The scent of the soup curls through the kitchen like something alive—warm, rich, insistent. It doesn't just fill the room; it seeps into the stillness, wrapping itself around everything, settling into the space between my ribs.
I sit at the dining table, leaning back in my chair. My posture is a wall—calm, detached, unreadable. I tell myself I'm calm. I tell myself I'm unaffected. But the warmth of the soup pulls at me, making my mouth water in a way I can't control, can't explain. My stomach clenches—not with nausea, but with hunger. A hunger I've been ignoring for days.
It's been days since I've eaten properly. Every time I've tried, the nausea came too quickly, too violently, and I ended up doubled over, emptying everything I'd forced down, my body rejecting every bite I gave it. I'd stopped trying. It was easier to let the hunger fade into numbness.
But this smell...
It doesn't make me sick. It makes me want. It makes me remember what it feels like to be full.
