Strikeout in the Kitchen

The lightning crackling outside my kitchen window matched the chaos in my head. Friday night. The night before Leo's party. The night I'd promised to make something 'actually good' instead of my usual canned-soup disasters.

'You sure about this?' My little brother Diego leaned against the fridge, spinning his baseball on one finger. 'Last time you tried to be fancy, you almost set off the smoke alarm. Coach would have a field day if you couldn't even make toast.'

'Dude, shut up.' I shoved him playfully. 'I've been watching tutorials. I've got this.'

My masterpiece plan: papaya glazed salmon with roasted spinach. Sophisticated. Impressive. Not something that came from a box.

The papaya sat on the counter like an alien artifact. I'd never actually touched one before. Diego watched me struggle to cut it, giggling like the little pest he was.

'You're supposed to scoop out the seeds, genius.'

'I know that! I'm ... taking my time.'

The recipe called for reducing the papaya juice into a glaze. Easy enough. Except I got distracted checking my phone – because obviously Taylor was posting Instagram stories about Leo's party, and I was hyperventilating about showing up empty-handed – and suddenly the kitchen filled with smoke.

Not smoke-alarm smoke, but still.

'YO!' Diego burst in from the living room. 'What died in here?'

'My dignity,' I muttered, scraping blackened papaya goo into the trash.

We ended up at Taco Bell at 11 PM. Diego in his baseball uniform from practice, me in my apron, both of us eating crunchwraps like our lives depended on it.

'You know,' he said through a mouthful of burrito, 'Taylor's gonna be there tomorrow. And she's gonna care more about you showing up than whatever you brought.'

I looked at him – my annoying baseball-obsessed brother who was somehow also the realest person I knew. 'When did you get smart?'

'Started happening when you stopped paying attention.' He grinned. 'Also, you still have spinach in your teeth.'

The lightning storm had passed. Tomorrow, I'd show up to Leo's with chips from a bag like a normal person. But tonight? Tonight was crunchwrubs with my brother, and honestly, that was pretty good too.