a little bit more broken

by Ifununyabusiness (ifununyabusiness)

Summary:

Sydney gets sick in a deep shame spirally way and Carmy helps in a Carmy way.

Chapter 1: the kind of chef that makes house calls

Sydney felt very uncompelled to open her eyes. For starters, she could feel a thick layer of eye crust from her caruncle all along her eyelashes that glued her eyes shut. Secondly, she felt comforted by the dark chassis that were her dreams lately and her closed eyes were there only things similar to that since she was awake now. 

 

Awake on a Monday. 

 

With nowhere to go. 

 

Technically, Mondays were her day off when she was working, but she wasn’t doing much of that lately. She wasn’t doing that at all.  

 

She should go on her phone but there were an abundance of texts she hadn’t answered from Nat, Tina, Marcus, even Ebra and Richie. They included requests to hang out (Nat, Tina), sending memes (Marcus), weird articles (Ebra), quotes from the Bhagavad Gita and awkward photos of Carmy (Richie).

 

She never answered them back and stared at the texts blankly, only taking joy from Richie’s because as good looking as Carmy was he was strangely un-photogenic. They all wouldn’t tell her what she really wanted to know, which was how The Bear was doing, but she also knew any answer they gave her would send her spiraling. If it was going bad, she’d feel sick about not being there and if it was going great, she’d feel deeply unneeded. But if she was honest with herself, a small part of her wanted things to be bad so she could come in and save the day, which made her feel shitty for thinking like that. Tina was terrifyingly capable and this Luca guy Carmy vouched for and Marcus adored was on a whole other level. She never thought of herself as having a hero’s complex but the narrative lately would give her a little purpose. Only a little because it would soon be followed about how pathetic she felt. A real true loser.

 

The only person that didn’t text her was Carmy and that was because-

 

Knock, knock, knock. 

 

He always made house calls.  

 

“Sydney, you awake?”, shouted Carmy, his voice muffled through the door.

 

“No, actually,” she shouted back. “I’m not.” 

 

He knocked harder, quicker. 

 

All Sydney could think about was how he wouldn’t have done this had her dad been there. With Emmanuel, Carmy was annoyingly polite and gentlemanly, like he was trying to earn points. An abundance of sirs, and thank you’s and firm handshakes. At first, Emmanuel was not having it, and was on Sydney’s side but soon Carmy's awkward charm and earnestness won him over. Won him over so much that he felt comfortable to check up on his sick aunt out in Indiana, which Syd only begged him to go do because he wanted to escape the pity in his eyes whenever he looked at her. Emmanuel told Carmy to check up on her and Carmy took that seriously, extremely so. It’s been a month since Syd had to temporarily step down and he had made tri-weekly visits to check up on her. With Emmanuel gone for the past three days, it has become daily. It made her itch a little bit, in all the wrong places and a lot of those places felt good for a reason she didn’t want to give a name. She was too pissed at him to give him the satisfaction even if it was just in her head.

 

Yet, she was still going to open the door for him because, hell, what else is for her to do?

 

Sliding herself out the bed, she cleans the remaining sleep out her eyes, dragging her feet across her bedroom floor littered with clothes and trash that she kept pointedly not cleaning up. She slips into the kitchen to open the door and stares at the untouched counter space.  How long has she gone without cooking? She didn’t want to think about it. She could feel the rustiness of her skills within her ligaments and it made her flex her hand, open and shut. She knew it was all in her mind but that was what the problem was with her. Her mind. 

 

The only thing left on the counter was her mother’s old clock. It was kitschy, shaped like a chicken, yellowed by age and cooking and when the batteries were in, it ticked loudly, pointedly, offensively. It hung above the sink for 20 years. 

 

Now, it laid face down on the marble, the back open, not a double A to be seen. She only had the courage to take it down once her dad was out. It was a prized possession of her parents, one of the first things they got for the apartment. Even without it on she could hear the tick of it, like a phantom roar. Every second it ticked, reverberating in her head, the nausea of it rising and blooming, even with her empty stomach. She could feel saliva pool in her mouth- 

 

Knock,knock,knock,knock,knock,knock,knock-

 

Carmy’s incessant knocking was enough to push it down. God, he was on one today.  When she swung open the door, there stood Carmy in typical understated Carmy wear, his plaid jacket, cap and jeans that probably cost as much as his rent. In one hand was his backpack and the other was a bag of Tupperware filled with some basic food he made for her, like he’s been doing for the past month. His face still carried all the seriousness that it usually did but lately there’s been clarity, the tension in him has traded its erraticness for focus, a clear focus. It hummed in him, healthily, rhythmically. Must be the therapy or therapies, plural, he was in. He was in talk and somatic. The talk to help with his self-awareness and the somatic to help shake the traumas out of his nervous system. These were the few things he would mention to Syd, keeping Bear talk to an absolute minimum. It’s clearly been doing something because no longer did he stand with hooded shoulders but with a straight back, making his body seem more broad and strong than before. In his eyes the anguish seemed not as pronounced, like you can track a warmth coming into those pointed blue eyes. It was always there but now it was steady and they were lasered on to Syd. 

 

It irked her so bad, she couldn’t stand it. 

 

“So,” Carmy proceeded, “Are you gonna let me in or are you gonna stare me down like you’re gonna murder me?” 

 

That was deeply rich coming from him

 

She moved to the side leaning her back against the door frame. 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

He makes a beeline to the kitchen, checks the fridge and takes out the Tupperware. He opens one up and looks around in it, tosses it around in his hand. He does a big disappointed huff and turns his head to Sydney. It does something to her spine every time, his look of gentle frustration. Made it liquid, made her bow her head in, hated that he was disappointed in her, hated that the disappointment affected her so much. But she makes sure it doesn’t show, keeps her mouth still to look nonplussed. 

 

“You’re just picking at it? Why?”

 

“Could you just believe that I’m just not hungry?” 

 

Carmy blinks pointedly at her. “Syd, I have seen you eat. You’re like Cookie Monster if the food actually went down.” 

 

She guffawed hard and immediately looked down, pursing her lips in defiance. When she looks up, Carmy has a small self-satisfied smirk but he doesn’t dare look at her. Fuck. Carmy is the kind of funny that was dry and brutal that you didn’t see it coming, his delivery unassuming so the substance of the joke was that more cutting. Plus he was right, she loves to eat, loved to eat. But lately the only thing that would keep itself down was a 4 for 4 from a Wendy’s that was around the corner and that would be the only meal she would have for the day. Before, Carmy brought food over it and her dad would finish it. Now she had no excuse as to why she won’t eat the food made by one of the best chefs in America who gave her the best meal she ever had, a fact he got out of her on one of their recipe refinement nights. Why a bite of his focaccia made her so immediately sick in so many different ways, she could probably dig for the reason if she wanted but she avoided it anyway like everything else. 

 

“Y’know, I had a suspicion it was your dad. I always thought he was too eager when I came by.” He said, half self deprecating, moving things around the fridge, taking note of what was and wasn’t there. 

 

“Shouldn’t you be calling him Emmanuel,” Syd mocked.  “Y’know, since you’re so close now.” 

 

He closes his fridge and makes his way through the cabinets.“I could if you think he’ll be cool about that.”

 

He was ignoring her bite. That was annoying. 

 

As Carmy rummages through her fridge, Syd notices a large spread of paint on the bottom of his backpack. Without much thought, she walks up behind him and touches the bottom of the bag. It had a shine that made her think it had to be something oil based. She rubs her finger on it, while an anger grew, solidified, boiled, a mass of life that acted in ways against nature. 

 

Carmy turns his head to the left, cautiously like a cornered prey, the sudden unearned intimacy of Sydney’s action throwing him off. 

 

“What are ya.. doing back the-?

 

“So you were just gonna start renovating the restaurant without me? Again?” Syd cuts in. 

 

She turns around, paces, starts running her fingers through her braids that were way past their prime. 

 

“That’s cool. Mustard yellow is a fine color if you’re into that sort of 1980s corporate fast food look. Who thought of it, Luca?” 

 

She wants to calm down, really, but this is the one thing he promised not to do while she was forced by him to take this leave. Still run shit by her if it was major. It was the only thing she wanted from him, not this extra baby-ing shit. 

 

Carmy turns towards her. There was a red forming around his neck and his eyebrows squished towards each other. You could tell by the way he scrunched his mouth that he was biting his tongue. He’s gonna yell. Syd braced herself by firmly digging her toes into the wood floor. Something in her…smiled. Felt…excited. Another worrying thing to file away for later. 

 

Instead, he unfurled his scrunched face and took a deep inhale and exhale. Carmy looks back up at her.  

 

“Syd, respectfully, what the hell are you fucking talking about?” 

 

“Your backpack. Now I know why no one has been sending me pictures. ’Cause they’d think I’d freak out or something?” 

 

Still deeply confused, Carmy pulls his backpack off his shoulder and turns the front side towards him. His face relaxed in acknowledgement and sighed. He lowers the backpack and looks at Syd.

 

 “Syd, I’m…I’m taking a class. Intro to painting.”

 

Whoosh. Everything flew out of her like a bat out of hell. He’s taking a painting class. I mean it makes sense, she thinks to herself. He could be the next Picasso if he wanted to, he was so damn good.  Should I have known this? I should have, she concludes. If she took the time to really talk to him, she would have. 

 

“Monday mornings.  I know a guy in Northwestern. Got me into a class so I can do something that would make me feel, I don’t know, more human, I guess? Larissa, my therapist, she tells me I need hobbies. It helps build an interior self, apparently.” 

 

“Oh,” A pathetic round sound. Oh. That’s all Sydney could say. The mix of her shame and pride made her stupidly quiet.  

 

They stand there in silence awkwardly, Carmy staring at her and Sydney avoiding his gaze by staring right down at his shoes. She could see now that they were bespeckled with paints of different colors, cadmium red, cobalt blue, titanium white.  It was only part of his outfit that was ever dirty.

 

 Carmy takes a deep breath and heads towards the door. Syd watches him leave. So this was it. This was the line, she thought. It made sense. The past few weeks when he made his visits, all their conversations have been tense, terse short with both of them leaving the talk worse for wear. He only wanted to talk about stuff she didn’t care about, so tight lipped about the Bear.  Sydney wasn’t so blind that she couldn’t see how she instigated these situations. So it makes sense that it would end here, that this would be his final straw. She could feel The Bear materialize itself further and further from her grasp. It was something she was so used to when it came with things, business, people. And she hadn’t had much left in her, anyways. 

 

“I got groceries downstairs,” Carmy states as he pauses before the front door. 

 

Sydney stirs. He’s not leaving-leaving?

 

“You’re cooking here?”, she asks, genuinely confused.  

 

Carmy huffs and turns back to her, a frustration writhing in his lips. 

 

“Yeah. Because if you won’t eat these, I clearly have to change tactics. Your dad’s been telling me about Wendy's and I am not sorry when I say this, Syd, but that’s just not gonna cut it.” 

 

Feeling exposed , she turns away, her back facing him. 

 

“I-I-I’m gonna go take a shower.”

 

“OK. I’ll be here.”

 

She dragged her feet to the bathroom. She could feel Carmy’s eyes on her and could only imagine all the pity that had to be in them. 

 

She slips off her tee and sweats headed into the shower, blasted hot water and sat down in the tub. She let the water pour down on her with no intention to cover her braids or wash them. Sydney felt broiled under the immense heat, hoping maybe all the ugliness in her now would finally dry up and float away with the steam. 

 

Chapter 2: flashback within a flashback

Notes:

Trigger warning: a lot of vomit talk - it’s in the tags but I just thought I should let you know before you get deeper

The color of the vomit was different this time. Sydney made a note of this to herself. It was gray which confused her because the bile that formed in her mouth tasted like a yellow but as it poured out of her on the dirty alleyway and pooled around her shoes, it looked gray. 

 

A bluish gray, but that additional hue could be chocked up to the singular light that shone down on her crouched form by the rusty dumpster, her knees impossibly close to her ears, her arms wrapped around her calves. Crackers and oatmeal make your vomit gray, she stated objectively in her head as tears fell indiscriminately from her eyes. 

 

This was the fourth vomit of the night. Honestly, it was more like the sixth, but she swallowed two of them down, so they didn’t count. The other four she had run out mid service before she spilled her guts on the smudgeless plates. 

 

Nat kneeled beside her and rubbed warm concentric circles across Sydney’s back. “It’s OK. It’s alright. Just get it all out, hun.” 

 

Syd hated how much she wanted Carmy to be out beside her instead of Nat. He was going to actually but Nat intercepted him before he could make it outside. Syd could hear them arguing from in between her pukes. 

 

“Tina said she got it, Nat. I’m fucking going out there. ” Syd could hear Carm bark at Nat, could see his hand emphatically point at her through the window. 

 

“Carmy, Bear, since I cannot trust you to listen to your head, listen to my mouth. There is a full house out there and we got 35 minutes left of service. Please stay where the fuck you are and finish. What do you think Syd would say?” She spoke that last line with finality.

 

And Nat was right. Syd would've been mad mainly because Carm’s been stepping out with her for this for the past month, leaving Tina and Richie to it. Albeit, this was after service back when the vomit felt more like a release and acted with sense instead of whatever the fuck it was turning into now. And there were no complaints, thank god, but they couldn’t do stuff like that, not anymore. They couldn’t take chances like that because they got a star now. 

 

They got the star. They got the star and everything should have been fine after that.

 

After the soft opening, something changed in Carmy. Call it an effect of a ferocious embarrassment, or a sudden desire to be the best in a different way, or maybe it was the result of fumbling Claire, but he was dialed in like he said he was going to be, albeit a robotic rigid form of himself. They were finalizing the menu together, cleaning up the plates, going to different restaurants, being the partner Sydney needed, but it was different. Less warmth. Like he took the fridge with him everywhere he went. Sydney did not know what to think of it. He wasn’t yelling or screaming or leaving. He gave good advice and mentored her.  But at times, when she tried to make a joke it was like he was scared to laugh, afraid to upset some sadistic god with a lightning rod in his hand, pointed directly at Carmy’s head.  

 

“I want you to be happy,” Sydney blurted out. They were in the office one day as they sat beside each other doing paperwork. 

 

“What?” Carmy turned his head toward her, taken aback. 

 

Sydney rubbed the back of her neck , knowing she had to continue, but not really sure on how to. “You fucked up really really bad but you’re still allowed to live. Y’know that right? Like no one …no one wants to see you like this.” 

 

“Yeah. OK. ” Carmy looked down, then swiveled his chair towards her , resting his elbows on his thighs, contemplative. “H-How should I go about that?” 

 

“I have no clue.” Syd shrugged, her palms up.

 

Carmy scoffed. “Always so helpful, Syd.” 

 

“That I am,” Sydney huffed.  He chuckled back. There it was, a clean unhindered laugh. She missed those.

 

Carmy rubbed his hand through his hair and looked up to the ceiling. “You want me like this, if we’re to get the star. And I want that for you.” 

 

Oh. Something about that twisted something in Sydney, deep in the pit of her stomach. I want you like this? Really? 

 

“It’s the sacrifice I have to make,” Carmy double downed. He grabbed Sydney’s knee to comfort her, rubbed his thumb against it in small circles. He looked intently at the motion of his thumb and Syd stilled, awkward but not wanting it to stop. When they both looked up at the same time into each other’s eyes, Carmy flinched, moved his hand away, quick, like he was burned. 

 

He turned back to his work, gluing his eyes to his papers.  “Imma be here for you so don’t worry about me, alright? Worry about this.” He gestured broadly to The Bear, its structure, its essence.  

 

Syd nodded at this as she sighed, lightly tracing her knee where he touched. 

 

Did Carmy really have to stop laughing at the stupid shit Fak, Richieand Marcus would say to be good and solid? She didn’t want to believe it, but Carmy did. He was dead set on it. And that was something Sydney understood so deeply about him. The sacrifice of the self for something bigger, greater. They were pairs in that way and maybe in that way they should stay the same. Syd thought it could be different and it was but maybe parts of that changing  would be unrealistic. Certain pains are probably way too resistant to the winds of change. But this devotion, this brand of it from Carmy,  made her feel more alone in new ways, but it was better than nothing. 

 

So they continued. 

 

And the days kept going, and the ticket machine demanded more and more, and sleep wasn’t ever a friend and Nat had a baby and Syd became a godmother and Carmy kept moving and Sydney kept right up and the reviews glowed and the vomit kissed her and Carmy’s shoes and the fear of failure gripped into her, pinching the skin of her neck and she had no one to bring it to and days went by and months went by and then they got the call. 

 

They got the call on a Tuesday and the euphoria of it was explosive, everybody cried out in unison. There were high fives and daps that turned into hugs, forehead and cheek kisses. Tina and Ebra sang together, Richie gave Fak a congratulatory punch in the gut. Carmy flew up beside her, carried her into a hug, his face square into his neck as he whispered, “Congratulations.” It was the most kind of anything he had shown her in weeks, months, but it came at her, bursting with a passion she thought he had forgotten how to show. 

 

And Sydney smiled. Accepted the “thank you’s”. Stiffly hugged everyone back  Ignored Carmy’s worried side eyes and Tina’s. And Neil’s and Marcus’ and Richie’s. Rubbed shoulders and patted backs. Led service. Vomited. Went home. Plopped into her bed. Pulled the crook of her elbow over her mouth. And sobbed. 

 

Sobbed at the emptiness in her, the pressure that pushed down on her head still, the aches in her muscles and the small fissures she felt like were in her bones. Time, time, time. It was never going to go away. The feeling of never having enough to be the kind of person you want to be.  It stays and it sticks. Even when the one thing you thought you wanted comes to you.

 

It started when she brought her mother pancakes into her room, and spotted tufts of her hair on the floor. It blew up in size when she got her biggest account and lost Sheridan in the same week, when she got that glowing review and the ticket machine and Carmy spat at her for every mistake she made and now this star. This star shooting, blinding, bright, burning in the palm of her hand, popped and fizzled and ticked, shh, shh, tick, shh shh, pushing out every possible chance at failure like little papers, sparking, burning and beautiful and scary. She cared about everything and it burned her and it will continue to do so because that’s what it takes to be the best. It takes and it takes and it takes. And even though you are doing it right by someone it doesn’t help the feeling of being alone. 

 

And in that moment she thought she could make peace with that. That the success of something required a quiet, painful maintenance that her body will get used to. But now, it spilled out of her every chance it got, with no end in sight, the fear, the exhaustion, the trauma. With every ticket, she could really fuck up a good thing that she built with her blood, sweat and tears and it could all spiral downward. 

 

Which led her to where she was now. Three quarters into service puking her guts out onto the concrete after being a Michelin star rated chef for two days. 

 

Wobbly, Sydney started to get up, loosely shaking the residual vomit off her shoe. Nat stepped back her hands out tracking her moments as if she was about to tumble over. 

 

“OK, I‘m good.” She squatted with her hands on her knees, huffing. 

 

“Syd, you’re not. You're not good at all.” Natalie lightly croaked, her voice scratchy,  her eyes wet. Syd could only imagine what she looked like to Nat but she did not care. Whatever the hell was going on with her was gonna have to wait. 

 

“Nat, it’s OK. I just..I just need to get back in there.” She huffed and walked slowly towards the back door. 

 

Then BAM! It was in an instant that Syd slipped on the floor and fell, cartoonish and maybe it would have even been funny, if her head didn’t slam against the tile like a fucking rock. She felt the stillness of the kitchen immediately and the sudden onslaught of squeaks as everyone came running towards her, shouting her name. When they ran and knelt close to her, her cloudy eyes just made everyone look like watercolors. Carmy was the closest and she could feel the heat of his face and the brightness of his eyes fade into black. 

 

When she woke up, she found Carmy’s coat placed around her shoulder. She was in the backseat of a car, her head laid in someone’s lap. 

 

“…get him in a week to be the sous, I think. He owes me.” That was Carmy’s voice and that was Carmy’s lap her head was in. She kept still knowing he was probably staring at her in the way he does. 

 

“Tina can be the head. Everyone respects her. She knows the food the best.” Nat offered, her voice sounding empty  as she turned the car down an intersection. 

 

Oh, they’re planning, they’re planning without me, Syd thought. Specifically, they're planning on what to do without me. It felt like a light bulb switched on, overheated and exploded in her head. It made sense to do so. She was literally falling apart and if she was honest everyone's been exchanging worried looks for the past 6 months every time she came back from throwing up. This, this was inevitable. 

 

Carmy balanced his wrist on her jaw and caressed her cheek lightly with his thumb. 

 

“You think she’s gonna hate us?”, Carmy barely whispered. 

 

Syd wanted to say something, wanted to yell, wanted to scream but it wouldn’t amount to much. They all knew she was broken and in what ways. She knew this was best. She couldn’t argue so she pretended. She pretended to sleep. As the resentment settled into her body, she stayed quiet, resigned to her brokenness. 

 

“You could do this without me 

“I couldn’t do it without you. I wouldn’t want to. You make me better at this.” 

 

That was a fucking lie. 

Notes:

A bit of a softer interpretation of Syd, I know, but she's tired y’all.

Chapter 3: what’s left

Syd pinched at her cheeks in the foggy mirror, tears falling. She thinks back to that day a lot, of what she could have done differently. How she would have swallowed down everything, ate less, even though she was barely eating at all, screamed and yelled at Carmy and Nat to just let her rock so she didn’t have to be stuck in this increasingly indefinite leave. She smoothed her hand towel over her braids. The bags under her eyes looked more like luggage. 

 

Tick, tick, tick, tick. 

 

Sydney’s throat clinched up and she immediately pressed the crook of her elbow in her mouth. Did-did Carmy put the clock up? 

 

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

 

Another wave of nausea smacked Sydney. He sure did. 

 

With a towel wrapped and held together by her right hand and the crook of her left elbow pushed into her mouth, she ran out into the kitchen. 

 

Carmy turned to her, wide eyed, at a wet, half-naked Sydney gagging into her arm. He dropped the wooden spoon and ran to her. 

  

He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging a bit into Syd’s skin. “Syd, Sydney, what’s wrong?” Carmy spoke low, like he was afraid his voice could trigger something else. 

 

“The clock please, it's so loud. The tick, it’s like the ticket machine,” Sydney gasped in between breaths. She shook herself out of Carmy’s arm and ran to the clock, grabbed it and slammed it down into the counter. She immediately bent herself into the sink. 

 

The vomit came out like small drops, even though she heaved loudly with a lot of air. The smell of Carmy’s food worsened the reaction as she spat bile, grabbing her stomach with her whole hand as if she was trying to control it from the outside in. And when her mind finally realized there was no “tick” to be heard, her body stopped stuttering. She could feel her stomach unfurl itself and the burning sensation in her esophagus soften.

 

She stared at the droplets in the sink. “Did I break it?,” she finally breathed out.  “I broke it, didn’t it” 

 

From her peripheral, she sees Carmy walk beside her and pick up the clock, taking stock of the damage at hand.  “Only a little. I-I‘m pretty sure it still works.” 

 

Syd could feel his eyes bore into her back but she didn’t want to look at him. She just kept staring down, her tears pooling. She turned on the faucet and watched the vomit and water twirl down the drain. 

 

”Syd.” 

 

She tightened the towel around herself and straightened her back, trying to maintain some dignity. 

 

“I’m going to my room.

 

“Let me walk with you?”

 

She relented. “Yeah, OK.” 

 

It was a sad quiet parade, as Syd shuffled to her room with Carmy right behind her. 

 

They slid into her bedroom. Syd sat herself stiffly on her bed while Carmy just stared at her, his eyes combing her over before taking in Syd’s room. Another level of exposure.  He always seemed to be an audience to her unraveling, her dirt, her stains. It wasn’t fair. She was so solid before for him, for everybody. And now, she was a pile of ash at his paint-stained boots.  

 

“I think you need to take the food and go, Carmy.” She said with finality staring at his back as he took in her room. 

 

Carmy swiveled his head towards her and squinted his blues. Slowly, he lowered himself, kneeling and placing his hands on her knees, maintaining his stare. 

 

“Sydney. You don’t need to do this. You don’t need to push me out.” His eyes implored hers, an ocean thrashing its waves at Syd’s feet.  

 

“I just want to be alone. I just need to be alone.”

 

“SYD-I!” 

 

Carmy covered his mouth with his hands then ran it up his face and down his hair, pursing his lips tightly instead. He got up and paced around the tight messiness of her room. He took a deep breath and flexed his hands. 

 

“OK. I respect your wishes. I respect you.” 

 

He took another breath in and moved his neck from side to side, pinching at the little skin in between his collarbone.  

 

“OK. I don’t want to leave. I’d like to make you something. I’d like to see you eat it. But I’ll go. If you want me to go, I’ll go. But I’m here. And I want to be here. I want to be here, Syd.” 

 

His eyes pleaded with her. Syd felt like she had nowhere to go but to just lower her head to escape it. His exasperation got to her, annoyed her. The way he was trying to restrain himself from reacting too strongly even when she knew she was being a nuisance. Like what was this version of Carmy, this patience, this maturity? She couldn’t stand it. Now that she was sick, now that she was so outside of herself? Now is when he wants to be good? It was so like a man that it hurt.

 

 “I wish you’d just yell,” she spat out. “ I know you want to. I see it in you.” 

 

Carmy backed away like the low blow was physical. And just like that, his shoulders slumped, and he made himself small. Inside Syd flinched, immediately regretting it.

 

“Don’t say that, Syd. Please don’t say that.” 

 

He stood there silently for a bit and all Syd could do was stare at her hands.  Then he just left and closed the door behind him. A few seconds later, the front door slammed shut. 

 

OK. That was it. That was what she wanted. She finally pushed him away. An incredibly hollow victory. Not even a victory, really. Just a result, a consequence. These were her self-destructive plans in motion. All she needed to do was continue ignoring everyone’s texts and she would truly disappear from everyone’s life. A sob ripped itself from her mouth and she immediately clamped it.  No more crying. She didn’t deserve it. 

 

Syd didn’t bother with shea butter even though her hot shower made her dry. She just slipped on a pair of sweats, a crop top and wrapped her braids in a scarf. From her desk, she grabbed some duct tape. If Dad sees the clock like that-she shook her head. She didn’t want to think of the look of devastation that’d be on his face. 

 

She shuffled into the kitchen but immediately stopped when she saw Carmy placing a brown bag with red logos on the table. They both paused, both the deer and the car with bright overheads. Syd stared down at the bags. 

 

It was Wendy’s. He got her Wendy’s. A Biggie bag, to be exact. 

 

“When…did you order this?  

 

He finally released the bag and straightened himself out. “When you were hanging over the sink. How much of that was the smell of my food and how much of that was the clock? “ 

 

Syd opened her mouth then closed it. She really couldn’t do the math on it. He sighed, heavy. 

 

“My ego is taking a hit but I just… I need you to eat.” 

 

She shakes her head, incredulous. She can’t understand this. Why was everything about them so circuitous? 

 

“I only ever see you eat pb and j’s. What's so wrong with me eating Wendy’s?” 

 

Carmy scoffed, dry. “Syd, when have I ever been a good example for habits? I don’t want you to be like me. I want you to be better-” 

 

“-I know,” she knew where this was going. “‘Cause we have a star to maintain-

 

“I want you better because you’re Syd”. He whispered through gritted teeth. “I want you better for you. Do you not fuc- Do you not get that? Even if The Bear was to shut down tomorrow. Even if you were to never come ba-“

 

A pure look of fear came over Carmy and he averted his eyes from her, looking down on his boots. He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

 

Oh, Syd thought. The second one of the day, but this one echoed more, didn’t have the shame or the self pity. This one was filled with history, memory, time.  

 

She’s seen this before. She’s been this before. She’s been Carmy and she… she was-

 

She turned her head back to the clock. 

 

She wondered if Carmy could feel it like she did. Her past rhyming itself with their present, following the rhythms and echoes that were etched into the tiny apartment’s wood.

 

She stared back at Carm, really looking at him.

 

Or maybe it was his past’s song and poetry they were caught in. She could only guess who she looked like to him right now, but she knew she’d be right. 

 

They were probably just layering over each other, pain harmonizing. The dissonance only created because Carmy was fighting it, tired of the same traumatic scale and time signature. He was changing, finding ways to be persistently permanent the best way he knew how. He’s made that so clear, so crystal in the past month. She couldn’t fight against him anymore. She wouldn’t

 

“Y’know when my mom got sick, she'd go on jogs and that clock would wake her up”, she blurted it out quick, surprising Carmy and herself. She stood there for a second, awkward, caught in her own vulnerability. She then sat down and started sifting through the Wendy’s bag, not really grabbing anything, distracting herself from what she was about to say.

 

Carmy shifted his backpack from his shoulder to the crook of his arm. He sat down next to her, his eyes steady. She kind of hated how he could sense the gravity of the moment, but she continued. 

 

“She’d, uh, she’d wrap her head in a scarf and she’d just, like, book it?  My dad, he made her promise only to do it around the block and me and him would watch her from the window. But when she knew my dad was out, she’d go longer. I’d check this damn clock to see how long I should let her go before I called somebody.”  

 

Syd shuddered, the memory enveloping her. 

 

“But she’d come back and she’d look so…awful? Like, just so sweaty and she’d be breathing all hard, and it was just so…labored…and fucked. But it’s not like I could, like, yell at her, so I’d just make her something, pancakes, and try to get her to eat. And she’d eat it but I could tell she didn’t want to. And she’d do that almost every day.”

 

She looked towards the stove as if she could see it happening, a teary-eyed baby Sydney, on her tippy toes, pouring batter on to a hot pan. 

 

“That day… My dad and I left the hospital and kind of just drove around. We didn’t know where we were going. But the next thing I knew we were in the Wendy’s parking lot eating a 4-for-4. And we did that almost every day until we didn’t.”   

 

And just like that a rage bubbled up that Syd couldn’t stop.

 

“People don’t even die from lupus like that.  That’s the thing that always bugged me. It’s not common at all! I would google it everyday to see if it changed? As if a sudden increase of deaths would validate her being gone.” 

 

The tears flowed freely down, the sobs hicupped out of her. 

 

“How strong did she need to be? Mentally, Physically? She already was so- How strong do I- I can’t even- when I have what I thought I wanted-“

 

Carmy crashed his chest against her in a hug, then rocked her back and forth. He held her tight, cradling the back of her head in his right hand and Sydney just let the tears fall for the umpteenth time that day. What else was there to hide? He already saw it all on her and he wanted to stay. She wanted him to stay and she was tired of testing it.

 

“Syd, I’m here. I’m here.”  

 

She exhaled, long. “OK… I’m sorry” 

 

“I’m sorry. We’ll get through this. You, me- ”

 

“-And Larissa?

 

Carmy guffawed, a release valve for all the tension. 

 

“Of course. She’s the most important part.“ 

 

They rocked against each other more. Syd almost wanted to bust out laughing. This is not where she thought today was going to go. His hand still cradled her head, a finger lightly tracing the grown out section of a singular braid. Syd could feel the warmth of his stare crackle and pop on her cheek, her melanin blocking the rush of red she can feel on her face. 

 

Slowly, they released each other from the hug, less because they wanted to and more because they needed some air to circulate. She took in the kitchen. The sun had to be higher in the sky by now, the blue morning switching to something golder. She took in Carmy. He looked through the Wendy’s bag, picked at the fries, pulled out a frosty, put it by her. She took in the clock by the sink. She walked up to it. It was just like Carmy said. Not too fucked up to fix. She walked it back to Carmy knowing he would help her or at least be her support so she could try to do it on her own. 

And that…that was a really nice thing to know. 

Notes:

And that is a wrap folks! Sorry this took me so long. I think writing fan fiction is genuinely dangerous ‘cause tell me why the crazy shit that happens to fanfiction writers happened to me.

I had to get BACK SURGERY BECAUSE I WAS LOSING MY ABILITY TO WALK!

I shit you not, my spine got really fucked by a benign tumor and it was a whole thing! Like what??? Life is not real, guys. I mean, I won’t lie, I got very overthink-y about it because I usually don’t write prose and I took breaks but the back/spine/leg thing was the major reason. Shit’s wild. Anyways, probably won’t ever write fanfic again because what the actual FUC i think this shit is cursed but that’s ok because I mainly did this as an exercise for my younger self who was too nervous to write or finish the fanfics she did so this is healing my inner child for sure.

 

Thank you guys for the gorgeous comments! You really gave me the motivation to keep going with this.

Notes:

This thing has been collecting dust in my google docs since like October just waiting for some kind of perfection and then the season three trailer came out and I was like Oh fuck maybe I should post this? I am thinking this is gonna be three chapters long. Maybe four?? Originally this was supposed to be a one shot but I think that just stressed me out too much so here ya go!

But y’all…let me be real with you…after seeing that season three trailer I am thinking maybe Sydney needs to skee-fucking-daddle! Carmy is on one and Sydney shall not be the one.