The Silicon Valley Connection

29 | aidan: print ('thankful for you')

Thanksgiving break: a time when a family gets together to stuff themselves with food and enjoy each other's company.

However, with a workaholic father that doesn't have an ounce of cooking skills within his veins and a mother who has lost the heart to cook due to his negligence and my younger sister's untimely passing, Christmas is the only other major holiday where we can still somewhat be an average family.

"Aidan? Everything okay?"

I look up from my thermodynamics textbook, still preoccupied with my thoughts. "Everything's fine."

Faith frowns and shakes her head. "That's false; try again." She closes my book, grabs my things, and pulls me out of my seat and into an empty private study room.

"Now, tell me. What's up? I'm supposed to be the pessimistic one, so to see you like this

concerns me." Her face turns sympathetic as her body leans forward from across the table. She

interlaces her fingers with mine. "You know I'm here to listen."

faith

Learning about how fractured Aidan's family has become over time makes me realize how wrong I was about him.

Thanksgiving means a lot to my family, and pain overflows in my heart for him to sound so melancholy and dejected.

His face sinks into his hands. "I'm sorry I'm like this. It's just I'm..."

"Hurting. You're hurting, Aidan. And it's perfectly fine to feel that way. You have every right to. What's not fine is this. Compressing everything to a point where you may look completely solid on the outside, but in reality, the cracks run deep. Where no amount of tape can mend it together."

Bringing my chair around to his side of the table, I move his face up, cupping his chin in my hands. "Relationships start with a solid foundation, Aidan. I can't have you fighting my inner hurts, mending my base together when you're silently crumbling. So let me be there for you for a change. Do you trust me?"

He takes in an uneasy breath and leans his forehead against mine, whispering, "I do."

I kiss the crown of his head. "Good." Pulling away, I add, "I know it's kind of last minute, but you and your mother are welcome to come by my house this Thanksgiving."

"Are you sure? We don't want to impose."

I shake my head vigorously and laugh weakly. "Trust me. You won't. My family's very...interactive, to say the least, especially during Thanksgiving. Meeting my mom was only the tip of the iceberg."

He laughs out loud and can't deny that I love it. It's like having a real-life sun in front of me, melting away everything negative in our world. I push myself from the seat. "Besides, Nichelle and the others are coming this year as well. It would be kind of weird for one of us not be there, don't you think?"

His megawatt grin slowly returns. "That's true. We'll be there."

———

3:38 p.m. Per Sommers family tradition, every Thanksgiving, each of us draws a dish written on a slip of paper from a basket and takes charge of making that dish for the rest of the family.

I'm in charge of the hot water cornbread this year. The cast-iron skillet sizzles loudly, ready for the second batch of batter. Aidan scoots back from the stove little by little, a nervous expression on his face.

"Aww, is someone afraid of a little heat?" I tease.

"Of course not." He sets a lopsided patty of batter into the skillet. "See? Perfectly fine."