Chapter 4
Part 3: Memories Served Warm
"Do you remember the first time Dali made spaghetti?" Aunt Fiona said suddenly, her tone too gleeful, like she'd been waiting to drop this for years.
I froze mid-chew.
Jayden gasped, immediately delighted. "OH MY GOD YES. The massacre."
I groaned. "No. Nooope. We are not revisiting that."
But it was too late. Everyone was already laughing. Everyone except me and—curiously—Raven, who had leaned back in his chair with a slow, nostalgic smile.
"You mean when she forgot to boil the noodles?" Uncle Dave grinned. "They were like crunchy pipe cleaners."
"In my defense," I said, stabbing my salad with more force than necessary, "someone told me the sauce would soften them eventually."
"That was Jayden," Aunt Fiona said without hesitation.
"I was ten!" Jayden protested. "She was the older one!"
"You were the loudest one," I said.
"I remember you wouldn't let anyone throw it away," Aunt Fiona said through her laughter. "You sat at the table and forced yourself to eat a whole bowl just to prove it was 'salvageable.'"
"It was about pride," I muttered.
"More like survival," Uncle Dave joked. "We were afraid to tell her it tasted like regret and raw wheat."
"Okay, we get it," I said. "I peaked at seventeen. Culinary goddess. Can we not roast me during dinner?"
But they were still laughing.
Except Raven.
He was just… looking at me.
And not in a mocking way. Not in a haha, remember how awkward you used to be way.
It was quiet. Observant. Like he was seeing me now, and somehow still seeing the girl I was then, and neither version seemed to put him off.
"I thought it was brave," he said suddenly.
Everyone turned to him.
I blinked. "What?"
He shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal. "You were in a new place. Around strangers. Trying so hard to be okay. You didn't know how to cook, but you tried anyway. That meant something."
The silence that followed was… weird. Not awkward, not tense—just unexpected. Like someone had lit a match in a room full of fog.
"Wow," Jayden said slowly. "Way to kill the vibe, man."
Uncle Dave chuckled and raised his glass. "To Dali's Crunchy Spaghetti Era."
Fiona laughed. "May it rest in peace."
The conversation moved on.
But I didn't.
Because Raven had looked at me—not with pity, not with amusement, but with something gentler. Something that knocked the air right out of my lungs.
I had spent years wondering if he thought I was weird, if he had left because I was too much or too broken or too quiet. But in that one sentence, he'd rewritten the memory.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
__________
There is a limit to how much one person can take in a single evening.
Mine was rapidly approaching.
We were fifteen minutes into dinner, and I'd already fumbled a sentence, almost inhaled a bread crust, and accidentally made eye contact with Raven mid-chew—which was a crime against romance, humanity, and dental hygiene.
It wasn't that the dinner was bad. It was too normal, honestly. The kitchen was warm, filled with overlapping voices, clinking silverware, and the smell of garlic and parmesan. Jayden was ranting about his dragon game again. Uncle Dave kept sneaking extra wine into his water glass. Fiona was humming while passing around seconds. It was a picture-perfect, aggressively functional family dinner.
But me?
I was a psychological battlefield disguised as a teenage girl with eyeliner and a fork.
And then—it happened.
"Can you pass the salad?" Raven asked, looking directly at me.
I should've said "sure." Just a quick handover. A civilian task. Easy.
Instead, I looked at him for too long.
Long enough to notice that his lashes were darker than I remembered. That the corners of his mouth lifted just slightly when he looked at me, like he was amused—but not unkind.
I blinked. "Yeah. Uh-huh."
I picked up the salad bowl—successfully, I might add. We were doing great.
But then I turned to pass it and—
Our hands brushed.
It was nothing. Barely skin. A whisper of contact.
But I felt it all the way down my spine.
It was warm. His hand. Big. Calloused, maybe? A little rough. From gym stuff or lifting boxes or chopping wood in the wilds of Australia—I don't know, my brain was in flames.
In my shock, my grip on my fork loosened.
Clatter.
It slipped from my fingers, bounced off the edge of my plate, and hit the floor with an echo that somehow managed to sound accusatory.
Everyone looked.
Every. Single. Person.
I blinked down at the floor like maybe the fork had betrayed me on purpose.
"Oh my God," Jayden said, grinning. "Are you okay? Was the fork too emotionally charged for you?"
"Shut up," I muttered, but my voice cracked on the second word.
Aunt Fiona was already halfway out of her chair, napkin in hand. "It's fine, sweetheart. I'll get you another one."
"No, I got it," Raven said smoothly. He reached behind him, opened the drawer next to the sink, and pulled out a fresh fork like this was a fork emergency he'd trained for.
He handed it to me without comment. No teasing. No joke. Just a calm, casual smile.
"Here you go," he said.
I reached out to take it—and our fingers brushed again.
Twice.
Two times in one night.
This had to be illegal.
"Thanks," I said, barely managing to force the word out.
He didn't say anything. Just gave a small nod and turned back to his plate.
And that was it.
But my brain? My brain was screaming.
What did it mean that he hadn't joked? That he hadn't even looked surprised? Was it indifference? Courtesy? Or was he also screaming inside and just better at hiding it?
I couldn't eat. Not really. I pushed food around my plate, nodded when necessary, and survived the next twenty minutes with the help of my well-trained poker face. I even managed to laugh when Jayden said something dumb about sword physics.
But inside, I was hanging by a fraying thread made of pure adrenaline and raven-scented confusion.
When dinner ended, Aunt Fiona started gathering plates.
Jayden got up immediately, already glued to his phone again. Uncle Dave wandered toward the living room with a low groan and something about "digestive posture." I stood too fast, almost knocking over my water.
Raven stood too.
And we were alone again for one long, heavy second.
"Hey," he said, not loud, just enough for me to hear. "It's really good to see you again, Dali."
That was it.
But his voice was soft.
Real.
And it hit me harder than anything else that night.
I nodded, unable to make my mouth work fast enough to fake a cool response. "You too," I whispered.
Then I fled.
Like a fully functional, well-adjusted person.
________
Upstairs, in the semi-darkness of my bedroom, I paced like a criminal awaiting trial.
My window was cracked open, letting in the faint sound of cicadas and the occasional bark from the neighbor's demon Pomeranian. But all I could really hear was that voice.
Hey, it's really good to see you again, Dali.
I spun in a slow, hopeless circle, my fingers tugging at the hem of my T-shirt like it might reveal a manual for social survival.
The Fork Incident alone would've kept me up all night. But no. I also had the Memory Rewrite Monologue and the "Nice top" comment and two—two—skin contacts. My skin was still buzzing like I'd been lightly electrocuted.
He'd said my name like it tasted familiar. Like it hadn't been four years. Like he'd thought about it.
Was that even possible? Or was I just projecting a whole dramatic Wattpad narrative onto someone who had always just been nice?
I flopped onto my bed with enough force to bounce once.
Then I grabbed my phone.
Tiana had texted me:
Tiana:
|Where's the update? Are you alive?
|Is he still hot or has time been cruel?
|Give me a FULL REPORT or I'm breaking into your house.
Me:
|He's hot.
|He smells like expensive heartbreak.
|He touched my hand. I dropped a fork.
|I'm spiraling.
Tiana:
|God I missed this energy.
|Send pics. And prayers.
|You'll be fine. Or combust. Either way, I support you.
I threw the phone onto the pillow beside me and stared at the ceiling.
I didn't know what to do with this version of Raven. Older. Softer, somehow. Or maybe just… quieter. More grounded. Like he'd seen things. Lived a little.
And for some reason, he still remembered me.
I had just swung my legs down off the bed, planning a tactical retreat to the bathroom for a glass of water I didn't need, when I heard footsteps in the hallway.
Not stomping (Jayden), not slippers (Aunt Fiona).
Just a steady walk.
My door was cracked open, a sliver of hallway light spilling in.
And then his voice—low, even, too casual for what it did to me.
"'Night, Dali."
I blinked, slowly turning my head toward the door.
He wasn't even looking in. Just walking past. But he'd said it. To me.
A beat passed.
"Goodnight," I said, my voice too soft.
Too late.
He was already in the guest room.
The door clicked shut.
And I just stood there.
In the quiet.
Heart racing.
Mouth dry.
Thoughts loud.
He said goodnight.