Forbidden Fruit

The key turned in the lock with a click that sounded louder than it should have in the quiet of the hallway. I pushed the door open, and the familiar smell hit me first. Jasmine. Mom's scent. It clung to the air like it had been waiting for me.

"I'm home," I called out, dropping my duffel bag by the door.

Silence.

The apartment was dark except for a sliver of light bleeding from under the bathroom door. I could hear water running. A shower. That explained the quiet.

I kicked off my sneakers and walked through the living room. Everything looked the same as when I'd left for spring semester three months ago. The same faded floral couch. The same crooked family photo on the wall, the one where I was twelve and missing a front tooth. The same stack of magazines on the coffee table that Mom never threw away.

I was twenty now. Old enough to know that coming home felt strange. Like putting on clothes that used to fit.

The bathroom door opened.

Steam curled out first, then Mom, wrapped in a towel that barely covered her thighs. Her hair was wet, dark strands plastered to her neck and shoulders. She froze when she saw me.

"Adrian."

"Hey, Mom."

She clutched the towel tighter against her chest. Water dripped from her hair onto the floor. "You weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow."

"Bus got in early." I shrugged. "Surprise."

She stared at me for a beat too long. Then she smiled. It was the smile she used when she was trying to cover something up, the one that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Well. Welcome home, baby."

Baby. I was six feet tall and had a jaw that needed shaving twice a day, but to her I was still the kid who scraped his knee on the playground.

She walked past me toward her bedroom, and I caught a whiff of soap and something else underneath. Something warm. I didn't let myself think about it. She was my mother. That was the end of that.

I went to my room and unpacked. Same twin bed. Same posters of bands I didn't listen to anymore. Same desk where I'd spent hours pretending to do homework while actually staring at the ceiling, dreaming about getting out of this town.

Except I hadn't gotten out. Not really. State school two hours away. A degree I wasn't sure I wanted. A girlfriend who'd broken up with me in March because I was, in her words, emotionally unavailable.

She wasn't wrong.

I heard Mom moving around in the kitchen. Cabinets opening and closing. The clink of a pot against the stove. I followed the sound.

She'd put on clothes by then. A loose t-shirt and shorts. Her hair was still damp, curling at the ends. She was standing at the stove, stirring something in a pot, and she didn't turn around when I walked in.

"You don't have to cook," I said. "I can order something."

"I want to." She added salt to whatever was in the pot. "You've been eating cafeteria food for months. You need a real meal."

I leaned against the counter and watched her. She moved like she always did. Efficient. Precise. But there was something different about her tonight. A tension in her shoulders. A tightness around her mouth.

"How've you been?" I asked.

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

She glanced at me over her shoulder. "What do you want me to say, Adrian? That I've been lonely? That the apartment feels too big without you here?"

I didn't answer. She turned back to the stove.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to pry."

"You're not prying. You're asking." She stirred the pot again. "There's a difference."

The soup was tomato. My favorite. She'd made it from scratch, the way she always did, with basil from the windowsill planter and a splash of cream at the end. I watched her ladle it into two bowls and set them on the small kitchen table.

We ate in silence for a while. The soup was good. Hot and rich and exactly how I remembered it.

"Dad called last week," she said.

I stopped chewing. "What did he want?"

"To see if you were coming home for the summer. I told him you were."

"He didn't call me."

"No. He wouldn't."

That was Dad. Three years gone and still finding ways to disappoint. He'd moved to Arizona with a woman he'd met online. A real estate agent named Carol who collected ceramic frogs. I'd met her once. She'd hugged me too long and called me sport.

"I don't want to talk about him," I said.

"Okay." Mom pushed her soup around with her spoon. "Then what do you want to talk about?"

I didn't have an answer. There was so much I wanted to say and none of it made sense. I wanted to tell her that I'd dropped out of my philosophy class because the professor kept talking about the meaning of life and I couldn't stop thinking about how meaningless mine felt. I wanted to tell her that I'd started running every morning because it was the only time I felt like I was moving toward something instead of away. I wanted to tell her that sometimes, late at night, I thought about her in ways I shouldn't.

I didn't say any of that.

"Nothing," I said. "I'm just tired."

She nodded. She didn't believe me. I could tell by the way she looked at me, like she was trying to read the fine print on a contract.

After dinner, I helped her with the dishes. Our hands touched when I passed her a plate. Her skin was warm from the hot water. She pulled away quickly.

"You should get some rest," she said. "You've had a long trip."

"I'm not that tired."

"Adrian."

"What?"

She dried her hands on a towel and turned to face me. The kitchen light was dim, just the one above the stove, and it cast shadows across her face. She looked tired. Older than I remembered. But still beautiful. Still the same woman who'd taught me how to ride a bike and how to tie my shoes and how to say please and thank you.

"I'm glad you're home," she said. "But things are different now. You're not a kid anymore."

"I know."

"Do you?"

I didn't know what she meant. Or maybe I did, and I didn't want to admit it.

She walked past me and went to her room. The door closed with a soft click.

I stood in the kitchen for a long time after that. The soup pot was still on the stove. The clock on the wall ticked. Somewhere outside, a car passed.

I thought about the way her towel had clung to her hips. The way her wet hair had dripped onto her collarbone. The way she'd looked at me when she said my name.

I went to my room and closed the door. Lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The same ceiling I'd stared at when I was sixteen and confused and angry at everything.

I heard her moving around in her room. The creak of her bed. The shuffle of footsteps. Then silence.

I didn't sleep. I couldn't.

Around midnight, I got up to get a glass of water. The apartment was dark. I felt my way to the kitchen, careful not to make noise.

Her door was open.

Just a crack. A sliver of light from her bedside lamp spilled into the hallway. I could hear her breathing. Slow and steady. Asleep.

I should have kept walking. Should have gotten my water and gone back to my room and pretended I hadn't seen anything.

But I stopped.

I stood in the hallway and listened to her breathe. And I thought about all the things I'd never let myself think about. All the things I'd buried so deep I'd almost convinced myself they weren't there.

The door creaked when I pushed it open. Just a little. Just enough to see her.

She was lying on her side, facing away from me. The sheet was tangled around her legs. Her t-shirt had ridden up, exposing the curve of her waist. The small of her back. The dip where her spine met her hips.

I watched her for a long time. Long enough that my eyes adjusted to the dark. Long enough that I could see the rise and fall of her ribs with every breath.

She shifted in her sleep. Rolled onto her back. The sheet slipped lower.

I should have left. I knew I should have left.

But I didn't.

I stood there in the doorway, my heart pounding so hard I was sure it would wake her. And I let myself want something I knew I couldn't have. Something I'd been wanting for longer than I could admit.

She opened her eyes.

For a second, neither of us moved. Her gaze found mine in the dark. She didn't look surprised. She didn't look afraid. She just looked at me like she'd been waiting for me to show up.

"Adrian," she whispered.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

She didn't tell me to leave. She didn't pull the sheet up. She just lay there, looking at me, her breath coming a little faster now.

The clock in the kitchen ticked. The refrigerator hummed. The world kept spinning, indifferent to the fact that everything had just changed.

I took a step into the room.