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“My therapist asked me if i do this to myself,” Shiv started, nonchalantly, as she picked her way through the salad without actually committing to a bite, “this… prodigal daughter returning home thing, as some type of self-torture.”
“Your therapist?” Tom posed a little too quickly, which made her dart her eyes at him and then shy away, nodding.
There is a world of questions he wants to ask; number one: since when do you have a therapist? number two: why don’t I have a therapist? — but Tom knows Shiv needs little convincing to shut herself up again, any needless prodding will do, and he’s so curious to see where she will go with this that he decides to keep it cool, try not to make it a big deal. “What did you say?”
“Nothing, really.” she shrugged, tossed the curly ends of her hair over her shoulder and grinned: “I’ll be tortured either way, might as well be by my next of kin, right?”
Tom has too many things to say at once and they all get tangled up just at the door of his throat, like a traffic accident he doesn’t want to call too much attention to so he leans towards her eggs benedict and mouths a forkful, which makes her yelp and laugh, chasing him with her fork as if she was ready to stab him with it. Her brothers, she might’ve— in fact, he’s pretty sure she did scratch Roman with a fork once.
Torture.
It sticks to his head like an imprint, that concept; but the sun is shining across the glass windows and Shiv is laughing, her eyes so bright in that girlish way they do when she feels safest, and his heart feels so warm it might just burn itself off his chest.
They can unpack that later, surely.