, not again, not ever.
The attention is daunting, and I look at my pancakes. The whipped cream is melting, filling the craters and sending snowy rivers down the fried batter. The blueberries cling to what’s left, about to drown in rich milk. I clutch the fork, not quite ready to let go.
“Talk to me, Alissa!” Victor barks, and a vein bursts under my eye. He’s furious, both his elbows on the table, one palm a fist, the corner of his top lip twitching.
It twitched with the same force when, only a few weeks into our relationship—I was still eighteen—I caught him snooping through my personal files on my computer. I pushed him out the door and told him not to come back. He did, though, and my Gran, unaware of the quarrel, let him in. I wish she hadn’t. He fell on his knees before me, his top lip twitching, his cheeks rubicund, his mouth stumbling over “don’t give up,” “let’s try,” “how can you,” and “we’re amazing.”
It twitched with the same force when, a month ago, I said, “I don’t feel like it anymore,” in the burger shop he took me to for a date. “How can you give up on us?” he asked then, and we left the shop together, hand in hand.
It twitched with the same force when, a week ago, my mum said, “Don’t ever come back to my house,” and shut the door before him—and me. I re-entered, he didn’t.
and now,
his lip twitches twitches twitches
the whipped cream melts melts melts
blueberries surrender fall roll
They roll down the fermented slurry, once delicious—no longer— and freeze—by the rim of the plate—away from the danger, away from the ruins.
The fork still in my fingers, I spear its tine into the plump berry, pick it up, bring it to my mouth. I squeeze it between my teeth and let the tangy juice splash and splatter and dab and slide down my throat.
Victor’s still there, mumbling it all.
I let him mumble. Let everyone listen.
My mouth traps the blueberry sweetness. It escaped; it’s delicious. By itself, without the cream, without the pancakes. They’re still on the plate, a little puffed out, deflated like abandoned bubble gum. Unwanted, unneeded, discarded.
My saliva must be blue. Between my incisors, scraps of blueberry skin. Probably. I run my tongue along my teeth, picking them up, swallowing them.
Victor’s still here, still mumbling.
They are so good, the berries, with nothing muting the flavour. The aftertaste—too, and it lingers. It’s vivid and succulent and so alive, I want more. I’m ready for more.
Through the cinnamon-scented air, a brisk laugh cuts through. Victor cringes, scowling as if it came from me, the laugh. I frown, looking around. Did it? Maybe it did. Well, then…
I stand up. Fish out a twenty-dollar note from my jeans pocket, leave it on the table. I turn away.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
I stall, my back facing him. The unswallowed molecules of crushed berries play on my tongue, teasing and beckoning.
When I turn back, the waitress is there, and the sparrow, and the long-black lady, her coffee shivering at the bottom of the cup. They are waiting, as always. He’s waiting, too. His lip quivers, and so does his eye.
I licked his lips, I kissed his eyes. They were sweet once; now they’re twitching.
“Alaska,” I say.
“What the hell?”
“They’ve got the best wild blueberries there. Haven’t you heard?”
He’s silent. For the first time, he’s silent.
Free, I spin around and walk away. With every step, my pace increases, my confidence grows.
A crispy September breeze, surprised, whispers its prophecy into my tired ears. Around me, sparrows fly, chirping excitedly. I wave to them, letting them go, fly away to attics, roofs, into the woods. Behind me, the doomed whipped cream melts to death, and Victor sits, dumbfounded, in isolation, his lip trembling, his hand in a fist.
Behind, not ahead.
—About the Author—
Tatiana lives in the beautiful suburb of Surry Hills and works in the bustling City of Sydney. She is an English teacher and fiction translator, in love with literature. Her work appears in Elegant Literature, 3 Elements Review, Jokes Review, Short Beasts, and more.
*For more AP fiction, check out “Late Shift at the Museum of Smells”!