Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

A thick haze and the odor of burned pancakes hung in the kitchen as I climbed down the ladder the next morning. Lake stood at the stove, smoke billowing from the frying pan that he scraped with a spatula while cursing under his breath.

I’d had a long, fitful night of sleep, never able to stay asleep for long thanks to the nightmares. Watching my father burn the house down wasn’t exactly at the top of my list for the day. “What are you doing?”

Lake jumped, dropping the spatula on his foot. The dark stubble along his unshaven cheeks and chin matched the circles under his eyes. He looked as though he’d had less sleep than I’d had.

“I’m making breakfast,” he said, retrieving the spatula from the floor. He rinsed it quickly, wiped it on his pants leg, and then went back to hacking away at the blackened blob in the pan.

“I prefer my pancakes golden brown, not blackened to a crisp,” I told him. “I can just eat—” Inside the refrigerator I found a jar of mayonnaise and a few foil-wrapped items that had crusted over suspiciously. My dinner the night before had been a sandwich from one of the few shops I found open along Heron Avenue. “Um, nothing, apparently.”

“I didn’t get a chance to pick up things before you got here,” Lake said. “I wasn’t sure what kinds of food you like and I didn’t want to get a bunch of stuff you wouldn’t eat, so…” He shrugged and gestured toward the pan. “Everyone likes pancakes, right?”

He gave me an awkward grin.

“Have you ever actually cooked pancakes before?” I asked, stepping closer to the stove to survey the damage he’d done.

“Once,” Lake told me. “I think I was around your age. My mom banned me from the kitchen after that.”

I took the spatula away when he started scratching the burned pancakes from the bottom of the pan again. “Stop. You’re not going to win this battle with the frying pan. Just soak it in water and soap and it’ll come out later. You do own soap, right?”

Lake shot me an exasperated look as he grabbed a bottle of lemony yellow dish detergent from the windowsill over the counter. I ran cold water over the pan to cool it off, then set it down inside the sink and filled it with water and a squirt of soap. At this point, it didn’t look likely that the burned remains of Lake’s attempt at breakfast would come out.

“Sorry.” Lake leaned against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other. “I don’t usually cook breakfast. Or anything, actually.”

“No, really?” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I thought a homemade breakfast might make this transition a little easier.” Lake’s gaze became vacant and his smile looked pained. “Your mom was always a great cook.”

Silence hung between us for a long time. A new wave of tears washed over me, but I was determined not to let them fall in front of Lake. He didn’t get to be a part of my mourning.

“Mom stopped cooking months ago,” I told him, swallowing the lump in my throat. “A box of cereal and some milk is fine.”

Lake shook his head. “That’s so Woodser. Go get a shower and get dressed. I’ll take you for a real Swanser breakfast.”

There wasn’t a clock anywhere in the room. Of course. Why would Lake Westray need to know what time it was? The world he lived in worked on his own time, not within the confines of anyone else’s established rules.

“I have school,” I reminded him. “Dylan will be waiting for me.”

Lake reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I’ll call him and he can come with us. We have time. Go.”