A Fragile Truce and Tacos

The air in our apartment still hummed with the aftershocks of Dion’s latest eruption. It was the quiet that always got me, the thick, suffocating silence after the storm. It was like the universe was holding its breath, waiting to see if we’d break or bend, and mostly, we just kind of… splattered. My heart was doing its usual frantic hummingbird beat against my ribs, a rhythm I’d grown accustomed to, like the drip of a leaky faucet or the persistent hum of the refrigerator that I was *certain* was picking up our conversations and beaming them straight to the NSA.

Dion was sprawled on the couch, a human mountain range of simmering resentment. His eyes, usually bright with a manic energy, were dull and heavy, like old pennies. He hadn’t moved since he’d finally, blessedly, stopped yelling about Mrs. Henderson’s prize-winning petunias being a coded message from the Illuminati. I swear, sometimes I thought the sheer force of his paranoia would warp the very fabric of reality. And the worst part? A sliver of me, the tiny, stubborn, drug-addled sliver, *almost* believed him. It was a dangerous game, this shared delusion, like dancing on a tightrope made of razor wire.

I tiptoed into the kitchen, my bare feet sticking slightly to the linoleum. The fluorescent light buzzed like an angry wasp, amplifying the shadows in the corners. I needed something. Anything. A distraction. A small act of defiance against the encroaching madness. My eyes landed on the takeout menus tacked to the fridge with magnets shaped like tiny, judgmental cats. Tacos. Tacos always helped. Tacos were a universal balm, a cheesy, meaty truth in a world of whispered lies.