Dad and I usually have it every Thursday when it’s my night to cook. In front of me lie four slices of bread for two sandwiches. I plan the order of my ingredients: butter, cheese, red onion, and my homemade mayonnaise. I’ll fry some eggs and tomatoes, just to allow my ego to add “chef” to its vocabulary.

“I’m surprised you don’t have plans tonight; you’re never home anymore,” Dad says.

“What are you talking about? I’m home all the time.” I exhale, feeling defensive at this familiar statement.

Standing at the counter with my back to Dad, I multitask, spreading butter on one side of each slice and mayonnaise on the other. I focus on cutting the cheese into even pieces—three slices for each sandwich.

“No, you’re not. Don’t even try to tell me that. You’re never here. Most days of the week, I’m cooking for one.”

“I’m sorry you feel like you’re constantly fending for yourself. I’ll try to be home more, but I’m usually working, or I have class. It’s not like I’m out partying,” I argue, exasperated.

“Whatever, that’s bullshit. You’re never here. I eat alone almost every day of the week,” he counters.

I’m not sure why he’s trying to pick a fight, so I decide to stay quiet and not fuel the fire any further. I finish placing the red onion on my sandwich and place his, without onions, on the stainless-steel frying pan. I take the lid from the biggest pot we have and rest it over the pan to allow the cheese to melt. I turn back to the countertop to cut the tomatoes into thin slices; three slices per sandwich will balance the cheese-to-tomato-to-egg ratio.

“You know, I couldn’t find my step stool today. I opened the door to your bedroom to look for it, and I didn’t even know what to pick up and look under first,” he starts.

Which old towel, piece of clothing, or bit of garbage should I pick up first? I thought.

“I stayed away from your dresser, where, instead of books or a nice jewelry box, you’ve decided to display your dirty dishes.” He doesn’t even take a breath before continuing. “Oh, and don’t even get me started on the dirty socks piled in every corner of your room. At least you have sheets on your bed. Safe to say, I didn’t find my step stool.” He finishes with a shake of his head.

I stand frozen at the counter, my back to him, slowly slicing tomatoes as if each cut could buy me time. I feel a flush spread across my face. My hands tremble as I wipe them on my jeans, searching for anything to distract me from his words.

“I’ll take the dishes out of my room after dinner,” I say quietly. “And I did a load of laundry earlier, and—”

“After dinner? You always say that, but every time you take a cup out of your room, more just pile up in its place. And your laundry is still in the basket from weeks ago.” The volume of his voice has risen, and I’ve run out of things to cut or clean on this sliver of counter space.

“Eventually, you’ll need to learn some responsibility. The world isn’t going to coddle you forever, and neither will I. No man will ever want to live with you if you keep this up—”

“Fuck!” I mutter.

I run over to the stovetop where Dad’s grilled cheese is smoking, now charcoal-black.

“Dammit! I burned the grilled cheese!” My voice cracks as I yank the spatula, lifting the charred remnants from the pan.

The acrid smell fills my nostrils. I feel tears welling up in my eyes. My skin is starting to prickle like I need to itch every inch or just crawl right out of it.

“You always leave the burner on high, so I don’t really know what you expected to happen—”

“Stop!” I yell. I’m already halfway out of the kitchen. My hands grip the sides of my head as I run down the stairs to the basement.

“God, just stop!” I yell from the stairwell. “I need more bread!”

Tears spill down my cheeks as my breath catches in my throat, each inhale a struggle. My chest tightens as I walk to the freezer door and yank it open. The frigid air threatens to freeze my tears halfway down my cheeks. I reach into the bottom drawer to grab the bread, and instead of taking a minute to catch my breath and check the state of my day-old mascara, I start back toward the stairs.

When I reenter the kitchen and place the bread on the counter, Dad is silent and I avoid eye contact. I’m still trying to catch my breath and my vision is blurry. I’m moving the pot lid from the stovetop to the counter and finally to the sink. I’m picking up a fork from the counter, and then a knife from the stove, moving them from one spot to another. I move to where I placed the cheese; I pick it up and place it back down again, unsure what I was going to do with it in the first place. And it’s in between these frantic movements, where I’m making strangled hiccup noises, that I finally look up to meet his eyes.

He’s staring at me already. His silver hair is disheveled and overdue for a haircut, his reading glasses sit halfway down his nose, his eyes at half-mast, and his mouth slightly agape. It reminds me of the way he looks when he drinks too much. I can see it immediately in his eyes if I am sitting close enough, but right now, I can tell he’s drunk from ten feet away.

“What?” I ask.

I repeat my question when he doesn’t answer.

“Stop,” he says. “Breathe. Stop. Just breathe,” he repeats.

“I’m trying,” I say. My teeth grind my voice full of aggravation.

I’m trying to inhale a deep breath, but every time I do, it gets stuck and the hiccup sound comes out again.

“Just breathe. Calm down,” he repeats.

It’s silent for a moment as I hold my breath, willing my nervous system to calm itself.

“This is what I worry about,” he starts again. “When you get like this and the anxiety takes over. It’ll consume you, and you’ll turn into your mother.”

“Don’t compare me to her,” I snap.

“Well, it’s true, so… you can’t let it win, or else you’ll never win.”

There it is, that slur in his voice. I can hear his voice lag slightly; when he takes long pauses between sentences. That’s when I know.

I stand diagonal to him, between the kitchen island and the white electric stovetop. The smell of burnt toast is in the air. My head faces the ceiling, and my hands are clasped behind my back. He’s saying something about when you’re trying to control the anxiety that’s consuming you, you should grab onto something just to stay afloat. But I stay in the same position, staring at the ceiling, hands clasped behind me.

“As you come down from this episode, don’t think of the past—only think of the now. Whatever we talked about before, just come to terms with what you did. Conclude that your personal space is a mess, and that you’ll never successfully clean it up. There will always be dirty cups, old towels, and smelly socks.” He brings his hands up above his head and brings them down in front of his face with a slow and controlled exhale. He concludes his sentence and this action as if he’d just led the relaxation seminar of the century. He concludes it as if, miraculously, his reminder of my unkempt space should make me feel calmer instead of corroded.

“You know, if you ever want to be successful in this writing career that you’re supposedly working towards, you can’t have this absurd amount of uncontrolled anxiety—”

“Stop,” I plead.

“Why? Am I wrong?” he retorts.

“You just criticized everything about me,” I peeve. “And when that wasn’t enough, you continued to do the same when I burned the grilled cheese. And before all of that even happened, it already seemed like you wanted me to feel untethered and out of orbit,” I spit. “On top of that, while trying to bring me back to planet Earth yourself—trying to bring me back to myself—you attacked my career decisions and stated my supposed inability to ever be successful. Somewhere in there, you even compared me to my estranged mother. So yes, you are in the wrong, and no, you are not helping,” I finish.

I inhale deeply, this time breathless from finally standing up to Dad. I move from my spot between the kitchen island and stove top to try and save my butchered grilled cheese. I peel the burnt toast from each sandwich, salvaging the semi-melted cheese, and start fresh. Dad is silent the entire time I work, and at last, I hear his kitchen chair scratch across the floor. He grabs his coat and a cigarette from his open pack. In the window’s reflection, I see him pop one end of it into his mouth and let it hang off his lip. He pauses for a second, assuming I’m not looking, and stares at my back. He retreats after a moment with a slam of the patio door.

Later, I serve the sandwiches, not burnt, with my only complaint being about the tomatoes that I tried to fry ending up soggy. Dad agrees, but offers to eat them anyway, so I shovel them onto his plate. Eventually, he slips into idle chatter about his day—topics that feel trivial against the backdrop of our earlier fight, a moment that now feels so far away.

I leave the table moments after he finishes talking about the added topic of politics. I begin the dishes, and he continues talking. Inevitably, his voice drowns in the decibel of my residual anxiety, and once I’m finished cleaning, I open my laptop and continue working on a presentation for the following week.

I’ve lost track of time and when I look up from my work, he’s fast asleep at the kitchen table. I walk up to him and shove his shoulder lightly. He hums but doesn’t wake. His body is hunched over, his cheek flat against the table mat, his hand tightly clenched around his wine glass. I call his name, but there’s no answer, just light snoring.

“Dad? Wake up, you’re sleeping at the dinner table—go to bed,” I say.

“Mmmm, forgetting to do something is just you being lazy,” he slurs.

“Dad, come on, go to bed.”

“No, no, I’m just thinking of a couple of people I have to fix. They aren’t Jedis though, so I can’t help them.”

With my expended effort in waking him, I take what he slurred with a grain of salt—laziness correlating with forgetfulness and wondering who he’s trying to fix—and retreat to my spot on the couch. I give up working on my presentation and open a fresh Word document instead. I title it “Burned” and begin writing a dialogue between a girl and her father whose heated argument leads to burnt grilled cheese. I try to drown out his snoring with the clacking of my keyboard, and I wonder if he’ll ever understand the point of what I’m writing.