Lemon Drizzle Cake

The first time he cries he doesn’t know what’s  happening. He feels his fans whirr to life and he starts breathing  heavily- he doesn’t need to breathe unless it’s to regulate his  temperature. Why is he heating up so fast? He feels something on his  cheek. 

“Oh, Larry,” Katy says in such a sweet and kind voice. He  doesn’t know why she’s putting on this voice. He rubs the thing on his  cheek and sees…. Oil? There’s oil on his hand. Why is there oil on his  hand? His fans whirr even louder and he feels more oil drip down his  face.

“There’ll be more tomorrow, I’ll keep one back for you.”

His  breath hitches. He coughs out a noise but it doesn’t sound like a  cough. It sounds like when humans are sad. It sounds like a sob.

Lemon drizzle cake is his favourite and there’s none left.

Katy  walks around from behind the counter and wipes at his face with a tea  towel. She moves to take her hand away but he grabs her wrist lightning  fast and leans his face into her hand. “I know there will be, thank  you.” His voice doesn’t sound right, there’s crackles where there  shouldn’t be.

Katy pulls back her hand again and Larry lets her,  but this time she takes ahold of his hand and pulls him towards a table  with a chair “Have a seat” she instructs him, and he obliges. “Just sit  here a while.”

Larry nods. He sits staring at the table, staring  at the dark droplets splattering against the wood. He’s been busy all  day, so busy, there’s so much work to get him settled into  working for  the league, and work is what he’s made for but even then he’s been busy  all day and hasn’t had a chance to rest his mind and man. He really  wanted a piece of lemon drizzle cake. He’s been looking forward to it  almost all day but never had a chance to visit the patisserie until now,  but now they’re almost closing and there’s none left. Thinking about it  makes him sob again. He feels like a human child, unable to regulate  himself.

He’s glad there aren’t really any people at this time of  night, he feels illogical. He focuses on his breathing to try to cool  his body down. A deep breath in and a breath out. In. Out. In. Out.

He wipes his cheek again but this time no new tears fall in their place.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

His  fans start to even out again and quiet down. He wipes at the table with  his hand to try to remove the oily tears that fell on it with only a  little bit of success. He’ll need to refill his oil tank. He takes that  thought and pins it in his mind.

A glass is placed in front of  him. It’s a cloudy liquid with ice in it and garnished with a wedge of  lemon. Homemade lemonade he deduces.

“Feeling better?” Katy asks.

Larry nods “Yes. I’m uh. Sorry about the table.”

“Oh  don’t worry about it” Katy laughs “one of our old gym leaders was a  mechanic and he’d drag oil in here all the time, we can take care of  it.”

“If you say so.” Larry responds before taking a drink of the  lemonade. It’s funny, he thinks, how he came in to buy a lemon drizzle  cake but was given lemonade on the house. He reached for his wallet and  flipped it open, it was still new and the cards were difficult to  remove, but Katy swats his hand away “Larry don’t you dare.”

Her words are serious but her tone is lighthearted and he raises his hands in mock-surrender “Okay, okay.”

He places the wallet on the table in front of him and stares at the glass of lemonade.

“Thank you, Katy.”

Katy smiles. “Of course, anything for my favourite customer!”