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The question comes out before I can stop it.

“Am I broken?”

His eyes lift.

Embarrassment hits me instantly, but I do not take it back. Maybe because I need to know. Maybe because after a full day of being Sweet, I am tired of pretending nobody can see the cracks.

“No.”

My throat tightens.

“You’re scared,” he says. “There’s a difference.”

Something inside me goes very quiet.

He looks back down and finishes tightening the frame like he did not just rearrange something in my chest.

The pasta nearly overcooks because neither of us remembers it for a minute.

Dinner is better than breakfast.

We eat spaghetti out of mismatched bowls while festival noise drifts through the windows and the camera feed glows on his phone. Twice he checks it. Twice I pretend not to notice.

I tell him Mercy said I have hands for restoration.

He looks up immediately. “Yeah?”

The interest on his face embarrasses me more than praise should.

“It was one practice face.”

“Still.”

“I blended wax.”

“You happy about it?”

I look down at my bowl. “Yes.”

“Then sounds important.”

That should not make my eyes sting.

I twirl noodles instead.

He tells me Boogie once mixed up funeral lipstick with face paint and gave six children corpse mouths at a fall festival.

I laugh so hard I choke on a noodle.

Bitter reaches across the table, his hand hovering near my back.

Then he stops.

Waits.

“You can touch me,” I say softly.

His eyes meet mine. “I know.”