Spinach Between the Lines
The coaxial cable lay tangled on my floor like a dead snake, mocking me. Friday night, and instead of being at Jordan's party—the one everyone was posting about on Insta—I was at my dad's apartment, helping him figure out why his TV wouldn't work.
"You're good at this stuff, kiddo," Dad said, trying too hard. Since the divorce, everything was an adventure, a bonding moment, a chance.
My phone buzzed. Kai: u coming??
I stared at the screen. Kai and I had been best friends since seventh grade, through my emo phase and his braces disaster. But lately—ever since he started hanging out with the popular crowd—I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like friendship was a cable with a loose connection, flickering in and out.
"Almost," I lied.
The TV finally flickered to life. Dad ordered pizza to celebrate, like we'd accomplished something monumental. When it arrived, I stared at the slice with spinach scattered across it like someone had shaken a whole garden onto the cheese.
"Since when do you like spinach?" I asked.
"Since the doctor said my blood pressure's too high." Dad laughed, but it wasn't funny. "Getting old, Alex. It happens to all of us."
Something twisted in my chest. Dad was only 45, but suddenly he seemed fragile. Time was doing its thing, moving forward whether I wanted it to or not. Friendships changed, families split, parents got old.
My phone buzzed again. A photo from Kai: the party crowd, everyone laughing, me nowhere in frame.
I thought about spinach—how it started out small and innocent and then suddenly took over everything. How things grew when you weren't looking. How the version of me that belonged in that photo was drifting further away every day, and I didn't know how to stop it.
Or if I even wanted to.
I took a bite of the pizza. The spinach wasn't bad. Just different.
"You know what?" I said. "This is actually okay."
Dad smiled, and I let myself believe he meant it. Some cables loosen. Others tighten. You figure out which ones are worth fixing.