limerence | COMPLETED

21

IT'S EXCRUCIATINGLY AWKWARD BEING STUCK INDOORS WITH HER PARENTS THE NEXT DAY.

It's fine for most of the day, the three of them dancing around each other in an intricate tango of avoidance, but when the evening rolls around, they somehow end up together in the kitchen.

"Oh, Layla," her mother says, failing to mask her surprise when she enters the kitchen with her hands full of dirty cups and dishes, Gerald following close behind her.

Layla forces a smile. "Hey."

"What are you making?" Gerald asks conversationally as he pours himself some orange juice into a glass cup.

"Lasagne."

"Want some help with the veg? Maybe we can all just have lasagne to save time." Emily suggests, gesturing at the food.

"Um, sure," Layla says, her shoulders tensing. "Can you do the carrots?"

"You aren't adding meat?" Gerald asks after he notices there's no minced beef anywhere.

"No, I'm vegetarian," she answers, trying so very hard not to stare at him. She's been vegetarian for five years already. "I was just going to do a veg lasagne."

"Oh, okay. I'll pre-cook the pasta then."

Suppressing a sigh, Layla returns to cutting the bell pepper on the chopping board while Emily starts slicing the carrots. On the other side of the kitchen, Gerald grabs a saucepan to cook the pasta strips in. For a minute, Layla eyes her parents with carefully masked shock. And horror.

"I'll turn the radio on," Emily announces after exactly a minute. "It's quiet in here."

The radio is thus switched on and some everyday pop songs come on through the speakers. After Emily's finished cutting the carrots, she moves onto the courgette and once Layla finishes with the pepper, she walks over to the sink to drain the cans of peas and sweetcorn.

"Did you find a new artist to work with?" Emily asks Gerald as she messily hacks away at the courgette.

Pulling out a frying pan, Layla throws the chopped food in to cook, along with the courgette when her mother finishes with it. While Layla fries, Emily grabs the lasagne sauce from the cupboard.

"Yep, we'll start working on the songs after Christmas now," he replies, suddenly enthusiastic. "The guy seems really promising."

"What kind of music?" Layla asks.

"Think Nirvana but only with one guy who plays electric guitar," he answers, purposefully saying a famous name she knows because of how she once asked the same thing and not understood what he meant by: rock but with jazz vibes. Whatever that means.

"That sounds promising!" Emily nods enthusiastically. "I always liked Kurt Cobain. Does the guy look like him?"

"No, more like Dave. You know, the drummer? But with shorter hair and a lot cleaner looking." Layla's not really familiar with the members of Nirvana so she just absent-mindedly watches the vegetables cooking instead.

Once the individual ingredients are cooked and the pasta is finished, she starts spreading the veg along the bottom of a glass dish, before topping it with pasta and cream sauce, and repeating these steps a few more times until the dish is full. In the meantime, her parents wash and dry the dishes in the sink, still talking about work and Toronto and the friends they are meeting there for the thousandth time.

Sliding the glass dish into the oven, Layla closes the door and wonders what the hell she's meant to do next. Her parents have already moved into the living room for a game of Scrabble – something none of them have touched in the nine years they've had the damn thing.