Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

June 1992

“Chicago?” Richie whispered to himself. “Why’ve we got to move to Chicago?”

He saw his dad’s hands tense, clench in on themselves as he took a harsh deep breath in, and a harsher deep breath out. His mother reached over and placed her hand on his, there was no smile on her face, she didn’t smile at her husband anymore, but it gave him the strength to hold back on whatever he was going to say. 

“We have family there, zabka, we'll have support.” his mom said, her accent still thick despite living in the US since she was seventeen.

She reached out for his hand, he didn’t take it. There were few moments when his mom showed him those kinds of compassion. Most of the time she carried herself with a greyness. Somewhere between meeting his father, and having him, she’d given up. It was hard to take the affection when he knew she didn’t care as much as other mother’s did.

“But we've never needed them before, and besides, I barely know them, they're barely family.”

He didn’t say that they didn’t care about him, because he knew that would be too far, but he could tell when his mother retracted her hands that he’d struck a nerve. This was more of an escape for her, it had been just their trio of a family for so long that having the rest of your family nearby must be exhilarating. 

After his mom went silent, his dad’s eyes fell on him again. Richie shrank in his seat. There was a way he stared at him that made him feel three inches tall. He’d perfected that ability, to take any confidence or self-assuredness and rip it away from him.

“We’re moving to Chicago, Rick,” he knew that he hated being called Rick, he could never tell him not to use that name, though. “Your mother and I have family there, we’ll have support, there’s work there, you’ll have your cousins around you, a proper community, you’ll like it there.”

How did he know what he’d like? He was never around, and when he was he only saw the man he wanted him to be, rather than the teeanger he was stuck with. He knew that his dad was disappointed in him. He’d tried to get him into the scouts, but he wasn’t an outdoorsy kid, he’d tried to get him into the JROTC but he hadn’t had the discipline, he’d even tried to get him into sports before giving up when he didn’t show up to practice. No part of him wanted to end up anything like his dad, so he’d made it his mission to avoid doing anything he wanted him to do. He wasn’t ending up like him.

“How do you know I’ll like it? I’ve never been there, I don’t know my aunts and uncles or my cousins, I don’t know anyone there and I’ve just got settled here and you’re moving us again, like you always do!” He smacked his hands on the table.

A twitch in his dad’s eye made him realise he’d fucked up. Richie should’ve known better than to argue back at Lawrence Jerimovich, there was no arguing with him. What says, goes. Home was like an Army barracks whenever he was here.

“Like I always do?” His dad wasn’t shouting, he never shouted, but the controlled tone of anger in his voice shook him more than any screaming would do. “You mean when I was risking my life for my country, earning money for my family, you mean when I almost died to keep you safe from all kinds of evil.”

Richie averted his gaze. The temperature had dropped by a few degrees, it seemed. He couldn’t quite get his breath out or his hands to stop shaking. He hated that his dad could do this to him. 

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Richard.” He insisted. 

When he didn’t, he lifted his hand and hit the table so hard it wobbled instead of resting. He saw his mom flinch at the table, his dad rested a hand on her arm. 

“I told you to look at me when I’m talking to you.” He said. 

His dad’s eyes were the same crystal blue as his. Wrinkles had started to form around them as they cut into his soul and made tears well up that he tried to blink away. 

“You have no respect, that’s your problem, I’ve worked hard my whole life for this family and you’re not grateful in the slightest. We feed you, clothe you, take care of you and put a roof over your head and it’s not enough. It’s not enough that we’re moving somewhere where you’ll have people your own age, your family, it’s not enough that I got shot in the leg and can’t fight anymore, it’s not enough that this move will do us good. You don’t want to, and the whole world revolves around you, doesn’t it?”

The way he stared at him told him that he was expecting an answer. He’d learnt to read his father like a book, when to speak and when not to speak, when to move and when not to move. All he was, was a puppet on a string.

“No.” His voice wobbled as he spoke.

“Well it seems that way to me, you’re complaining about moving to a new city with brand new opportunities and family and support. Do you know what your grandparents were doing at your age?” His dad got out of his chair, he’d heard this part of the speech before. “Your grandparents were going through famines, occupation by the Soviets, occupation by the Nazis, war, bombings, rationing, labour camps, genocides, and you’re complaining about a move we’re doing for your own sake. You’re selfish, you’re disrespectful and you’re a shame to the Jerimovich name.”

If he tried to wipe the tears from his eyes, he knew his dad would use it against him, he knew he’d call him pathetic, a baby. He wasn’t pathetic, even if he felt it. He wasn’t a baby, even though he hated crying. 

“You should be grateful you’re not starving to death, or being brainwashed by propaganda, or working until you collapse. You’ve been spoilt and you don’t realise how much you’ve actually got. You’ve got food on the table and a school to go to and the freedom to live but you don’t care, you don’t get your way and you throw a hissy fit, you sneak food when we send you to bed without dinner when people went days, weeks without eating, had to do awful things to survive.”

He could feel his dad’s breath on his face, hot and moist. The tears blocked most of his vision, making his dad a close blurry figure surrounded by halos of light. 

“We are moving to Chicago and you’re going to be grateful that we’re making you closer to your family, and you’re going to be grateful to God for giving us a roof over our heads, and leaving me well enough to work.” He grabbed his wrist hard enough to make him struggle, but not hard enough that he knew it would leave a bruise. “Because that is what a good son does, that is what our family does, we are grateful, and we deal with it. Am I understood?”

He nodded as the tears dripped off his chin. 

“I said, am I understood?”

“Yes-yes sir.”

After Marcus walked in, and they'd explained the non-negotiables, despite how they dwarfed in comparison to what he was going through, there hadn't been too much of an explosion, and they'd all scattered to do what they were meant to be doing. It gave Richie the idea that the only reason he and Carmen were doing this dance of not letting Friends and Family night go was to distract themselves from the shit they couldn't get rid of.

With Gary at Sommelier school, they were one front of house member down. At this hour, only Neil and himself were in. As far as he knew, Neil was sorting out some kind of secret project with Ted that he didn't want to know about. The Faks had been enough when they were teens, now they were older he'd somehow become more fond of them, and more annoyed.

Richie was halfway through polishing the knives when he felt his stomach growl. Carmy had his back to him through the window through to the kitchen, he can see the rest of the chefs crowding him as they observed him explaining tonight’s menu. New ingredients. New bills. Less money. Growing debt. He could see how this would go. They'd made a plan based on their old menu, and the cost of all these new microgreens and fancy meats did not fit the budget. He could not see how this would make them stand out apart from being the fastest new restaurant to close in Chicago. But he was just some dickwad who'd never left the city of Chicago, supposedly.

It was all so wasteful. He could imagine what his parents would say, what his grandparents would say, seeing all that food rotting slowly in the walk in, the one Carmy was rotting in. 

Ever since these non-negotiables had come into play, something about him had shifted. As soon as Carmen started on his culinary career, he'd developed an intensity that only grew with each restaurant but there had always been an ability to be human that you could get through to, that Mikey could get through to more than anything. New York had crushed this part of him, the tiny slithers of that previous Carmen who's eyes always shined so brightly in the darkest moments crept out in conversations shared like their cigarettes. Now it was gone. The Carmen he was used to becoming a shadow he wasn't sure was even there or a hope he'd created in his mind.

Shaking his head, he focused on the edges of the knife, the sound of the cloth running through his fingers, the way it felt against his skin. Thoughts like that were creeping back in, day by day. Disappointment. Anger. Heartbreak. This all felt like a divorce. Like the corpse of his marriage stalking him. If he wasn't careful he'd creep back into the old Richie. That guy had his place in his mind but he didn't get as much time of day anymore. Not gone, but placated.

Service was becoming more of a chore with him trying to hold his breath and failing. Sometimes he couldn't hold himself back like he'd been trying to. If Carmen was Mikey, then maybe he would, maybe he could clench his hands and go along with this phase with the knowledge that it would end, that this would all blow over and he had a chance of getting through to him.

Carmen wasn't Mikey, though. No matter how similar they were acting.

All of this meant that he was starting to hate Carmen. For pushing everyone past their limits, like he was pushed, and not realising that people didn’t rise under that pressure, they broke in a way they couldn’t see. For fucking up Mikey’s restaurant, the soul was gone, the joy vacant, the food was more art than sustenance and his wage hadn’t increased. For wanting him to change and improve with the restaurant then pulling him down with him when he spiralled.

He was just like Mikey. Whom he also hated. And missed. And adored. Selfish motherfucker got out, left him to figure everything out without him, sometimes he could hear him laugh as his life fell apart.

Although he knew he wouldn’t be laughing when Richie had a panic attack in front of Eva. He couldn’t remember what it was about but the sound of Eva crying his name as he collapsed to the floor kept him awake most nights. He wouldn’t laugh as the divorce lawyer bills came through, or his rent was late, as he skipped meals again. 

None of that mattered. He could still hate him, and miss him. He’d read somewhere that most people you hated, you loved once. Such strong emotions could only be created by equally strong ones. 

Richie knew he loved Carmy, just as much as he hated every fibre of his five foot ten inches. He’d love to say he’d enjoy watching him burn but he knew he’d spit on him to put out the flames. 

He was taking everything away from him. His joy, his work, his passion, his control. It was like he didn’t respect him anymore, Richie didn’t play along with the Berzatto’s game of screaming and forgetting. He was trying to be a better man, one who respected himself, so he wasn’t going to take any shit from Carmy when he didn’t even remember what he fucking said.

The little asshole had forgotten that Richie had left the city of Chicago. He’d seen more of America in his first fifteen years than Carmy had seen in his whole life, the Jerimoviches hardly stayed in one place for good.

His stomach growled again. For the past few services, there hadn't been a Family meal, probably because everyone was too busy learning new dishes every night to feed themselves. Another symptom of their crumbling restaurant, everyone was too busy working to look after themselves. He saw glimpses of joy as Tina and Marcus experimented, in his conversations with Nat and the jokes he told in his pre-service pep-talk .

Yet, Carmy was turning them into him. He'd seen Sydney throwing up by the dumpster the last few nights as he smoked his post-work cigarette. Jimmy made it obvious how much money they were bleeding with the shit Carmy was buying. Ebra never got a second to think with how stressed he was at the sandwich window.

More reasons to hate Carmy.

Most nights he got home fatigued in a way he didn't know he could be. Sleep didn't come either, all he could think of was what the next day would bring, what he'd need to prepare for the next day. Yet again, all he could think of was Mikey. He'd time travelled back to last year, or the year before, when everything fell apart and he didn't know how to fix it.

God, if Mikey was watching, he needed him to seriously haunt Carmen. Call it a favour for all the bullshit he put him through.

What this meant was that he wasn't eating as much as he probably should. Family meal not being served meant he had to spend time and energy finding food that he just couldn't spare, and didn't particularly want to. Lathargy filled his bones to a level where it overtook any hunger panging. Some days he was in too much of a rush to have breakfast either.

Now he thought about it, he hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday. It was fine. He felt fine. All the energy he needed came from espressos. Low calories too, didn’t cost too much, so to speak. 

It was only when his stomach gurgled a third time that he stopped polishing the knives and stared at his stomach. Realistically, he knew that he could walk ten minutes up the street, buy a breakfast bagel and some hash browns and eat them on the way back before anyone noticed his absence. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, they didn’t open for hours, he could make time to slip out and eat. 

Yet the fact that it had been this long since he'd eaten and nothing had happened, having something to focus on other than his hatred for Carmy, and the freeing feeling of being empty, made him hesitate. He'd eat later. There was too much to do.

There was enough cutlery that he was going to be sat here for a while, and he still had to set the tables, go over wine with Sydney, check the bookings again, plan for birthdays and anniversaries and proposals. Time would go quickly. 

And if he had a minute, he could always nab something from the walk in. Or grab a leftover sandwich from the window. He worked in a restaurant, if he wanted to eat, he could eat. His body was just being overdramatic, anyway, it was a few meals. People had gone far longer without and survived. His father told him that every Sunday after church. 

"When can we come to the restaurant?" Tiff asked him.

She lent against the wall of his apartment. Rarely did she go further than the door. There was no strict boundary, but the general knowledge that they weren’t those people anymore. She didn’t come in for coffee. She stood on the threshold looking in.

"When it's perfect."

She smiled and rolled her eyes. Her 'Richie’s being stupid' smile. What smiles were solely for Frank now? Which ones had bene repurposed for him? Were there any ghosts of him in her life or was it all fresh and clean? Would she even miss him if he wasn't here one day?

"So never?" She said. "I mean, from what I've heard it's not a shithole. It's kind of the opposite."

He chucked. "Not a shithole but-" He paused to find the correct words. "It's not the best behind the scenes, if you know what I mean."

She nodded. Her and Claire were friends, they met when they had a coinciding days off and discussed about the goings on of the Berzattos from the outside. Richie would know, he often heard them in the kitchen talking away. In hindsight, that may have a been a sign of his failing marriage, how his wife went to someone else to vent about his pseudo-family.

"I heard about what Carmen said to Claire." She then added, looking up at him. "And what he said to you."

He ran his hand down his face as his chest grew heavier. The words he'd said still clung around in his head like the smoky trail fireworks left after dazzling the sky. Ever since Mikey had died, he'd felt himself drifting away from the Berzattos. He'd done everything with Mikey, and with him gone, he was still dealing with the question of whether it was even his place to be there anymore. Being called a leech didn't help his debate.

"He's being an asshole lately, all caught up on how the best restaurants work and how we should be doing things instead of seeing how we need to be running things." He sighed. "Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Carmen right now, or Family and Friends night."

She didn’t say anything as she took in the lightly cluttered hallway. Richie’s work shoes by the door, Eva’s lined up oddly instead of in pairs, a cupboard for his jackets that wasn't closing properly, that scuff on the wall he needed to paint over.

"You didn’t have anyone there, for your soft open." She said.

He smiled despite the truth panging in his heart. She saw past the feigned casual vibe he was trying to let off. In all honesty, he'd been too caught up in the flurry of service to let the knowledge that he had no one at Family and Friend's night settle in. It was better to focus on who was there, Claire, Sydney's dad.

"Some Berzattos were there, Nat's Pete, Jimmy."

She tilted her head and gave him another Richie smile. The 'I can see through your bullshit' one. He got that one a lot.

"I mean someone there for just you. You didn’t let me and Frank come, and no offense Richie, outside of Berzattos, how many people are close enough that you'd invite to that thing?"

He didn’t like the answer, and that she was right, so he didn’t reply. There really wasn't anyone outside of the Berzattos or her who he felt comfortable showing off his craft. And both of those parties were drifting out of his life gradually enough that the fog was setting in and soon he'd be a lonely lighthouse just keeping everyone going. Always alone, but always helping.

"It's not your job to worry about me anymore, Tiff, so please, don't stress yourself out because of me." He pleaded. "You can come to the Bear when Carmy’s got his head out of his ass, hopefully it doesn't take him too long."

After snorting out a laugh, and calling Eva, he watched her leave with the nauseous mixed feelings of being glad she wasn't there watching him, and the impending loneliness of having no one in his life anymore.

"Richie, papi, come and try this," Tina called him over as he was midway toward the backdoor for a smoke. "I want to know what you think."

Although they only had a few hours until they opened, Tina made the most of it with her farmer's market ideas. She knew most of them by name now, the people at the market, and was trying her best to use the produce they had. She'd spent time and effort slaving away over frying pans and pots boiling over everywhere. So when he arrived at her bench, he felt the immaculate presentation was lost on him.

"I'm trying something with cauliflower and brussel sprouts, here try."

She made him a mouthful and fed him like a toddler she was trying to get to eat their veggies. Out of all the motherly figures in his life, she was the best.

As the food entered his mouth, he got rushed with a wall of saliva as his stomach gurgled. Right, he'd forgotten to eat again. That was becoming a somewhat regular occurance. Not that it mattered too much, it couldn't do if he didn't notice.

Unique textures, both crunchy and soft took him away from his thoughts. Personally, he'd always found brussell sprouts and cauliflower to be some of the worst veggies, but Tina had worked her magic and made them delicious. Smoky aftertastes from how she'd charred them settled on the back of his mouth as the herbs, spices, and oils mingled to leave him craving more.

"Shit, that's good, T."

She beamed. An odd tug of grief came up behind him as he realised that Mikey would've loved her regaining her passion. She'd joined them in need of a job, not a new career, but the joy she was finding in creation made him hate Carmen even more with how she was being shouted at each day.

"You think?"

He shrugged and waved the fork at her. "Why would I lie? This shit's fire."

"I still think it needs something." She pondered and then she was lost to him.

She had a messy, worn, notebook laid out on the side with scribbles in English and Spanish alongside diagrams. It was akin to his, but much more professional. There were no caricatures of Carmen in those pages.

"Still, can I finish this?" He said. They weren't going to have a family meal again today, he could tell.

Awoken from her thoughts, she turned back to him with a smile. "Sure, honey, don't want it going to waste."

She didn't need to know that this was the first thing he'd eaten all day, and part of yesterday too. It wasn't important anyway.

In his forty-five years of life, he'd had his fair share of fights, well, multiple people's fair share of fights, so he was used to the remnants of rage floating around his body, still hanging on despite the situation being over. Emotions became him, they always had. When he was happy, it was like the sun had swallowed him whole, a buzz he couldn't shift and a spark he had to get of his system or he'd be electrified. When he was sad, the world became a vapid shade of grey, joy seeming a far off concept he hadn't felt in eons. And when he was angry, he wanted to tear off his own skin to deal with the rage. More than once he'd hit something just so his hand would hurt. It was like he achieved something, the pain, it only fueled the fire that he couldn't put out.

But as he stood outside with a half burnt cigarette between his fingers, the usual all consuming fury didn't fester. If he thought about the night too much, he'd feel his jaw tense and the queasy pit in his stomach form. Yet, the embarrasment from his outburst settled after the flare up.

It wasn't because he was this 'better man'. He got angry a lot, the 'old' him hadn't been replaced, he just had some more effective coping mechanisms. What tore him was the regret that he usually drowned out with too many beers, or a line of coke in the bathroom of some club, or Mikey's loud encouraging voice deluding him into believing everything was sunshine and rainbows, sinking in.

His drinking buddy was six feet under, now, and he was far too tired to go out and party, or call Johnno buy some blow, he'd lessened that habit once Eva was born, despite having to sell it when times got rough. So regret it was.

As if by magic, the article of his regret, Sydney Adamu, walked out the backdoor ready for her post-service vomit. He knew she hated the smell of smoke, so stubbed out the stub of his cigarette with his dress shoes, the ones he had to change to drive because they were too goddamn slippery.

"I am sorry about earlier." He said.

She turned around, the streetlights reflecting off her dark skin and making her shine despite the sweat and oil on her face and the bags under her eyes. That spark was still there, hanging on by a thread.

"Just don't let it happen again, okay?"

She settled against him on the back wall. Somewhere on the brick he'd scrawled his name when he started working weekends here at sixteen. He couldn't find it now.

"I need someone calm in there with me, someone who can get us through service without acting like the world's going to end if we make a mistake, and since Carmen's not doing that-" she looked at him with pleading eyes. "I need that to be you."

It was a strange thing, to be needed. For so long that scared him, his parents never made him feel like he was wanted, much less needed. So, when Mikey came along, all teenage angst and childhood trauma in the making, his fears and anxieties felt trivial to him, especially when on the surface, Mikey's life was perfect. What made him change was Mikey forcibly making himself a part of his life, inviting him into his home, letting him forget his until the Berzattos house was more of a home than the Jerimovich one was.

"I can be that for you." He reassured. "I'm Mr Reliable."

She chuckled. "I was going to say the opposite but, for real, you show up every day, you complain like an asshole, but you're still here."

His gaze drifted to the sky above. There were no stars above the city lights. He had a distant memory of his dad showing him the constellations as a child, camped in the wilderness, just them. He wasn't sure if he made it up, because he couldn't remember the constellations names, and his dad was an asshole.

"I have to." He said, then added as his voice choked up. "I was the only one who showed up for Mikey."

The image of his limp body, still in the pictures. His brains and blood splattered along the bridge. Mikey Berzatto, forever blown to pieces.

"Fat lot of good that did, though."

Sydney went silent. She always did when Mikey came up.

"At least you tried."

He shook his head. "Sometimes I think things would've gone better if I left him to it. Didn't pick him up from bars, didn't take his bullshit. I might still be married if I did."

"Would you be able to live with that though? Abandoning him?"

The conversation no longer felt like it was about Mikey. There were bound to be thousands of questions and reaction to her first time experiencing a full Berzatto breakdown. He wish he had better advice than 'Run', but nothing else came to mind.

"Mikey did what he wanted. I'm starting to think I didn't do anything to change things at all."

All she said was. "You were there," then disappeared back inside the restaurant.

It was probably time for him to go too. He was beginning to hate this place but he spent most of his time here. The energy to move didn't come, it hardly had recently, not when there was no one waiting for him at home, not when he would just have to come back and go through the torture that service was becoming.

And he still had to make dinner. Clothes were sat in the washer waiting to be cleaned. His apartment wasn't as much of a mess as it had been but it still had collections of mess. He told himself that it was normal, he was a single dad working full time, he had an excuse.

Maybe he could just go to bed when he got in. Put his shirts in the wash, shower until they were done then pass out before starting the entire spiel again. It wouldn't be the first time. It was too late to eat anyway, it would be at least half eleven by the time he got home and showered. Despite the fact that he was starting to feel the slog of hunger, he knew it didn't matter. Today had been too tiring. He'd eat tomorrow.

September 1992

Another night without dinner. Since the move, he’d made it his job to disrupt as much as possible. Disrupt at school, when he went, disrupt at home, anywhere he could. The only place he didn’t was in church. God’s eyes were on him, could see through the actions and words and see that really he was just a scared kid. He couldn’t lie to God. 

He hated Chicago. That was the one thing that was right and true. He hated Chicago and the second he could he’d be out of here, New York, LA, or some small town where no one knew him. 

A breeze blew in from the shitty old window and made his hairs stand on end. It whistled and clanged in the autumn air. Chicago wasn’t called the windy city for nothing. 

His stomach gurgled. Dad’s new job wasn’t all it cracked up to be, long hours, less than ideal pay. The plus side was that he was barely home, and when he was, it was acceptable for Richie to stay in his room, ‘doing homework’ when he was really getting high outside his bedroom window. At least he was next to the fire escape. He could smoke on there to his heart’s delight without having to think about hiding the smell, one plus of the new place. 

Pausing the music blasting through his walkman, he’d dropped it enough times that the scuff marks were hard to hide, he lent over the side of his bed to reach for one of the snacks he’d hidden under there. Lunch had been rare lately, and breakfast becoming hit or miss too, he couldn’t go all day without eating anything, no matter what his dad said. 

Sugar. Chocolate. A satisfying crunch. It all hit his mouth in the first bite. It would take most of his effort not to eat the entire pack stored under his bed, he didn’t know when he’d need them again. The second bite wasn’t as gratifying, didn’t hit the sweet spot quite as much but filled the hole in his stomach even more. It gurgled louder with every bite. 

With the candy bar still in his mouth, he saw the door handle twitch and heard the creak of the hinges before he had a chance to get it out of his mouth. He was meant to be learning a lesson. 

“What are you doing, Richard?” His dad seethed. 

“Eating.”

“I can see that.” He said. “I thought I sent you to bed without dinner, to teach you a lesson.”

He removed the bar from his mouth and placed it on the box that made up his nightstand. His dad’s eyes were locked on it. 

“Is this why I have to keep disciplining you? Because you don’t care to learn the lesson?”

He shook his head as he saw him approach. His hand darted out to grab the rest of the bar but his dad moved faster. It crushed in his hand and landed in the trash with a sticky thump. His throat clogged up where the chocolate lined it. 

“Are there more?”

“No-no, it was in my bag from school.”

He didn’t believe him, dropping to his knees, despite the bullet wound still making him have to use a cane, and rooting around underneath his bed until his hand landed on the shiny black bag he kept all his snacks in. After years, of uncertain mealtimes, he’d gotten used to having a backup. Until now.

The bag swished and crinkled as he dragged it out from under the bed. He said nothing as he peered inside and tutted at him. 

“Is this a joke?” He said. “Because it’s a sick one if it is.”

He shook his head again. Everytime he was around his dad he lost control, of his anger, of his fear, of his loneliness. Every emotion rose to the surface and was squeezed out of him like toothpaste. Despite his dad’s reactions, he had an urge to be honest with him in the end, he couldn’t hide his emotions as well as he should do, he had to bite his lips and dig his fingers into his hand to hold back the urge to cry or beg or scream. His entire life was a never ending cycle of emotions welling up, forcing himself to stop them brimming over, and waiting for it to start again. Sometimes it felt like he hadn’t taken a breath since he became conscious of how shitty a hand he’d been dealt. The only repreives he got where when his dad was away, and now they were one big happy family again, he’d never be able to breathe again. 

“So, first, you hide food from me, eat it when you’re meant to be learning to appreciate what we’ve given you, all the opportunities you’ve gotten. And then, you lie to me about it.” His tone was like a kettle coming to the boil, whistling and red hot as he lent in closer and closer. He knew he was going to get burnt. 

“Well, if you haven’t learnt the lesson one way, then you’ll have to learn it another.”

With barely a chance to leap up off his bed, sending his walkman cascading onto the sheets, his dad reached over to open his window, and tossed the rabble of candy bars, bags of chips and various other snacks out the window like a fucked up Santa Claus. 

Once the bag was empty, his dad turned to him again with steeled eyes. He was certain that when he grabbed his wrist, it would snap. 

“Now, you listen to me, Richard. When I teach you a lesson, you better well learn it. If that’s going to bed early, I expect you to be in bed. If that’s not going out on the weekend, I expect you to stay in every second of the day. And if I tell you to go to bed without dinner, you don’t fucking eat!” His voice bellowed enough it shook the glass. 

Lawrence Jerimovich was careful with his anger. He rarely shouted but the anger emanated from his voice like lava oozing down a volcano. Only when he was really pissed did he snap out of the control and let his anger out fully. His dad laid a hand on him once or twice. Heavy slaps that left his cheek red all day. A hand around his neck, when he was drunk and Richie talked too much, that made swallowing difficult for what felt like weeks. Grabbing his ear hard enough he thought he’d tore it.

“Do you understand that?”

He didn’t know when he’d started crying. He never cried, except when it came to his dad. 

“Yes. Sir.”

He let his arm go. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

With Eva brushing her teeth, humming the 'brushing our teeth' song that Frank had showed her, he needed to know if he'd made that up or found it somewhere, that shit was genius, if not a little weird. Frank as a concept was hard to get his head around. He was exactly the kind of guy Mikey and him would be nice to, only to ridicule him when his back when turned. Kind of like Pete, but more self-aware of how fucked this entire situation was.

His thumb went to turn his wedding ring around, a nervous tick he'd gotten used to, but he was reminded by the cool touch of the ring being gone and his heart sank. He knew it was the right thing to do, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that it was wrong, that Tiff would see how much he'd changed and give him one last chance.

The main issue was that there was no one for him anymore. Her words had stuck in his head for weeks. Being alone was something he was born into, but had forgotten. It hurt as much as it felt distantly familiar.

Beep beep. Beep beep. The timer next to him rang. He turned away from his thoughts and back to the pancakes sizzling in the pan. After a few months of trying, he was getting pretty good at making tasty breakfasts, for Eva if not for himself.

Breakfast as a concept had fallen out of routine for him. He didn’t feel hungry immediately after waking up, and when he got to work there was no time, or desire to eat then. It was hit or miss, there was so much going on in his life that it didn't seem to matter in comparison. Worse things had happened.

He heard her singing a Taylor Swift song as she made her way down the corridor. With rusty skill, he flipped two pancakes onto her plate, sprinkled on a mixture berries and handed her the syrup to pour on.

"I have some ideas about what to call Frank." She said as she made a moat of syrup around her pancakes.

"Okay, shoot."

"Travis."

"Why?"

"That's Taylor Swift's boyfriend, and he's Mommy's fiance." She had to spell out fiance, it was a word she'd soon get used to saying.

He shook his head. "Too confusing."

"Woody."

Trying not to laugh at the euphamism, he hid his smile with a slurp of his coffee. "Explain that one, baby."

"Because that's what we're going to be for Halloween!" How very like Tiff, to have their Halloween costumes planned out in August, he and Mikey used to dress up as each other, very last minute. "Mom's Jessie, I'm Buzz and he's Woody!"

He shook his head. "But what about next Halloween? You'll have to change what you call him again, zabka."

She nodded again. "That leaves Waldo."

"Waldo?" He chuckled. "I like it."

He checked his watch and sighed. They'd have to leave soon. Frank was taking her to some museum today. Everytime he dropped her off it broke his heart. She was his little girl and some stranger got to see her more than he did. Why was that fair? They were learning Polish together, he was teaching her about his family, albiet leaving out the parts about Nazi occupation, the Soviet Union and genocidal famines. What if one day he picked her up and she wasn't his kid anymore? What if he saw her one day and she was more Frank's than she was his? What then?

Instead of spiralling, he did like that doctor told him and focused on Eva's face was slowly becoming a sticky mess of syrup and pancake crumbs instead of all the harrowing thoughts of parenting and divorced parents raising kids. He walked over and ruffled her hair.

"Eat up, baby, you've got to have all the energy for the museum today."

Even if he didn't really feel up to eating, she still needed to. If he did anything right as a father it would be to make sure she was happy and healthy all her life. Or at least that he didn't fuck her up for good. That was a more realistic goal.

"Wait, so we've been reviewed or we're being reviewed?"

There was a tense silence to the room that he didn't like. Not that he and Carmen were on the best terms, but the look they shared was a conversation all by itself.

"They've already been?" Natalie exclaimed. "How can we not know that they've been?"

Carmen didn't answer. His mouth was agape as he tried to get the words out but they were stuck somewhere in his throat. He remembered how Carmen hadn't spoken until he was three and even then a sentence took him about an hour to say with how badly he stuttered.

"Because we were too busy." Richie answered for her. "Too busy memorising new menus to pay attention to who's in the restaurant."

Sydney sighed next to Carmen and closed her eyes. There was blood running down her thumb.

"Well, if you weren't being so stubborn about the non-negotiables and refusing to talk to me then maybe you'd be better at time management."

Natalie waved her hands in front of them. "No. None of this, not right now."

It took her a few clicks until they were all focusing on her. Richie couldn't help but feel relieved that he didn't have to get into all of that with Carmy. If he could just apologise properly then this wouldn't have to be the way it was, but that was a great struggle for Berzattos, they never apologised.

"We need to reread that email, check when they're coming over for pictures and get this place ready for them. And while we do that, we think of anyone who could've possibly been a reviewer and what night they could've been in, okay?"

They all nodded.

"Richie, you tell the front of house staff. Carm and Syd, you two tell the back of house. I will go over the email and make arrangements for this place to look halfway decent." She said. "We might have to get more Faks in here."

"I still don't get how many of them there are." Sydney stated.

Richie shook his head. "You don't want to know."

After the initial panic of finding out they've been reviewed, and the more intense prep for service combined with preparing for the photos, he was beyond tired when he got home. There hadn't been time to eat, not even when Ebra waved a sandwich someone hadn't collected in front of his face, he was too in the zone.

And now he was here, he didn't think he could even eat now. There was something to be said that if you went so long without eating, you stopped getting the hunger pains. They only came when you saw food again, if you weren't reminded of it then you didn't think about it. That's how it worked for Richie anyway.

The hunger took his mind away from his conversation with Frank and the way things were still changing. Things always changed, he tried to reassure himself, it would happen if he liked it or not. Why did they all have to change at once? Couldn't he catch a break, just once? Couldn't they space out the changes?

But with his mind swirling with thoughts about Eva and how she could be drifting away from him, or whether it was even good to be in her life, the hunger was a welcomed distraction. The dull ache and emptiness gave him a break from all this, it created a layer of dissonance he usually craved.

He knew that Mikey would want him to eat something. Despite how aloof he'd gotten in the last year of his life, with all the drink and the drugs, he still cared so deeply it hurt. Mikey would take the time to make sure he ate. Most of the time it was him who cooked family meal. When he wasn't out on a bender, he them dinner when they got in from work, and if he was up early enough, even made breakfast. He was a feeder, and a worrywart, if he thought Richie was skipping meals again he'd make it his mission to get something in his stomach.

Mikey had been there when things got bad. It wasn't something he liked to think about, all those days in his youth avoiding food and throwing it up again, it was something that felt so immature after a few years dry of it all.

Now he wasn't here to make family meal, or dinner when he got home, or breakfast if he woke up first. He wasn't here at all.

The monotonous routine of ironing was a part of his morning he cherished. It was something so mundane, so boring he could hear the ridicule inside his head. But he was doing it to look smart, to fit his role and make him feel good about himself, so fuck whoever made fun of him.

It had been a week since they found out they were being reviewed. It was the week from hell. Carmy had only spiralled more. Before the review, he'd promised to make a concrete menu but that had been blown out of the water. Was there something to prove for him? Did he think that if he made the menu so convoluted, so unique that it would turn back time and they'd realise they were being reviewed? He'd had a lot of experience wishing he could change the past and had learnt the hard way that you couldn't.

This, combined with the added pressure to do well, and Carmen being even more pissy about everything, meant that as soon as he stepped out the door he had nothing left. Every night he came home more and more exhausted. Every morning he found it harder to get out of bed. What was the point when he knew what to expect? Arguments, tension, mistakes being blown out of proportion.

And throughout all of this, food had fallen to the wayside. It turned out, not eating was a lot easier when you were so stressed you could barely think. It wasn't anything serious. There were times when he realised he hadn't eaten in more than a day, but surely the fact that he hadn't realised this meant that there was nothing to worry about. If anything, it was a welcomed distraction, something to focus on that wasn’t work, or Carmy. 

He'd found himself getting used to not eating, again, not consciously. His body was getting so used to it that one day felt like skipping breakfast. In fact, it had become more common that he went almost two days without eating, rather than just one. And there weren't many concequences, it wasn't like the times before when he'd consciously been doing it. There wasn't anything to make up for, nothing to prove, just a bad worklife balance and a welcomed distraction.

Curiosity had begun to stir at the idea of not eating for three days. No one was noticing now. It wasn't a problem, apart from the fact that his pre-work shit had gone from being part of his morning routine, to something that broke said routine. Yet he wasn't uncomfortable from that.

There was something so exhilarating, so clean, about being empty. No distractions. Nothing clouding his vision. He was able to take a step back and think about what actually mattered. Not eating for a day or two had provided him with a clarity he'd been missing while the Bear became a solid entity, and not just a pipe dream.

Also, people went on fasting diets all the time. They were healthy. He was healthy. Everything was okay.

He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, though, he knew he was fine, so why did he keep having to reassure himself?

He placed the iron down and reached for his phone. He'd have to leave soon and face the day. A notification had popped up from Jess:

Chef Andrea Terry closes restaurant Ever.

His stomach dropped.

That place had shit figured out. Everyone knew their place, everyone felt like they contributed, everyone had a purpose in a well oiled machine. It wasn't like the Bear with it's chaos, it's rivalries and divides. Despite how militarised Ever seemed, people still found joy in their jobs. It reminded him of the Beef in some ways, full on all the time, pushing you to your limit but providing such enjoyment that you came back again.

Now it was gone. Like the Beef. Like Mikey.

He replied to Jess after staring at the page for a solid minute. Maybe she could get a job at the Bear and finally get Carmen to snap out of it. Who was he kidding? He'd ruin her just like he was ruining Sydney, and himself.

As his stomach grumbled, he was brought back to the present. He'd been reading up on grounding techniques. Focusing on your breath, or your feet on the floor. The pit of hunger in his stomach, and the freeing feeling of it going away without eating, was the same.

He'd planned on eating at some point during work, or after, he had a lot of leftovers from the various experiments everyone was working on in their limited free time, but after that news, his stomach was churning. If he didn't eat for three days, it didn't matter, did it? No one had noticed until this point. And people had gone through far worse and survived.

Late October 1992

Mikey’s home was alien to him. It might as well be on Mars for as similar as it was to his. There was clutter everywhere, the deliberate look of someone living here, of someone choosing to make this their home. Leopard print covered the house in various arrays, cushion patterns, curtains, statues. Bold.

The Berzattos themselves were loud. As soon as they’d come home he’d heard Mikey’s mother singing, the radio blaring out Rod Stewart like it was 1972 all over again and her broken vocals chipping the song. He saw how Mikey tensed, he understood that feeling, of the mask going on, of your defences going up but for the life of him be couldn’t figure out why. 

His mother never sang when she cooked, sometimes they had to radio but the house was generally filled with the sound of his father’s records, and when he sat listening to them, it was silence for everyone else. Silence could describe everything about his house to be honest, and he never said home, his house was no home for him. As soon as he stepped through the threshold, he held his breath. That’s what unified him and Mikey, they both knew the feeling of always holding your breath, of always watching what you said or did. So when they were around each other, they were always chaotically undone.

 Donna Berzatto had been described to him as a dragon of a woman. She hung in his mind as a silhouetted figure entrenched in a halo of smoke as the light glinted on the wine glass in her hand. Mikey had told him a few stories, of Christmasses and Easters gone wrong, of her breakdowns, not that they often talked of home, they were each an escape for the other, why bring the horrors of home with you when this was your only peace. It had created an image of this shell of a woman barely holding on.

The Donna Berzatto he met that day was not a shell at all. She was loud and living, a bubble of barking laughter, followed by strings of swear words and a throthing, fizzing, roaring kitchen full of so many scents he could feel himself getting a headache. It was a Wednesday night, and she had all four burners lit on the hob, all counter space was covered with carcasses of vegetables, the sink full with dishes. 

This was the moment he understood what Berzatto meant, what word he could use to describe them if asked. If the Jerimoviches were silence, then the Berzattos were the polar opposite. They were chaos.

“What are you doing, Michael?” She turned and pointed her glossy red nails at him. “Can’t you see I’m cooking dinner!”

“I’m making Nat a sandwich, calm your tits.”

Richie tensed. He would never, in his wildest dreams, think of talking to either of his parents like that. Because that would mean another night without dinner, or a backhand from his dad, or a bareting in Polish so fast and serpentine from his mother that he could only pick out words when he usually understood everything. He held his breath as he waited for the blow, the hand slamming on the table, the end of the discussion, the tears stinging in his eyes. 

And it didn’t come. 

“Michael Berzatto, I am your mother, you do not speak to me like that.”

Mikey didn’t seem to flinch at the way the knife hung loosely in one hand, a glass of wine threatened to tip from her other. He rose to her words, in fact, became bigger, more bearlike. Richie felt like a camper who’d gotten too close to the cubs and could hear the pounding of feet behind him as he tried to play dead. 

“But you talk to me like that!”

He could say that he was hating this, which he was, deep down, the fear that this would play out like every other time and the play would stop, but he couldn’t deny how fascinated he was. Not only was Mikey shouting back, but Donna was letting him? There was no slap, no bloody nose, no hungry nights or cold ones in the stairwell. Just anger, just shouting and screaming at a level he never thought possible. 

Lawrence Jerimovich didn’t scream. He didn’t bellow or yell until spit flew out of his mouth. He held his anger well inside him, it wasn’t this morphing, glitching, growing thing that was hard to control like Richie’s, it was a fireball in his hands, one he’d let out slowly. His tone was always controlled, his hard eyes staring ice blue at him, he wasn’t allowed to look away no matter how uncomfortable it made him, his words infallible, sure and true as the sky was blue and the grass was green. 

There was no arguing with Lawrence Jerimovich.

Breaking through the shouting, Richie felt his stomach tense and grumble. Mikey turned first, followed by Donna as the kitchen rumbled behind her. He hadn’t eaten all day. Most of his and Mikey’s lunch break was spent smoking under the bleachers, so neither of them had noticed that Richie hadn’t eaten, or at least he hoped he hadn’t.

“Are you hungry?” Mikey asked.

His stomach answered for him.

“I could make you a sandwich?”

Peanut butter and jelly were open on the counter. Although Mikey usually had the most delicious looking sandwiches out of anyone he knew, italian beef overflowing from a soft fluffy bun, just the sight of the jelly glistening under the kitchen lights, the peanut butter smooth and spreadable in the jar made his stomach pang.

He couldn’t make it known to Mikey or his mother that he was salivating at the sight of a piece of bread on a chopping board. He had to play it cool. Mikey’s favourite hobby was worrying about the people he cared about, he didn’t want to be added to the list, he had enough on his plate already. 

“If you want.” He shrugged. 

Mikey gave him a knowing smile as he plucked two slices of bread out of the bag. He used separate knives to spread jelly on one piece of bread and peanut butter on the other. Care went into every movement as he made sure the corners weren’t left dry. He finished the sandwich off by cutting it into triangles, placing it on a plate, and handing it to him.

“One Berzatto PB and J.”

He licked his lips before he knew what he was doing. The first bite flooded flavour into his mouth, sweet with the afterbite of nuts, sticky with viscous. He closed his eyes as he took the next bite, and the next, biting when he hadn’t finished what was in his mouth, nearly choking on it until he opened his eyes, and the plate was empty. 

Mikey stared at him, his mouth almost agape. “I guess you were hungry, huh?”

His stomach gurgled in gratitude. Richie scratched the back of his head as he felt the weight of Mikey and Donna’s eyes on him.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s the first thing I’ve eaten all day.”

“What?” Mikey cried. “But it’s like half three in the afternoon?”

He shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal. Richie had never needed a lot of food. In his mind, skipping breakfast so he could sleep in later on a school day was a worthy trade. And if he didn’t bring any lunch with him, who cared, he smoked on his lunchbreak anyway. 

“I should make you another one, you can’t go all day on one sandwich.”

Mikey picked up the knives and started to prepare another piece of bread before Richie could tell him not to. The idea of more food was appealing, that sandwich had barely touched the sides. Usually, if he didn’t eat all day, the hunger pains would go away. It was only when he ate again that he was reminded of how hungry he truly was. 

Donna grabbed his wrist and shook her head. “Forget another sandwich, he should have proper food.” She turned to him. “Richie, honey, would you like to stay for dinner?”

He daren’t stray his gaze from her’s. He daren’t turn down the offer, it’s not like he cared about what time he got home, the later the better in his eyes, he could sneak in through the fire escape when his parents were asleep, and get up after they left for work. What bothered him was staying here, he didn’t know how things worked, he didn’t know what was allowed or where the line was. 

His stomach grumbled again. Answering for him for the third time.

“I’ll get Michael to set another place.”

With the photographer sufficiently haggled for answers, the kitchen was milling with any attempt of remembering what dish they'd served the reviewer. Throughout all their preparations, they hadn't been able to identify when they'd dined with them, so couldn't pin down what dish they'd been served. So, in layman's terms, they were winging it.

He'd had to escape the disarray when a burning ache in his chest rose up. A sour taste filled his mouth, a familiar one, from years past. He knew what bile and stomach acid tasted like in the mouth. Heartburn was becoming a real bitch lately.

Natalie bumped into him in the office. The news of Ever's closing was still open on the screen as he sipped water and stared, past her, through her.

"You okay?" She asked, stealing his water off him.

All he could do was hum. The review made everything official. It was alive in a way it hadn't been before, it would be known outside the staff of the restaurant, outside of his head. He couldn't stop thinking about whether it would be good, or whether it would be bad, and how he should feel about either outcome.

"The pictures went well," she said.

"We can't remember what dish we served that motherfucker," he replied. "So not so well."

She sighed. "We can spin it. Say we're being innovative and keeping up with the times."

He shrugged. The heartburn remained. Over the course of the day he'd developed a major headache, one that stabbed him in the temples and made lights too bright. That may be a migraine.

Fuck, he didn't want to be here.

"What's going on in that head of yours? You don't really seem to be here right now."

Their heart to hearts were becoming a lifeline. Natalie got his stresses yet was somehow not letting it get to her. Perhaps it was because she had a reliable source of income if this all went bust. And she had Pete. Unlike him.

"I want to run away."

She laughed. "Where?"

"Somewhere small, some dusty town near the ocean, or Lake Michigan. Somewhere no one knows me, no one expects anything, just me and Eva."

"What would you do?"

"I don't know, work in some shitty little restaurant like the Beef. Or a hotel, or, I don't know, be a nurse or something, like my mom. Just something that involves people, and helping them."

She gave him back his water. "I can imagine you in scrubs."

"I'd look fucking great in scrubs."

They laughed for a moment before the burn came back and he was left with the sour taste in his mouth again. "Then another part of me wants to just lose myself in this place, try my hardest, care too much, you know, just let life happen around me."

"Still sounds like running away." She said. "What are you running away from?"

How did she manage to guess right? She was like Mikey in that way, they both were finely tuned into how others were at any given time, another bit of baggage from growing up with Donna for a mother. It was something to be said that the two Berzattos with a younger sibling were the ones who were so empathetic it was a flaw, they always had someone they needed to look out for. Carmen, as the youngest sibling, didn't get this trait, he'd learnt to bury his head in the sand and avoid the bad things until they got too bad, something else happened to make the bad thing stop, or just run from it.

"What am I not running away from?"

What he couldn't manage to get out was the rest of that sentence. How this place was going to shit, how it was his last piece left of Mikey, how his ex-wife was getting remarried and he was invited to the wedding, how Frank was actually a really decent person and he was never going to live up to him.

"It doesn't feel like there's much going on that needs me here anymore." He settled on.

She took his hands as he felt the spike of tears in his eyes. He hated crying.

"There's plenty of things that need you. Eva, this place, me."

As he went to reply, a cacophany of noise erupted in the kitchen as Sammy returned with two ducks in tow. One dead, ready for cooking. And one live. Neil and Gary were chasing the live duck around the kitchen as it quacked away. Carmen was staring at the dead duck but he could tell by how his eyes were darting around that his mind was racing with what to do with it.

Richie turned to Nat with a smile. "And you're wondering what I'm running away from?"

There was a reason, other than for Nat's comfort, that they were going over bookings and expenses in the dining room. Chuck and Chi-Chi were coming back, at least for the time being, and Richie couldn't face them without something breaking inside of him.

They were original faces of the Beef. Mikey'd hired them when he'd inherited the Beef, back when life was easy. To see them now, in this warped hellhole that the Beef had become only brought back those dark feelings of how much he missed it. The Bear had forced him to become this better version of himself but he longed to use his skills at the Beef, where he could have fun among the stress instead of everything feeling like life and death.

Most of all they made him miss Mikey.

Everything made him miss Mikey.

Often he pondered what Mikey would think of all of this. Would he make fun of him for wearing a suit? Or would he clap him on the back and tell him how fire he looked? He could hear him yelling at them sometimes, yelling at Carmy to calm the fuck down, at the rest of them to enjoy life a little, at him to realise how much he had.

He knew Mikey would've caught on by now that he wasn't just forgetting to eat, but deliberately skipping meals, skipping entire days all together. By now, he would've sat him down and reminded him of how hard it was to come back from this last time, and make him something to eat. Mikey's speciality was Italian food, but he also made mean fried chicken. He cooked it well enough that it was one of the few foods he could make himself eat when things got bad. What did they call them now? Safe foods?

Mikey wasn't here though. No one had noticed and he didn't want them to. Nothing bad had happened. He wasn't snappy. Apart from the heartburn, and the constipation, there was nothing to show for it, so it couldn't be bad.

And it was different this time. He wasn't punishing himself for something, he didn't feel inadequate for Tiff, or distraught that she'd left his life. It was control. A coping mechanism like any other.

This wasn't like all the other times. He could feel it.

Late October 1992

It’s only when he placed down his cutlery that he realised he’d finished first. A combination of no breakfast or lunch, only a single sandwich, had built up into the ball of ravenous hunger that had been slowly eating his insides in a familiar way all afternoon until they got to the dinner table. The low clattering and scrapes of forks on plates stopped as he looked up to see Donna Berzatto, the mother bear herself, staring right at him. 

The familiar drop of his stomach. Her bold stare, the eye contact. He was a guest in their home, how dare he eat like such a pig. He’d be banned from Mikey’s life, banned from the house and exiled from Chicago, socially speaking anyway. Fear bubbled up, popping in worries of ‘It’ll be like before we moved all over again’ and the claustrophobic silences of home stretched out into forever until he died with a gun in his hand because no one taught him to speak up for himself and tell his dad he didn’t want to serve. 

“Richie,” she said, her words all warm and passion. “Would you like seconds?”

The blood pulsing in his ears quietned. Never in his life had he had seconds. He ate what was on his plate and that was it, it was the first thing taken away if he was bad. He’d gotten used to burning his report cards, he’d learnt which days he should race home to stop letters to his parents, or what days he should unplug the phone but hide the cord so no one would suspect a thing. 

“Yes please, mam, if I’m allowed”

“If I’m allowed?” Donna laughed, her glass of wine threatening to spill over the crisp white tablecloth. “We’re italian, honey, it’s how we show our love.”

Love. He’d only just met her, and she’d already said love. He’d never heard his parents say they loved each other, barely heard his mother say it, especially when his dad was home. 

She reached over for his plate, piling more pasta, he didn’t know the difference between all the types, onto his place, and more of that bread she’d screamed the house down that no one was helping her knead, and how she’d been proving it for hours without anyone caring to ask how she was. As she placed his plate back in front of him, his stomach gurgled loud enough that Mikey glanced over at him, his eyebrow raised and that spark of concern in his eyes again. 

“And don’t call me, Mam, makes me feel ancient, Donna’s fine, honey.”

“Thank you, ma-Donna.” He replied with a wavering smile. 

She ruffled his hair, her breath smelling of wine, and lay a kiss on his temple before taking her seat at the head of the table again. 

Richie could never go home after this. He wondered if he’d be allowed to stay in Mikey’s room, he didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, or in the basement. Anything was better than being suffocated at home. He wanted to stay forever in the warm arms of second portions, screaming in the kitchen, wine on the breath and love for as long as he could. 

He could never go home again.

There shouldn't be this much traffic at ten o'clock at night, but there was. Red lights lit up the highway like a carnival. Occasionally there would be a beep, but mostly everyone was waiting for the light to go green so they could bypass the nighttime repairs they were making to the road.

It meant he was stuck in his car with Carmen for a lot longer than he'd planned to be. Which was hell.

"You know this is all your fault, right?" He broke their ten minute silence.

"How?" Carmen spat.

"Your no phone rule. If we'd had our phones on us, we would've known she was going into labour, she wouldn't have had to call Donna, she wouldn't have been going into labour alone and we wouldn't be here right now." He explained. "Why was she even getting napkins by herself anyway? She's pregnant."

"Not anymore."

Richie tutted and followed the traffic now the light had gone green. Half the Bear had wanted to come, it had taken a strong word from T about how she'd probably not be allowed many visitors to get them to back off. She had asked him for pictures, though.

"What do you think about being an uncle?" He asked.

Carmen didn't look away from the window. It had rained so all the lights bled into the sky like oil out of a car. He inspected the outside world as if it was something far more interesting than it was. An artist's eye. Richie wondered if there was another lifetime when he'd gone into art instead of cooking, and he was happier there.

"It's not even real, yet. I don't think it's going to be real until I see the baby."

"I felt like that with Eva, I kept wondering who was going to trust me with a kid, turns out, I'm great with kids." He paused. "Well, my kid anyway."

"It's another person in my life."

He heard all the unsaid things. Another life to care for, another life to fuck up, to be fucked up by his family. His line of 'cutting out the bullshit' came to mind and made him wonder if Carmy would have time for this baby. The last thing Natalie needed was her heart breaking because her brother was having too big of a breakdown to make time for her and her child. Not after everything with Mikey. He might as well live at the restaurant he was there that much.

Carmen spoke again. "It's another thing Mikey'll never see."

They stopped talking.

Hospitals were a maze. Especially at night.

After finding parking, they trailed into the main entrance only to get lost following the directions they'd been given, and had lost all signs to the Maternity Ward. Carmen refused to ask anyone else but had no phone signal to text Pete to ask where they should be. Richie had stopped a food porter, and got a new set of directions, and the knowledge that they were on the exact other end of the hospital than they needed to be.

Wonderful.

As they walked side by side, in silence again, Richie felt his dwindling energy dropping. The rush of adrenaline had gone, leaving him wasting away and fatigued. He'd gone past hangry, now he just wanted to go to sleep.

At least he had a verifiable excuse not to eat. No one watched him at home but the staff at the Bear had all gone out for drinks to wet the baby's head. Drinks came with dinner or bar snacks, and a need to excuse why he wasn't eating. Hospitals had shitty coffee and vending machines that required a downpayment for a snickers. No one ate in hosptials. He fit right in.

The doors to the Maternity Ward came upon them like the gates of heaven. They pressed the button to come in and were welcomed into a silent ward where nurses and midwives shuffled around without making a sound. They were in their own worlds but carried a known weariness he recognised from his mother when she came home from work.

One dazed receptionist sat at the desk. He blinked hard a few times as they approached and put on an awake face.

"Hi, welcome to the Maternity Ward. Are you visiting?"

"Well, neither of us are in labour." Richie joked.

The receptionist, Matthew, looked like he'd heard that joke a million times before, from people just like Richie. He'd made a similar joke when Tiff was in labour. She'd elbowed him in the ribs.

Carmen rolled his eyes without rolling them and spoke instead. "We're here to see Natalie Berzatto."

"Thank you." Matthew said.

He did some typing, and some clicking, on a computer that hadn't been cleaned since COVID required them to, and turned back to them.

"She's in room 12, just along the hall and to the right." He gestured with one hand. "But I'll need you two to sign in and to take a visitor's sticker."

He handed them each a pen and the sign in sheet. It seemed insane to him that in this day and age they still were running on a physical sign in sheet, but then again, with all the cuts happening to healthcare, there were bigger priorities.

Outside the room were two chairs and a drab painting that could only make you feel worse, not better. They stopped outside the closed door and held their breaths. Like Carmen had said, this is where it all became real. Another life, Richie felt a responsibility to keep them away from all this Berzatto bullshit just as he'd felt with Eva. They were a clean slate, free from trauma and pain, they had the right to develop their own flaws rather than inherit them from him.

Carmen took a sharp inhale as if he'd just come out from underwater, he'd been on the swim team in highschool and had been able to hold his breath for a startlingly long amount of time. His hands were shaking. His eyes wide as he froze in front of the door.

In spite of their arguments over these last few months, he knew that he needed someone right now. Mikey had been there when Eva was born, cradling her, cooing over her, playing peekaboo and reassuring him that he was going to be an amazing dad. When he wasn't coming down from a high, or on some upper, he'd seen him taking meth a few times and felt his pulse skyrocket, he was the cuddly Mikey Bear everyone knew him to be. He always thought that if the right person came along and forced him to get better, he would've made a great dad. He'd settled for being a great godfather instead.

Carmen needed someone like that in this moment and Richie was the only one there. He had a brief realisation that there hadn't ever been someone who filled in the missing pieces. There was no amigo, no partner in crime. Apart from Mikey, who'd made things messy and complicated in his later years, he'd been alone.

He rested his hand on Carmy's shoulder and shook him until he drew his gaze from the door, to him.

"You're going to be great." He assured him. "Just go in, ask how Sugar is, ask how the baby is, and maybe hold them. Newborns don't do shit, you can't really fuck up that badly in a five minute visit."

Carmy took another sharp breath in. He opened the door and didn't ask if Richie was coming. They weren't like that, not anymore, not for a while. He didn't remember the last time he'd called him cousin and thought that maybe he'd stopped being family for him.

Another person lost.

Tiff and Frank's wedding invitation was pinned on his refrigerator next to Eva's latest picture, which featured Mikey as an angel over his shoulder, and had made him cry after he'd dropped her back off at Tiff's. There was a lot about today that threatened to make him freak out, or burst into tears.

Apparently, he was the only family Tiff had left, and with the way things were going at the Bear, she was seeming like the only family left for him too. She'd been in his life as long as Mikey had been, they knew each other's trauma, they'd sobbed in each other's laps plenty of times over the years. He'd watched her grow from a girl who never wanted to be home, to a woman who determinedly protected her home at all costs. She'd only seen him grow a considerable amount after they'd gotten divorced. Which still broke his heart.

If it was going to be a big wedding, he might feel less apprehensive about going. There would be swathes of people to get lost in, they'd be too busy enjoying themselves to look at him and he'd get through the night without making a fool of himself.

The fact that the wedding was so small, Frank's family was small, he had a sister, her two kids, his divorced parents, and few aunts and uncles, was what put him off. Tiff had a scattering of people, half of whom weren't actually related to her. There wouldn't even be fifty people there. He'd stick out like a sore thumb. He couldn't blend into the background.

And there would be food. Probably delicious food, but food he didn't want to eat. How was he supposed to get through such a painful event, the public beating of the corpse of his marriage, and be expected to eat as well?

In fact, it was rather a lot like the Ever dinner.

Something that had made him who he was coming to an end. People he thought were family drifting away. Not feeling like he belonged but being invited anyway. Tiff and Frank's wedding was just another funeral dinner, they just didn't know that.

Yet, he couldn't wait to be enveloped in their world of strict time adhereance and innovative ideas. Ever was it's own bubble to get lost in. Now that bubble was popped and he was forced to come to terms with the idea that his passion was a dwindling flame, drowning in wax like a candle that had been lit for too long.

All he needed to focus on was Ever. Not the shit happening at the Bear. Not the fact that Ever was closing. Just watching a service go smoothly with no fights.

He wasn't planning on actually eating at this Funeral Dinner. Not only was the food far too sumptuous for his tastes but because he was going to have to be civil in a room with Carmy, pretending like he didn't want to punch him to wake him up from the destructive stupour he was in.

Not eating at the Funeral Dinner wasn't some revolutionary concept. He'd only been without food for a day, or two, he couldn't quite remember in the chaos of Nat being on maternity leave. He'd had to force her not to come in when things were going to shit. The Bear shouldn't be on her mind when she had a newborn baby to look after. There were more important things than a failing restaurant.

He didn't need to eat. Now he was used to the initial pain and cravings that the first day brought, he became this heightened, empty being. His body didn't pang with hunger, his mouth didn't salivate when he carried a plate to a table, it didn't gurgle as he watched them prep. Food was becoming a luxury, surplus to requirement like he'd always been taught. And he was appreciating it more when he did. Things that were meant to be appreciated shouldn't be had often. That's what he was taught.

Putting on his watch, one of the few things from his dad that he still kept, it had been his eighteenth birthday present and had to be repaired after his dad had smashed the glass during their fight, he readied himself to go. Keys, wallet, both in his pockets, as well as the tight feeling in his chest, bile rising up in his throat, mucus so thick he couldn't breathe and tears welling up in his eyes.

He needed to go.

He'd forgotten how smooth everything felt at Ever. Under the gleaming artificial lights, the shouting wasn't constant. Chef's moved with robotic precision with their timings perfect and plates pristine.

This is what Carmy was going for. This is what the Bear should be like. Shouting wasn't happening everywhere, it was generally more effective when it wasn't a constant. The barrage of abuse Carmen hurled during service was losing its effectiveness. Like Sydney asked, he didn't rise to it, but he found that he didn't want to, he knew it would make no difference. Not eating provided him with a clarity, he had reduced energy, enough to live with, but not enough for unnecessary arguments with someone who didn't want to change. The most they talked to each other was with Behinds, Corners and Richie relaying order sheets when he was on Expo.

Outside of service, Carmen wasn't really there at all, however. He didn't shout but didn't do much of anything. He was in the eye of the storm and couldn't see through the tornado of his own making. Was he even aware of how he was fucking everything up or was he so far gone he couldn't see them anymore? Although, it was starting to bother him how Richie didn't bat an eyelid when he was shouted at anymore. Carmen wasn't the only one going numb under the pressure.

He'd noticed that none of the servers at Ever had dropped a plate yet; two hours into service at the Bear and someone would've made a mistake worth belittling. This is how things were meant to go. There wasn't a suffocating quality to the tension in the air. The staff weren't being gradually desensitised from Carmen's downward spiral. Ever had continued to grow until it's only natural progression was to close while things were still good, rather than desecrate the memory of the previous owner.

Sitting in the kitchen, instead of the dining room, had been the correct choice. Although, when he’d walked in and he’d seen Carmy, the rising rage didn’t prickle his throat like bile, yet he still couldn't bring himself to talk to him. They were past fighting. They were done with each other. It broke his heart.

He'd felt joy for the first time in weeks, months? He was surrounded by his people, people who were genuinely happy to see him and broke through the grey that was taking over everything. Jess's proficiency at her job, her passion and drive, reminded him of why he'd tried so hard in the first place.

They managed to get past the pressure and reminders of how everything good was disappearing and made him live in the moment. The anxieties always hiding in the shadows were being cast off. He wanted the Bear to succeed, he wanted it to be as beloved as this place someday.

And the fact that all of this didn't come at the cost of eating, was a plus. No one had noticed, and his answer of him wanting to hang out with Jess and Garrett during service wasn't questioned. He'd found that people generally paid less attention to your habits when you grew older. It had always been easier to avoid eating as an adult than when he was a teen. Everyone's lives were busy enough that other people's habits weren't picked up on until it was too bad.

Like Mikey.

Maybe that was why this felt so empowering this time around. It wasn't a punishment. It wasn't some way of proving himself to his dad, or Tiff, or whoever. It was him showing he could do it. It was as simple as needing something to focus on, a project, a coping mechanism. Perhaps if he’d been doing this before Mikey died he would’ve had the guts to get him into a rehab rather than believe the bullshit lies he would tell him.

Claps and cheers broke him out of his head as he stared at Jess’ expo station and noticed that it was empty. They’d walked the last ever dish to be served, their work was done. He stood up to hug her, then Garrett, and plenty of other people he hadn’t remembered the names of, before waiting for everyone to finish eating and start to mourn this place. 

"So, where's the afterparty?" Jess said, bumping him with a smile.

"Definitely not at my place, not unless all you want to listen to is Taylor Swift and Heavy Metal."

"Doesn't Syd have a new place?" Luca, the guy who didn't have a stick up his ass like he thought he would, perked up. "Hey, Sydney don't you have a new place."

She emerged from around a corner, Chef Adam not far behind her. "Yeah, why?"

"We could have party at your place."

"And piss off my new neighbours? No thanks."

"Oh come on, it'll be a housewarming and afterparty all in one." Richie said. "And you've never had a party with us, me and the Faks throw an amazing party."

She thought for a moment before conceeding. "Fine. But you guys bring the booze."

That got cheers. Richie got out his phone to text some of the Bear crew to come along. They needed some times to relax together outside of work. They were basically family anyway.

He could only hope that when the Bear closed, it would get a reception like this. Everything he had was going into that place, it had to work, he needed it to and he had the feeling it would, given some time. Being Ever had reminded him of why he'd done this in the first place, why he'd started to try again. The urge to run away ebbed slightly.

It was only as people were piling into various cars, Luca, Syd, Jess and Garrett managed to pack themselves into his, that someone mentioned food and he got a sinking feeling in his gut. The fact that it had been over three days since he'd last eaten, today was the fourth day and it hadn't even occured to him, and the knowledge that his streak would be ended tonight, disheartened the passion he felt he'd refound.

Hours after Donna kissed him on the head, and a stuffy phone call to his parents to put on a show that they cared where he went, and he found himself kneeling on the cracked tile of the Berzatto’s main bathroom. Cold rose up into his bent knees as he rested his chin on the pristine toilet bowl. 

Eating that much felt strange. A heavy feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t describe distracted him as Mikey pulled him away to the box room to play on his new Super NES he’d gotten the previous Christmas from his Uncle Jimmy, who was also called Cicero sometimes too, this family were weird. He’d lost more games than he’d liked to admit and excused himself to use the bathroom right about the time his baby sister peeked her head around the door, insisting on playing even though she was five and could barely hold the controller. 

Now it had been ten minutes, and he knew Mikey would spot his absence. Mikey knew shit like that. He could tell when his baby brother, not even a year old, was about to cry, or his mother was going to scream, or the teacher was going to return to class before anyone else. So, he’d be subconsciously aware of how many minutes Richie had been away, and would be knocking on the door any second. 

Which meant he didn’t have long to get rid of the all consuming nausea he’d been feeling for hours. 

It wasn’t a physical nausea, like the few times he’d been ill or chosen to eat the school’s spaghetti and meatballs, where he had to hold back the vomit. No, this was a mental one. Despite loving the second portions and rich aromas, it all felt so foreign his brain was trying to get rid of it the only way it knew how. Throwing it up like a salmonella infused piece of raw chicken. 

He needed the feeling to go. If he had to sit there and pretend like he wasn’t questioning everything in his life, how food could be that good, how there could be so much of it, how it wasn’t a threat, it was a form of love that he’d been deprived of, and why he hadn’t been deserving of it before, he would find himself sailing out the window like a budget Superman and flying home to his shitty, claustraphobic apartment. 

If he could just stop the heaviness then the question would stop ringing around his head. 

Why was I not good enough for this?

A thought, a single off-the-walls crazy thought entered his mind. 

Why am I still not good enough for this?

He thought of the times something had gone down the wrong way and how his stomach had clenched instinctively.

Why will I never be good enough for this?

And reached his finger into his mouth. Past his tongue. His teeth stroking his finger as he reached a mental barrier. His body telling him that this was too far, but his brain arguing and pushing further. Pushing his finger further. Until something clicked, his stomach clenched, his throat stopped and he saw the entire night's dinner come up in reverse.

While his brain and body fought, screaming and pulling him in multiple directions, he’d missed the lock on the door clicking. Missed the whimpering of a baby, and missed his best friend’s footsteps stopping beside him. 

“You okay?” A familiar voice asked. 

And the lightness, that comforting emptiness that stayed true during every move, every argument and every weekend spent in his room, in self imposed exile because his dad was home and he’d rather lock himself away than be in the same room as him, vanished. His hands gripped the toilet bowl as he took a heaving deep breath and turned to see Mikey holding baby Carmen with that concerned look in his eye again. 

“Don’t think I’m used to your mom’s cooking,” he said. “Never had proper Italian before, so-”

He tapped his stomach and waited for Mikey to laugh, to pat him on the back or do something. He bounced Carmen on his hip.

It wasn’t a complete lie, he told himself. He truly wasn’t used to his mom’s cooking. But, it wasn’t the Italian cooking that made him throw up, it was the harrowing realisation that food was amazing. That there were places where it was plentiful and steaming full of love, that it wasn’t a commodity to be cherished, but a staple meant to be extravagant. It was the knowledge that this had existed all along in the world and someone, god, the universe, his parents, had decided to take it from him. Someone had known that this existed and said Richard Lawrence Jerimovich didn’t deserve to be full. 

And who was he to go against the universe. 

“Don’t let my mom know.” Mikey broke through his head. “She hates people not appreciating her food, so don’t let her find out or you’ll be banned.”

Strange. Not eating was the bad thing here. Eating, food in general, were seen as gifts in the Jerimovich household. We brought you into this world so be grateful, kind of a deal. 

“Will do.” He said. 

“I’ll get you some water.” 

Mikey closed the door, Richie didn’t ask how he knew to unlock a door from the outside, but knew it probably had something to do with his mother, her moods, and the copious amounts of wine she drank. 

Richie sat back on his tingling feet and reached up to flush the toilet. Even though his hands were shaking, his mouth hurt from the lingering stomach acid that came up with the food, and the sickly sweetness of bile lingering on his teeth, the world was correct again when he settled with the feeling of his stomach being empty. 

The universe was right again.

He didn't know how much time had passed since the party had started. After his text, Tina, Marcus, and the Faks had joined them, bringing with them a lot of beer, that was now mostly gone. Sydney had a mostly undrank bottle of vodka in her cupboards that was also empty. Pizza and waffles were being made into something.

This was the most fun he'd had in months. This was the most drunk he'd been in months. Not insane drunk, not blackout drunk and accidentally marry someone drunk, he and Mikey went to Vegas for Richie's bachelor party and almost ended up marrying each other instead.

Instead, he'd reached the point where everything became hazy. Warmth spread throughout his body despite the draft coming in through the thin walls, there was a looseness to his limbs that was usually missing with the aches and pains of day to day life. A smile had been plastered to his face as he got to know Jess more, took shots with Andrea, smoked a joint with Syd.

He felt free. This is what his twenties, and part of his thirties, had been like. An endless parade of no tomorrows, living life like he could never stop. Work followed by dinner at the Berzattos, followed by parties where you left at dawn and travelled straight back to work again. He didn't remember sleeping much during his twenties, not every night, not until he crashed at the end of the week and slept for almost a full twenty-four hours.

But this time there was a serenity to it. No cocaine. No little pills being passed around like candy. No fear when the high got too bad. Just comfort, his body weak and pliable and comfortable in a way he'd forgotten. He felt like he was asleep and wide awake at the same time.

Yet across the crowded room, on the other side from where the pizza was being handed out, even drunk and high he didn't feel like eating, he saw Sydney slip away. Tonight she'd been in two moods. Ecsatic, stuck in the surreal moment of one of her idols being in her kitchen, forgetting the restaurant for one night and letting herself be surrounded by people who cared and had her best interest at heart.

The other, he'd only seen in glances when everyone else turned away. The realisation of where she was and how she'd gotten here, and where things were going, all hitting her at once. With the amount of people packed into her tiny apartment, the air had gone stuffy, someone needed to open a window.

Richie, in his inebriated state, made his way through the thrall of people to get to the door and follow Sydney.

The air hit him, cool and dry, as shadows crept up the stairwell and died under the low light of the single dim bulb hanging in the middle of the hall. Two more doors made up the rest of the corridor. Richie knew how thin the walls were and thought about the kind of complaints Sydney would be getting tomorrow.

He scanned the hallway again and saw no sign of her. His body was halfway to walking down the stairs and checking outside when he saw her trembling figure in the corner.

If he wasn't drunk, he probably would've been able to crouch down better. He'd been drinking for over thirty years and had never gotten this drunk, this quickly - having no food in his body would do that. She looked up at him as he stumbled to the ground and crossed his legs, his knees screaming at him through the sheath of inebriation.

Instead of talking, he reached over and put his arm around her. She fell onto his shoulder, tears dripping onto his shirt as she heaved and hiccuped. Her body shook as her breathing stayed irregular, her chest rising and falling, occasional gasps for breath breaking her silence.

He thought of all the times he'd been left shaking and fearful because of Mikey. The anxiety that the next phonecall was going to be the morgue, or the hospital, or whoever else, seeping in and making him tremble and vomit. At least Mikey had the insane ability to make him forget all the trouble and make him believe it would all be okay.

"It's not worth this much pain." He said.

She looked up from where she'd been crying in his shoulder. "What?"

"I know how you're feeling, I've been in your position, okay? And I can tell you that it's not worth it, sacrificing everything in the hope that things will change, lying to yourself that things will get better when you can see they aren't."

He turned so they were facing each other. "Don't go down with the sinking ship in the hopes that it'll stop sinking."

Her eyes were still glistening with tears. Dried tear tracks glistened in the shadowed light of the single bulb above them.

"What do you mean?" She asked, but the question wasn't so much a question, but an urge for ease.

"Don't let Carmen be your Mikey."

She'd stopped crying, but her body was still tremoring as he wheezed and stood up. She didn't move to follow him, but hadn't broken down again either. Her gaze was miles away, her jaw tense as she wiped her face.

"I'll give you some space." He offered, before returning inside.

The review being read out while half the staff were hungover wasn't the best sign. Jimmy had sent it to Carmen. Carmen sent it to Syd. Syd sent it to the group. No one had replied but they all knew that it wasn't fully positive.

Everyone had arrived far earlier than they should've done. Richie had to take a Xanax, he was so shaken. It wasn't awful but it wasn't amazing either. In fact, it was a perfectly normal, mixed review that gave a fair amount of constructive criticism interlaced with plenty of compliments. If the Beef received this kind of review back when Mikey was running it, they would've at least been able to afford napkins.

But this was the Bear. And mediocre wasn't good enough. Richie already knew how Carmen would react, although he could hope that perhaps he wouldn't double down even more than he had over the last few months.

After their conversation last night, Richie couldn't help but steal glances at Sydney. She'd already been here when he arrived, giving him her usual greeting as she began to start prep for that night's service. As he investigated her now, it was like nothing had happened. No panic attack. No words of wisdom. Not even a curtesey questioning. She'd either brushed off his comments, or was hiding her turmoil like a pro.

Neil joined them around the counter, and his focus was taken away. His face the most positive out of anyone despite the amount they'd drank last night. Although Richie didn't know where Carmy had got to last night, and he didn't really care, his pale and sickly skin, heather bags under his eyes and disheveled hair made him the worst for wear.

"Now we're all here-" Natalie started. She'd come in to discuss their plan of action following the review. Richie had hoped she'd stay at home and rest up, but this place never allowed you to rest. "We're here to discuss the review. It had some great positive notes."

Carmen rolled his eyes. "And some unacceptable negatives."

Natalie pointed a finger at him and he shut up. She picked up the printed out version of the review. Various sections were highlighted in two different colours, he couldn't see from where he was stood but he could imagine they stood for praises and critiques. There was already writing scrawled in the margins, Carmen's spidery script, Sugar's neat lettering and Sydney's combination of both. How long had they been here?

"Overall, the quality of the food was excellent, the ingredients were fresh and you could tell that we care about where our food is coming from. All the front of house staff were praised, your service and positive attitudes were some of the best, Richie and Neil you were named specifically for making the reviewer feel at home. The decor was mentioned, the atmosphere, the lighting and the flowers were all said to be a nice touch." She looked up and smiled.

Richie had already read the review, on the toilet, during his first shit in three days, and was touched by his specific name mention. He knew, however, that the rest of his front of house staff had worked their asses off since they'd opened, and deserved a reward. He'd have to go and get them something to say well done.

"But, there were more negatives than we'd like."

Carmen huffed. Natalie snapped her finger at him like he was a dog and gave him a glare that reminded Richie of Donna. He'd never tell her that.

"The main thing was that the dishes themselves didn't seem that cohesive, even for a tasting menu, it didn't seem like there was a lot of thought or care put into the dishes." Richie scoffed and got the same look. "And although the service was commended, the tension was picked up on. We broke a few plates, the reviewer overheard Richie having to tell someone that the mushrooms hadn't been removed despite them asking and he didn't like that. But the biggest thing was that the reviewer heard the argument Richie and Carmy had that night, over said mushrooms, he saw you two getting dragged apart and said, and I'm quoting here, 'Never in all my life have I been served such ostentatious dishes with the atmosphere of a food fight in a middle school cafeteria. Despite the doings of the Bear to stand up to its fine-dining brethren, until it can iron out these conflicts, the place will still be known as the Beef'."

She put down the review and sighed. "I don't think I need to say that we need to get better. It wasn't all negative but we can't have some of these issues carry on."

With how bad the hangover was, Richie had subsided and eaten a decent sized breakfast to soak up the toxins and rid himself of the headache that was still pounding. His stomach hurt, his head throbbed as if he was being hit with a frying pan and his throat was rougher than sandpaper. His already worn thin patience, had ran out.

"So we were all right, then?" He said, his eyes on Carmen even if his words were directed to Natalie. "If we hadn't have changed the menu then that review would've been better."

Carmen snapped his head to meet his eyeline. The washed out tone of his skin flared red with anger. Instead of his eyes being relaxed and half-glazed over, they were harnessed on him, sharp and deadly.

"It was you who started all those arguments that we got blamed for. If you'd just done what I said then there wouldn't have been any arguments."

"And if you'd just agreed to remove the mushrooms, I wouldn't have had to argue." Richie contended. "The guy's paying almost two hundred dollars for food and you can't remove some fucking mushrooms? Even McDonald's can do that? Are you trying to make us worse than McDonald's?"

Sydney, who'd been pensive until this point, took a deep breath in that flared her nostrils and yelled. "Enough!"

Carmen turned his head to her. His shoulders relaxed, his white knuckle grip on the spoon in his hand eased. It was like he was trying to listen to her, for once, even when he'd noticed that he hadn't since they opened.

"This arguing is what got us into this mess in the first place. We need to get the menu sorted, and we need to up our game when it comes to each other." She honed in on Carmy. "You need to start working with Richie, he's been more than good with everyone else, taking on suggestions and trying to do the best by the restaurant. Now I don't get why you two are carrying on your argument, but I am sick of it. I'm sick of this place being brought down by the same shit that ruined the Beef, and we are better than the Beef, understood?"

Carmen had the same look on his face that he got when Donna was shouting at him. Trembling, distancing himself as he froze in place but taking in every word.

"Understood."

Sydney turned to the room. "Richie, I know you're trying, but this shit needs to stay out of the kitchen. Write each other strongly worded texts, fight in the alley if you have to, but not here."

All he could see as he looked at her was her tear-stained face last night and how she'd slumped into his arms. As he looked at her now, there was no trace of the shaken girl he'd comforted, she looked like the CDC she'd become since they'd opened.

"Can do."

She took a deep breath and smiled. "Right, let's get to work."

In his defence, he'd done his best to keep a lid on it all night. Broken plates. Everyone's eyes on him. Questions, requests, allergies. He'd handled it all. But maybe it was the Xanax wearing off, or the realisation of Ever closing, or the review sinking in, but it felt like everyone's eyes were on him. Whenever a customer opened their mouth to speak, his mind jumped to answer whatever critiques they'd have due to the review. He kept on wondering how many people had read it, if the no show they'd had was because of it, if the bad tips were people turning on them.

And throughout all of it, he still had the question of it this unease had come with the breakfast he'd eaten. If he hadn't have eaten, would he feel better? Would he feel more distant?

He needed a drink. Some nights after service, he and Gary sat down drinking a glass of wine he'd picked and comiserating over the night. Some nights it would be a celebration. Others it would be mourning. It had would have been mourning tonight. If he'd offered tonight, he had a feeling it would be more to block out the voices telling him that everything was failing, just like with Mikey, all over again.

Yet, the night had gone as smoothly as it ever did. They didn't have to refire ten times. Sydney had been on expo so every dish was sent out in perfect order. The plates were immaculate. It should've been fine, it should've been a sign of what they could be, that even if he and Carmen were never on good terms again, that they could put their differences aside to make this place work.

Nevertheless, Carmen hadn't been relaxed tonight. He'd barely spoken a word to them since they'd discussed the review, just got his head down working on the menu, which was going to change until they came up with a concrete one. But he'd been wound like a spring, his body filled with so much tension he was going to explode. Richie had been waiting for the ticking to stop, waiting for the impact and didn't feel any better when it didn't come.

He should feel better that he hadn't blown up. Why didn't he feel better?

With a few deep breaths, and the thought of that six pack he'd bought the other night in the fridge, he got up. Carmen was chopping like a madman. Next to him, among the littered bones of various vegetables, was another one of his notebooks. He could see coloured images and intricate drawings. Carmen should've been an artist, he would've made a great Van Gogh.

He was questioning asking him what was wrong when Sydney joined him at her locker. She'd been the one to tell them they needed to fix their shit, it would be a good step to fixing things if he showed Carmen that he still cared. Yet, when he peered at her, he saw how the bags hung under her eyes, and how her hands shook as she unlocked the door. Maybe that speech this morning wasn't so much confidence, but denial.

“We did good today.” He reassured her.

“Not good enough.”

He reached out and stroked her shoulder. Over the course of service her hair had become increasingly undone, falling out of her bandana and only making her look more distressed. Where had the cocky young chef he’d met gone? He'd seen a flash of the woman who'd come in with her new ideas and hardass attitude but she'd disappeared somewhere. When had she become this washed out? When had her speeches, loud opinions and stubborn passion become a rare sight? What was this place doing to her?

“There’s always tomorrow?” He suggested. 

She took off her bandana and shook out her braids. “We’ve been saying that for months and yet I still feel like shit at the end of every day. We need things to change because of that review, I know they won't straight away but I don't think I can hang on much longer.”

Fuck, what was he meant to say to that? That he felt the same way? That he was losing hope and beginning to wonder if this place would ever be what they'd dreamed it would? If it wasn’t for him not eating, having something to focus on, he didn’t know how he’d get through the day. 

“You need a vacation.” He settled on.

“I need to get out of here.” She mumbled.

“Where are we going?” He humoured her. “I’ve got a car with half a tank of gas.”

“I’m thinking Japan, somewhere no-one knows my name and I can’t speak the language.”

He nodded. “I’d love to go there. Too bad that shit’s expensive.”

She sighed, putting her phone in her pocket and slipping her airpods, with a flowery case around them, into her ears. She was too young to be this tired. When he was her age, and that sentence made him feel old, he was living for parties and music, going to any gig he could afford and keeping the tickets in a photo album he had somewhere at the back of his closet. She shouldn’t be dealing with a fine dining restaurant that was constantly on the brink of failure, a boss who wouldn’t deal with his shit, and a fucked up family insisting that you join them. He was glad she hadn’t signed the partnership offer, once she did, she was attached to the Berzattos for life and that was the worst mistake he ever made. 

“Night, Richie.” She droned. “Night guys.”

A chorus of answers broke through the brittle silence as everyone else cleaned up, prepped, or slumped over having some kind of religious experience, or whatever their new line cook was doing in the corner. As she began to push the door, the kitchen stopped quaking. Carmy looked up from his prep and met her eyes. He noted how her body sagged further when she walked to meet him. He still had the knife in his hand, the scar on his ass hurt. 

“You’re not staying?” He asked. 

She sighed. “No."

"Why?"

"Because it’s eleven o’clock, it takes me close to an hour to get home and I’m almost falling asleep right here, so no, I am not staying..”

His hands clenched around the knife. It clattered when he placed it down, his face grew red under the synthetic white light. He took a deep breath. All eyes were on him. Sydney took out her airpods.

“We’ve got the new menu to make" he said, his tone buzzing like a live wire. "That was your idea. Why are you leaving so soon?"

"Because I'm tired?"

The way Carmen stepped back in what was almost shock, made Richie wonder if he'd forgotten how to take care of himself.

"We're all tired, Sydney, but you said that we had to redo this menu and we won't have any time otherwise, so it's got to be now."

She didn't reply at first. Richie could feel the silence throbbing.

"Don't do this. Don't be like this." She pleaded, all Richie could hear was his own pleads with Mikey to go home, to sober up and go to sleep. He wasn't usually successful. "Don't guilt-trip me or compare me or pressure me into staying. I'm going home. We've had a long, stressful day and I'm choosing to take care of myself for one night."

"Attitudes like that don't make you the best."

"You're the one who has to be the best, not me." She spat.

Richie did a double take. That was the venom she'd used with him when she'd first started. This wasn't going to end well, but he couldn't deny that he was looking forward to seeing someone take Carmy down.

"You're the one who became a different person over night, you're the one who decided that to be the best it has to be everything your way."

Carmen opened as he tried to speak. The dirt clinging to his skin, his clothes, his attitude, didn’t fit the harsh, fluorescent nature of the kitchen. They’d cleaned it thrice over tonight, prepped as much as they could and it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Carmy had become this black hole of high expectations and low self-esteem that everyone was getting drawn into and he couldn’t take it. 

"Don't lie to me. You know you’ve taken control of everything. You changed our shit, to your shit, and don’t pretend that you’ve included me in any of the decisions you’ve made about the menu. Every idea I suggest you don’t even shoot down, you don’t even acknowledge it. And I get it, maybe it’s because I haven’t signed the partnership agreement and this is the treatment I get but you were treating me better before and I don’t get what’s happened to make you into the thing I was trying to get away from when I came here.”

She threw her bag to the floor and stepped toward Carmy. Carmy was at the familiar crossroads all Berzattos seemed to face. Glaze over and accept what was coming, or flip a switch and go ballistic. He hadn’t decided what his response was yet.

“But even if I wasn’t going to be a partner you shouldn’t treat your staff this way. You shouldn't bully me into staying when it's already eleven o'clock and I'm about to pass out. Tina’s amazing at her job but you never tell her that, all you do is yell at her to refire and how it’s not perfect.” She snapped. “Fuck, you don’t talk to any of us if you’re not putting us down or screaming at Richie over some bullshit and I can’t even say Richie deserves it because he’s working his ass out there making up for all the shit you’re insisting on doing. Changing the menu, refiring twenty times, he’s the one that has to face the customer and make sure he makes enough tips to cover his rent."

Everyone had stopped what they were doing and stared at the scene. Over the course of months, Sydney had piece-by-piece warped into this unhealthily dedicated, pushed down, worn out CDC who didn't fight back and didn't get listened to. It hurt that he was so surprised that she was acting how she used to all the time. In a way, he'd missed this side of her.

“All the servers are pushed to their limit, forced to go faster and faster so no wonder they break plates. No wonder we have to refire everything because we’re so stressed we don’t have time to think or breathe. No wonder the review was bad because you took everything we planned and fucked it up!" Her voice was raising with every sentence. "You said you couldn’t do this without me yet here you are, doing everything without me, and everyone’s still asking why I haven’t signed the fucking partnership agreement, well maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I don’t want the added pressure of owning this place on top of all the other shit I’ve got to deal with, maybe I’m sick of you and your bullshit, your unresolved trauma or whatever the fuck this is, maybe I’m sick of your fucked up family forcing me in, maybe I’ll just take Chef Adam’s offer to run his restaurant instead!”

Her mouth clicked shut as she covered it with her hands. The room stopped. Stopped moving or thinking or speaking. He was glued to the floor, eyes stuck on the scene as Carmy tensed his jaw, ground his teeth and made his choice. 

“What offer?” He said. 

She didn’t reply. Her eyes were wide, as though she’d just told her most embarrassing secret, like she’s just seen the big bad wolf remove his disguise as her grandma.

“What fucking offer, Syd?”

“Chef Adam from Ever," She whispered. "He’s opening a new restaurant and he wants me to be the CDC, he said I’d have full creative control, a whole bunch of benefits and he doesn’t want to cook so the place would be mine.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “So-so what? You’re giving up on this, you’re giving up on this place, after everything you said this morning? I mean, how quickly did you think we were going to improve? A day? And you're giving up. Is that what you do? Fucking give up on things?”

“Go easy on her, Jeff.” Tina stepped closer. Sydney hadn’t removed her hands from her mouth. 

“Why should I? Why should I when she’s been going behind our backs since, what, when we opened, before?”

Sydney shook her head. Her brown eyes were molten with tears. 

“No. It’s been a few weeks.”

“But you’re taking it.”

“I’ve been considering it but I wasn’t certain before-”

He inhaled sharply. “Oh, but you are now?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“But you were sure a minute ago, you were just fucking screaming at me about how shit this place is, how I’m fucking it up, how you’re eager to leave, so tell me, tell me that you want to stay, tell me that you’re going to stick with us.”

He didn’t have to gesture around the room to make it known he was talking about all of them. Like it was a cult. Like the world would end if she left. Maybe his would, but things would carry on for the rest of them, at least he thought. 

Sydney didn’t reply again. Her entire body was trembling as Carmy loomed over her. They were practically the same height but he filled up the space around her until he was all she could see. 

“You can’t even do that.” He stepped backwards with that sick grin on his face. “I should’ve known, I never should’ve taken you on, you quit fine dining restaurants because you didn’t believe in it, you quit your business because it ‘got too big’, and now you’re quitting this because it’s too challenging, because you’re not the centre of attention, because it’s not perfect straight away.”

He smacked his hand on the counter. The entire room jumped. 

“You’re a fucking quitter, you’re a coward and a snake-”

Richie jumped to life and ran between them. All he could hear was his argument with him in the walk-in, the acid he’d spat that he didn’t even remember, the way he’d dug into his insecurities with no care to even hold remorse.

“Step the fuck away, Carmen.” He pushed him a few steps away as he wedged himself between them. “Go the fuck home and relax, sleep on it, fuck off.”

He smacked his hand away. “Fuck off, Richie, I’m trying to talk with my CDC, or I guess, ex-CDC?” He lent around him to look at her. 

“No. No. Don’t do that, don’t intimidate her, don’t treat her like me or Nat or Mikey. She doesn’t know this, doesn’t know the toxic shit you carry with you and she doesn’t deserve to be yelled at for looking after herself.” He glared at him. “Because she’s right, you’re fucking ruining this place, you’re ruining her, you’re ruining me and everyone else around you, don’t blame her because she’s right and you don’t want to hear it.”

“Fuck you, Richie.”

He shook his head. “No. Carm. I’m not doing this, not now. I’m too tired for this shit tonight. Go home.”

“Stay out of my fucking business.”

“It’s everyone’s business, Carmen, now step away and go home. I mean it.”

He could feel his panting breath on his hand as he glared fire into his eyes. 

“Go home, Carmen.”

He gave him one last push and let Marcus drag him away. As he was forced toward the back door, he turned to talk to Sydney only to see the back door swinging from her exit. 

His body was weighed down by his breakfast in his stomach. He wanted to be empty right now. He wanted to feel the pangs of hunger after days without food. He needed it.

Everything that had been said ran through his mind: Sydney admitting how shitty everything had become, her saying she was leaving, or not, Carmen losing it. That wasn’t the first time she’d been yelled at like a Berzatto, that happened on the day he was stabbed, but she hadn’t been brought into the fold yet, hadn’t been given a glimpse of what it could be like in some fantasy land then been stuck with the harsh reality. 

As he glanced around the kitchen, everyone was either staring at the door, or slowly returning to what they were doing. Richie somehow couldn't stand still, and couldn't move at the same time. He saw what was going on but it was like it was happening behind glass. All sounds were muffled, his hands numb and body cold as he walked to his locker without being able to see where it was.

Every possibility coursed through his mind.

Sydney leaving and Carmy getting worse.

The restaurant shutting down.

Carmy leaving too and the place going to shit. 

Everyone else walking out until he was surrounded by strangers, Carmen being the most unknown. He couldn’t go down with this ship again, he couldn’t let them take control again.

All he could feel, all he could focus on, was the sound of his own beating heart. Sydney couldn't leave, she was his only connection to back of house, of course there was Marcus and Tina, but Sydney was the only one who had a chance at stopping Carmy when he started like this.

But that shouldn't be her job. She was here to cook, not be his babysitter. He was left to deal with Mikey and look how that turned out. How selfish was he that he was going to wish that fate on someone just for his own gain? 

This place would crumble without her. He wanted it to crumble. He wanted to hold up the last wall until it was rubble around him. But the idea of this place closing before it could meet its full potential made his heart pound faster. 

There was too much changing already. Carmy. The menu. Ever closing. Now Sydney leaving? 

Part of him thought that this was his fault. He should've talked to Carmy earlier, before the review, so the arguments would've stopped. He should've held his ground against the none negotiables and stopped this from ever happening. The argument had been allowed to play out instead of him going in and stopping it. Out of everyone, he knew how to handle Carmy and yet he hadn't

Guilt rose sickly up his throat. Acidic and sweet. Oh, how he wanted to be hungry again. He'd do anything to bring back the consuming pang of hunger he'd felt over the last few days. Where had his control gone? If he hadn't have eaten, if he had let himself be hungry he would've had something to focus on, he would've been in control and none of this would've happened?

Not eating was meant to fix this. It had provided him clarity, clarity that only came when he was empty. It gave him an unbending sense of self. He had purpose, a goal.

All this had proven was that food only made things worse.

"You better not be trying to murder me." Richie said.

They ran down the steps, two at a time, as they left the L-station. The streets weren't busy but there were enough people to get in their way as they ran away from the payment officer. As people got in their way, they darted around them. If they tried to stop them, they shrugged off their hands and evaded once more.

Richie knew better than to ask his parents for money for the L, he'd get questions about where he was going, what time he'd be back. No. It was better for everyone if he didn't ask. But he still had places to be, so he'd gained the muscles of an olympic hurdler with how often he jumped over turnstyles.

Mikey, though, he was just here for the fun of it. He knew there were people in his family he could sweet talk into giving him a couple of extra bucks. His Uncle Jimmy, any of the Faks, and his cousin Michelle, when she was home. Regardless of this fact, there were some days when he either couldn't talk them into giving him cash, or he wanted to adrenaline rush, and joined Richie in the endless sprint of being chased by various public officials.

At least it wasn't the cops.

"You kids get back here!" The guard shouted.

His breath was wheezing as he yelled. From his portly frame, they could tell he wasn't used to chasing after two deliquent teens, and they were using it to their advantage.

Mikey grabbed his arm suddenly. "Quick, this way."

He pulled him into a sharp left turn as they ran through an empty parking lot and past an overflowing trash can. The stale smell of piss and weed filled his nose as he smacked on the door. Richie tried to stifle his pants as he heard the guard catching up with them. By the sound of his groaning, he was just around the corner.

"Mikey," Richie urged. "What are you doing? Where are we?"

"Trust me, dude, they'll let us in."

Richie heard the guard getting closer. Mikey slammed his hand against the door.

"Come assholes, open the door." He mumbled to himself.

The guard was right on their tails. Mikey raised his hand to try a third and final time, Richie readied himself to run again when the door opened and an unfamiliar hand grabbed them inside.

Richie struggled against the person's surefire grip.

"Get off me," he cried.

"That's the thanks I get for saving your pathetic ass."

Richie looked from the hand that had been on his hoodie, up the arm, recollecting the tattoos before he saw Jimmy staring back at him.

"Jimmy?" Richie looked to his left only to find Mikey had strolled off further into the kitchen. "Where are we?"

Mikey grabbed two bread rolls from a rack so freshly removed from the oven that steam was still rolling off it. "The Original Beef. It was my dad's place."

He took in the dirt in between the chipped tiles. Another trash can overflowed to his right as well as flattened boxes towering next to them. Heat rose from the stoves and ovens that were incased in a layer of grease that seemed years old. People milled about, moving from the kitchen through to the main part of the restaurant that he could just about see through the archway in the wall.

"This is your dad's place?" He hadn't meant to say it with the touch of contempt that he did, but the disgust at how dirty this place was couldn't be hidden.

"Would be if he was still around." Jimmy added.

Richie followed Mikey as he trailed his way around the kitchen. He was beelining his way to the tray of glistening, hot beef across the kitchen.

"It's still technically his though." Mikey said.

"And yet, I'm the unfortunate fucker who's here every afternoon when there are many, many more important ventures that need my focus. But no, your dad runs off, again, I'm left to pick up the slack and it's still his place."

Mikey rolled his eyes and waved Richie over. He grabbed a bread knife and began to cut open the two rolls.

Jimmy sped his way over to them and smacked Mikey's hand away from the pair of tongues bathing in the beef juices. "Oh no, don't think you can come in here and scrounge around for food. This place may be making money but barely, if you eat here, you pay."

He stared down at Mikey as though he was trying to turn him to stone. Mikey shrugged and reached for the tongs.

"Last time I checked, Dad still owned this place, so go and ask him."

Jimmy gave them a harsh grin. "I don't know if you recall this, Michael, but no one can get a hold of your dad."

"So you can't ask him if you should charge us, so we get it for free."

He'd managed to assemble two sloppy sandwiches and took a large bite out of his. The marinade ran down his chin as Jimmy sighed and stormed off into the office.

Mikey turned around and offered him the other sandwich.

"I'm good." Richie shook his head.

With his mouth still full, he shook the sandwich at him.

"I said I'm good, you already made me lunch anyway."

Mikey gulped down the bite and held the sandwich so it took up most of his eyeline. "Just eat the fucking sandwich, dude."

Ever since Richie had been invited around to the Berzattos for dinner, and Mikey found out about his parents' tendancy to not feed him, he'd made it his mission that Richie had lunch everyday. And now it wasn't just lunch either. Richie was getting dinner every night at the Berzattos, and Mikey was even bringing him breakfast too when he remembered. He'd been trying to get used to all of this, food, compassion, but couldn't help but feel like he was failing.

With a sigh, he grabbed the sandwich and took a bite. He'd never had Italian Beef before but the spices and herbs hit him in a wave. The beef wasn't overcooked, it was moist and melted in his mouth while being hugged by the soft bread.

"See, knew you needed that."

He still had half the sandwich in his mouth, so couldn't argue. His stomach was fit to bursting.

"Come on, there's something I want to show you." Mikey said.

He waved the sandwich around as he explained things about the restaurant. The food they served. Funny anecdotes about customers or the time the beef exploded in the oven. It was the most he'd heard Mikey talk about his dad, it was like he had a connection to this place beyond the harsh memories of home.

As he walked through the kitchen, he saw a glimpse into the cluttered office. Jimmy sat hunched over the desk lit by a lamp halfway to dying, it made the shadows of his face more severe.

He stood still as Mikey carried on through the front of the restaurant. His eyes were locked on Jimmy, on the people running around him and the sounds of the restaurant. Now he was here, breathing it in, his stomach didn't feel as full, the pressure to eat wasn't as large, it all drifted away.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was in the office. Jimmy lifted his eyes from the document in front of him to stare at him.

"You here to ask for more food?"

"No." He said. "I'm free in the afternoon, and weekends."

He gave him a blank stare. "And?"

"I could work here. Get's me out of the house. Keep me out of trouble."

Jimmy blinked at him, pondering. He looked him up and down, at his spiky, dyed black hair, his Pantera t-shirt, the baggy jeans and old sneakers. Last summer he'd tried to give himself a piercing and ended up giving himself an infection, the scar was still there.

"Come by on Saturday. We'll be one short."

He beamed. Jimmy held up a hand.

"Don't. Just go and slack off with your friend."

He took that as an order, and hurried to the dining room.

Sydney didn't show up the day after. Or the few days following. She didn't call in sick, she didn't give any sign of what she was going to do. All she did was send a message to Natalie that she needed time to think and that was it. Radio silence.

Which to Richie, said that she'd already left.

Which meant that Carmen had been worse than ever. In theory, he was doing everything they'd said. The menu had stayed the same, he wasn't shouting, there hadn't been any big blowouts.

Instead he'd been hardened. Everything was the restaurant. He didn't talk outside of work, he barely spent any time outside the restaurant. He didn't shout but filled the room with so much tension that no one dared step a toe out of line.

It made him feel emotions he hadn't felt since he was a kid. Stifled. Claustraphobic. Suffocated. It was like being at home. Always the threat, never enough, no mistakes.

The only way he was getting through the day was the focus of his hunger keeping him grounded. It felt rewarding, to be able to function after one, two, now three days of not eating. Sure, at first it crippled him, the pain, the emptiness, the lack of energy, but soon that subsided. He got used to it. It fell into the background as work got busier yet was still a crux for him to fall on.

He came back to where he was clearing tables, a monotonous routine of removing glasses, cutlery, napkins, plates, flowers, cleaning, polishing. Rinse and repeat. Let his eyes glaze over and body take the reigns when he saw a familiar face rush through the front door.

In the low light of the dining room, he almost let himself believe that he'd imagined Sydney walking through the door. It was late, why would she be coming here at this hour? Why not before service?

His stomach dropped. Unless she wasn't planning on staying.

Throwing the cloth on the table, he joined the others in eavesdropping their conversation. He saw through the glass that she'd approached Carmen, his body clenched but not in an angry way, more how a stray cat is hesitant to let you stroke it. When he expected him to blow up, he nodded and let her out into the night again to seemingly talk.

Richie stopped by Neil. Everyone had forgone their tasks to watch them go. If Carmen came back now, he'd be pissed to see everyone standing around doing nothing. He liked this place so clean you could eat off of it. Part of him understood, it was a restaurant, but there was clean, and there was hypochondriac. He would even admit that it had worried him, when he'd first come back, how intensely he had to clean, how many times and how he'd blow up if he didn't get to scrub the hob a third time. During his wanderings with anxiety pages, he'd come across OCD and thought that it answered a few questions about him. Not that he'd ever tell Carmen this now.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Gary asked.

"Probably her offer," Marcus said. "That's a pretty big thing to reveal then disappear."

Tina kept her eyes on the door. "Do you think she's gonna take it?"

"I hope not." Richie couldn't imagine how bad things would be if she left. Fuck, if she left, he might not be far behind her.

Neil shook his head. "How do we even know they're talking? Maybe they're just having a massive punch up outside."

"Carmen would not win a fight." Ebra stated.

"Yeah but have you seen his muscles? He could pack a punch."

Gary joined in, half laughing. "Syd looks like a hair puller, she looks like she'd fight dirty."

Richie remembered the day she left the to-go orders on. If he sat down for too long, his ass hurt. The scar hadn't faded yet. It wouldn't for a while.

He opened his mouth to add his musings when the back door swung open and the comiserating pair came back in. Sydney wasn't storming off like Richie thought she would if she was angry, but her eyes were shimmering, her cheeks had the same dull glow they did that night at the party, and her hands were shaking.

Carmen was barely looking at her. He didn't speak as she hesitated around him, unsure about whether to go for a hug, a handshake or to give in. She lay her hand at her sides.

She turned to leave and halted when she saw them standing in a line, watching like hawks. That probably wasn't the best move, it didn't give off the best vibe, the fact that they were all gossiping about what they were talking about.

As she set off again, shrugging her bag onto her shoulder, Richie reached out and brushed his fingers against her wrist. They didn't have to say anything. He'd had those same tear tracks on his face after every late night pick up, every fight with Tiff, every loss. She'd made her choice. She'd made sure Carmen wasn't going to be her Mikey.

He dropped his hand as she nodded at him and walked out without saying goodbye. It hurt that if she really had gone, she hadn't even given them the chance to give her a proper send off.

He turned back to Carmen. "What was that about?"

Carmen stopped starting at where her shadow had been. "We made some decisions about the future of the restaurant."

"Decisions?"

Carmen shook his head. "You'll find out tomorrow."

Richie opened and closed his mouth a few times before giving up. At another time, he would've fought back. He would've screamed and bit and yelled until he got the real answers from him. But he found himself hesitant of the answer, of finally hearing that she'd left, of losing her like he was losing everything else.

This was all his fault. This was spiralling out of control. She was leaving and he didn't even get a chance to talk to her? He didn't want her to go but the idea of her staying made guilt rise up like nausea, burning his oesophagus like bile. There was no clear way out of this, no easy fix, no good ending. Only pain.

Pain from her leaving them behind. Pain from her sacrificing herself for this place.

Why couldn't he be satisfied? He wanted her to choose herself but now she had he was hurt? It wasn't his decision to make but he couldn't stop thinking about how the last few days would be forever. Carmen hunkering down, never leaving the restaurant, cooking his way to an early grave and taking them all down with him.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't handle being in a kitchen like that, he couldn't handle being suffocated.

There had to be something he could do, something other than eating. Something more extreme than starving.

He had to do more. 

He had to prove that he didn't need food at all. Food only made things worse. He had to prove that he could eat and not want it. He needed a way to get rid of the emotion, to forget it, to correct it.

He knew what to do.

He didn’t remember leaving, or what he’d said. He didn’t remember the drive home, or where he’d stopped to buy food. He saw the man’s face when he saw everything he bought, the shitty joke he made about a last minute party, even though it was mid-week. 

He came to when he was sat at his kitchen island surrounded by more food than anyone should have in one sitting. Pizzas, fries, noodles. He didn’t care what it was, or how it tasted, or the quality. It had to be edible, that’s all.

With shaking hands, he reached for a slice of pizza. Taking the first bite was like sawing his own arm off to free him from being trapped, painful, but necessary. After that it blurred again. Bite after bite. Finishing dishes left, right and centre and his stomach grew more and more full. It stretched, filled and ached as he continued. His hands were messy with grease and spices. Tears had pricked his eyes and started to run, his nose and throat filling with mucus that only got washed down with every gulp of meaningless food. 

Every bite fed the voice. 

You’re a pig. 

You’re disgusting.

Look at you, look at what you’re doing.

You’re so wasteful.

If you’d just been a better friend then Sydney wouldn’t be leaving.

If you’d just have sorted things with Carmy then she wouldn’t feel pressured to go.

Look how lazy you’ve gotten. Look how spoilt you are. Look at what you have to do to function. You're weak, you had to eat at the party, you're unappreciative, you're pathetic.

You didn’t care enough about Carmy so he spiralled.

You didn’t care enough about Sydney and she’s leaving.

You didn’t care enough about Tiff and she left you.

You didn’t care enough about Mikey and now he’s dead.

You’re so selfish. Wasteful. A useless pig who deserves nothing but pain.

It’s all your fault.

It doesn't matter how guilty you feel. It doesn't matter if you could've done more. You didn't. You weren't there and everything went wrong. 

You need to prove yourself, prove that you’re sorry, prove it’s your fault, prove you can do better, prove this means nothing, prove that you don’t need this.

It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.

Only when everything was finished did it set in what he’d done. This was new, even for him. Sure, he’d purged before, but he’d never done this, never eaten deliberately just to throw it up. It felt disgusting. It felt wrong. It felt…

Necessary. It brought a strange perverted clarity to it all. He thought back to when he’d first made himself sick, about how it had been a way to get rid of the conflicted emotion and an escape clause to please everyone. This was just the same. An escape clause. A way of making things right when he fucked up. A way of ridding himself of unwelcome emotions.

The nausea set in like a wave. He welcomed it, pushing his stool over to make it to the bathroom when the comforting burn of bile ran up his throat. The most he saw of the food he’d just eaten was when he saw it coming up in reverse. 

His stomach loosened and emptied. The voice in his head, quiet. The guilt absolved. 

Good, he didn’t need to eat now, not for a while.

December 1993

This wasn’t the first time he’d been to the Berzatto Christmas Eve dinner. In fact, this was the second year in a row he’d been invited, it seemed that he was one of them now, and he wore their approval like a blanket. What was different this year, was his parents being invited. Both sides had questioned why they’d never met each other, despite Mikey and Richie trying to muffle their interests and make sure they never did. The Berzattos and Jerimoviches were on such opposite ends of the spectrum, they practically met in the middle.

Both were shitty to their kids. Both didn’t care as much as they should’ve. Both meant their kids were growing up too fast. They just went about it in different ways. 

Now he’d been inducted into their clan for a few years, Richie had outgrown the rose tinted glasses he’d worn when he’d first been introduced to them. It didn’t mean he wasn’t taken in by them, though. Their volume, their spirit, how easily they let people into the family and how hard it was to get out, the elaborate stories that changed every time they were told. He breathed it in, let it intoxicate him like smoke. 

So, when Donna extended an invitation to his parents to join them this year, Richie knew this was the reason it would go to shit. Every year something happened at the infamous Seven Fishes meal. He’d heard about tales of old, Donna stabbing her husband because he tried to help her in the kitchen, Natalie getting ill and throwing up all over the food. This year it would be the clash of the families, Berzattos versus Jerimoviches.

Yet it had gone well so far. They’d managed to get through Donna screaming in the kitchen, both wanting and not wanting help. They’d managed to get through the questions about his dad’s leg and the Army. Richie almost forgot why he was anxious. Sure, his dad kept giving him that look, but he always gave him that look, it washed off him like water off a duck’s back. And, yes, he couldn’t spend as much time with Mikey, with him acting as babysitter of his siblings, and Richie acting the translator for his mother, who he wasn’t sure was playing up the fact that English wasn’t her first language, or genuinely found understanding the well-rooted Chicago accents difficult. 

It was when they sat down that his stomach dropped. Food was different for the Jerimoviches. As well as their different faith making things different, fasting was a big thing for them as Eastern Orthodox, the ghosts of Holodomor hung around every meal, even though his paternal grandparents never mentioned it. Be grateful, your grandparents almost starved to death, don’t be such a pig, was an unspoken rule that came with every meal. He’d only realised recently that the voice that had grown louder in his head over the last few years sounded like his Didus’, his grandad, whenever Richie misbehaved and was sent to bed hungry. 

It wasn’t the end of the world. Worse has happened to people and they’ve survived. 

Then why did this dinner feel like watching Archduke Ferdinand get driven around before he was shot?

Donna extended a hand to Richie to say grace, her mascara drying in streams down her face now that Mikey had calmed her down. His mouth ran dry. His parents eyes were glued to the back of his head, the table watched him like he was about to bolt, which he was considering, as he took a deep breath and met eyes with Mikey. Mikey was sandwiched between his siblings on the opposite side of the table, they usually sat together but they both had jobs to do to keep the peace. He gave him a hidden smile and Richie gained the confidence to speak. 

“Erm, I don’t usually say grace, here or at home, but I guess I’ll start with, er, thanking Donna for cooking all this food,”

Saying grace in English felt foreign on his tongue. Not that saying grace was his job at home, his mother knew all the right words and passages from the bible, he’d fumble it, his mediocrity with Polish not helping. His mother’s hand came to rest on his thigh, gripping, this wasn’t how it went at home, he tallied a strike against him already. 

He carried on. “And thank you to God for providing us with such a feast, and good company. Let’s hope that, erm, such wonderful food brings us all together to hopefully, make new friends.”

Once he was finished, he let out a breath and gripped his knife and fork until he felt them ingrave into his hands. Mikey smiled again, clapping softly, Carmy copied him, before they all dug in to eat. 

The relief was short lived, however, when his father, flanking his left side, met his eyes with his ice cold stare. He gulped. All the food that was being laden on his plate seemed too much. His stomach was too small. He couldn’t eat all that, not with his parents here, he knew what they’d say. But if he didn’t he knew what Donna would say, and he couldn’t have her taking anything out on Mikey for something of his doing. There was only one thing to do. 

It was lucky he knew where the bathroom was. 

He stepped through the front door buzzing. As the sun had shone into his bedroom, he'd rose to it, awake and raring to go for the first time in months. His body was empty, a clean slate. This was his chance at a new start. It was like his time at Ever all over again, he'd shown himself what he could do when pushed and it felt amazing. This was him at his peak, this was him thriving, taking everything in his stride.

Today was going to be a good day if he had to force it.

Last time he'd checked the bookings, they'd had no cancellations. All surprises had been prepped, they had an engagement, a birthday and an anniversary. He'd sourced all the flowers and arranged with Marcus about the desserts they were going to be served. The only thing he was waiting on was what mood Carmen was going to be in.

It was all but confirmed that Sydney was leaving by that conversation. Even though Richie would've expected Carmen to scream at her, and he could have done outside for all he knew, he didn't put it past him to spiral further and internalise it. He didn't know him as well as he thought he did anymore.

If Carmen was angry, he'd make himself the barrier. If he was silent, he'd have to pick up on the subtleties of his movements and the meanings behind his words. If he was being lenient, which meant only giving people a talking to when they made mistakes instead of shouting, he'd thank whoever gave him some peace and get as much done.

He'd been doing this since they'd opened. Handling Berzattos was practically his full time job, it had been since he'd met them.

With his head down, he made his way through to the kitchen and waved at the people already there. They were settled around the counter again in such a way that he wondered if someone else was quitting. No one was talking, their focuses anywhere but the counter, Carmen and Sydney.

Sydney? Had she come in the tell them she was quitting after all? It was respectful and pulled at his heartstrings that she felt they to hear it from her despite all the mixed emotions that would come from facing this place. She didn't owe them that.

After placing his keys, wallet and phone in his locker, he joined them around the counter. Now he was closer, he could see Tina bouncing on her feet, Marcus flipping a pen around in his fingers and Ebra's eyes flicking to the various stations near the window, planning for the day. The only person who wasn't shitting themselves, was Neil, ever the optimist.

Exactly the opposite, were Carmen and Sydney.

Carmen was his usual wired self. Jaw clenched. Fingers digging so hard into his palms that he'd draw blood if his nails weren't cut so short. If he just went by his attitude, then this was a normal day. Except, Sydney.

She was so tense, her shoulders were up to her ears, her hair was held back with a bandana he hadn't seen before, she hadn't looked any of them in the eye since he'd walked in.

"So, who died?" Richie said.

"What? No-one died." Neil stated

He shrugged. "Could've fooled me, the way we're all standing here, solemn as fuck."

"Solemn, since when do you say solemn?" Neil retorted.

"Since now."

"Since you learnt how to read more like."

Sydney closed her eyes. "Shut the fuck up please, this is already going to be complicated without you two arguing like twelve year olds."

When she opened them, she looked at him. Ever since the party, all he saw when he looked at her was her undone. All the stress and pent up frustration seeping out. Months of trying to get through it and dying hope burning in the nighttime air.

"Is this about you leaving?" He asked.

Carmen stopped staring at his notebook on the desk and loosened. "What? She's not leaving?"

"She's not?" Tina said.

Sydney glanced at them all, her face a picture of confusion.

"But you came by last night? You two talked alone then you left without saying anything?" Marcus confirmed. "We thought-"

"That I took that offer?"

Richie shrugged. "Sure seemed like it."

Sydney sighed. She took a look at Carmen, then back to them, before starting to talk.

"I considered it, I really did. It would mean my own place, great benefits. But I've put too much into this, you guys mean too much and I want this place to work." She said. "These last few days have just been me figuring out how this place can work. So I came to talk to Carmen about my terms."

"Terms?"

"Yeah," Carmen answered. "The menu stays the same seasonally, we stop going as fancy and try to make food we like and we enjoy, we take on everyone's ideas, we fix the divide between front and back of house, and generally make this less of a, what did you call it?" He turned to Sydney.

"Disfunctional environment."

Richie couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was everything he'd been begging for since they'd opened. Peace, someone on his side, Carmen listening to one of them, less pressure. There had to be catch.

"So no Michelin Star then?" Richie asked.

Carmen ran a hand through his hair. "I never wanted that shit. I maintained one and it gave me stomach ulcers."

Richie turned to her. "But didn't you want that?"

"Not at the cost of ourselves, not when we can barely get a good review and keep ourselves open." Sydney said. "I'd rather us enjoy our jobs and never get a Michelin star than get one at the cost of ourselves."

He tilted his head. "I mean, I never got the point anyway, who gives a shit what some award says about your restaurant, those things are probably rigged anyway, just like the Oscars."

Tina ran around Carmen and picked Sydney up despite being a few inches shorter than her. "I'm glad you're staying, guapa."

It took her a second, but soon she closed her arms around her and let herself be hugged. As she was let go, Marcus was right there to give her another one.

For once, this kitchen was full of some semblance of joy. No arguing. No shouting. Just smiles and hope for the first time ever, if you counted the Beef. It warmed Richie's heart.

He'd been waiting for this, for the moment when all his patience wore off and he got to enjoy something for once. Just like he'd thought when he walked in, things were looking up. Sydney was staying, the menu was being kept the same, they weren't trying for an award he didn't care about, and he'd never felt emptier. Lighter.

It was like this was his reward, for throwing up last night. It was like someone had heard him and make things better. They'd seen his efforts and his guilt and decided he deserved to have it eased.

He smiled as Sydney was released from a bone-breaking Fak hug from Neil and relieved her by not giving her a hug. Instead he settled for a shoulder touch, they weren't hugging people anyway.

"Glad you're sticking around." Was all he said.

"Glad to be here." She replied.

After the food had been eaten, or forced down more for Richie, and the plates were clean, he was filled with the uncomfortable fullness of a meal that he was beginning to detest. He thought that with time, he’d get used to the Berzatto’s feasts, but time only worsened the deal. Now he had his usual guilt, his usual triggers of food being bad, food not being essential, food being a commodity that was easily taken away, yet even more food to handle. More looks, and a new form of guilt if he didn’t eat everything on his plate. Because he was a good kid, in Donna’s eyes, she was her beautiful Mikey’s best friend who appreciated her cooking more than her own family did, how could he not eat everything on his plate and more, god knows he was hungry enough, even if he didn’t see that as a problem. 

His parents would want to retire early, and would have plenty to say on the ride home about the company Richie surrounded himself with, so he knew he had little time between dessert, hanging out with Mikey and leaving, to get rid of the heavy sinking feeling that consumed all his thoughts.

Feigning his mother calling him, he managed to sneak off to the bathroom with no questions. Everyone was occupied with themselves or others. Kids were running through the house, adults rolled their eyes at the noise, and no one bat an eyelid when Richie crept into the bathroom and locked the door. Who cared? He was just taking a piss.

When he knelt down onto the tile, he remembered the first time he’d come to dinner here, and how grateful and ashamed he’d been when Donna had given him more food. He’d never felt like more of a black sheep, at least he knew how to hide things better now. Even if Mikey had started to bring him food for lunch too, or take him to his family’s business the Beef to eat leftovers and play on arcade machines. Mikey had inherited his mother’s trait of being a feeder, it wasn’t his fault his best friend didn’t like being fed. 

He hoped he remembered how to do it right, he thought as he lifted up the toilet seat and stared down at the water in the bowl. This was the first time he’d ever thought about this for an entire meal, it wasn’t a last resort like the previous time he’d been in this predicament, no, this was planned. It made him giddy, as he’d sat there at the table, eating everything Donna put on his plate and being grateful for her smile. Withstanding his father’s stare with the knowledge that everything would be put right again soon, he’d be hungry again, balance would be restored and things would go back to normal again. 

These were all his thoughts as he pushed his finger further down his throat until he hit the gag reflex and tasted sweet bile coat his mouth as vomited in the toilet.

A wave of calm came over him as he flushed and sat on the toilet lid. He’d done it, he’d taken initiative just like his dad wanted, not that he’d ever admit to anyone that he wanted his approval. He’d somehow been grateful and not a pig at the same time. His parents would be proud of  him, if they ever found out, which they wouldn’t. No one could know about this, his escape clause. No one would understand, they’d be concerned for him, think he was sick in the head or something. 

There was nothing wrong with him. He’d just taken matters into his own hands. Taken back control