Crackerbox ✔

two: moon river

He stops. The kitchen's silent as the grave, save for the light thuds of Minichunks exploding from Socks' overfilled bowl and landing on the floor---Lee's always had a terrible attention span. Socks stares up at him with dark pools that could melt a dead man's heart.

"Ah, man." Lee brushes an exasperated hand through his tangled blue-grey locks---an oddly specific shade, he supposes, but he can't help it. It had been his mother's favourite colour---at least, he thinks so, because she'd never really described it.

"It's the colour of daydreams," she'd always said, one of her countless storybooks unfolded across her lap. "It's the colour of serendipity, of peace, of air and joy and tear-stained love. There's more teal in it than silver, and it's like the tips of ocean spray." And then she'd pulled her short legs up on her favourite yellow armchair and smiled like she was never going to leave.

There's not much Lee can do when the memories come back, nowadays. All he can do is slam the door on thoughts that refuse to go away. Day in, day out. An endless cycle he desperately wants---no, needs to forget.

The Minichunks on the floor are already gone. Perks of having a living vacuum.

Lee grins---tries to, at least, and bends down to give Socks an affectionate pat on the head. "Eat up, honey," he says, and she immediately begins doing just that.

While Socks chows down on a small mountain of Minichunks and slobbers all over the freshly-mopped floor, Lee yanks his phone out from the pocket of his jeans. There's a text lighting up his screen---voice message from his father, as usual. Lee doesn't want to listen to it, but he knows he won't be eating tonight if he doesn't, so he watches the play button turn green anyway.

"Um, Leroy, I'll be, uh, busy again today," is the first words that drift out from the speaker of his device. His father's voice is hesitant, tentative, as if he's just remembering he has a son. "I won't be coming back for dinner..." ---which, really, has been something to be expected for the past few years--- "...so there's food in the fridge. Second shelf, right. There's spring rolls. And, uh, fried eggplant." There's a pause, like he's trying to end the message but can't quite find the words. "Uh...love you. Yeah." And then it's done, and gone, and his father's voice has escaped his head for another day---or week, or month.

(Lee hates eggplant. He's said it before, but he's not sure if his father even hears him anymore.)

Lee doesn't bother swinging open the fridge to check---he knows the food will be there, as promised, because although his father isn't particularly reliable, their day maid is. Instead, he crouches down and continues focusing his love on Socks---who has rapidly switched her attention from him to her towering food bowl---because Socks, at least, is a welcome constant in his life.

Once Socks has devoured most of her bowl, Lee leans against the kitchen counter and hooks two fingers into the corners of his mouth, one at each side. His teeth dig into his thumbs. His smile digs into his heart.

Lee pulls his thin lips wide, stretching the skin around them until his cheeks burn. Every second that passes makes it easier to grin, until Socks starts crying in the little dog-wail she uses whenever she senses Lee's feeling like shit, and the eggshell-white walls swallow him whole once more.

Sometimes, Lee wishes he was anyone else. He wants to be the too-cool-for-school boy in the front with the hipster glasses and the plaid backpack whose equally-hipster father comes to pick him up every day. He wants to be the goth girl in Econs with the punked-up chains and the trio of younger siblings that yank her to the ice cream shop on Saturdays. He wants to be anyone else, anywhere else. Not Leroy Hiew with his blue-grey hair and touch-starved soul.