"It's just that-I just worry about you."

Dave mouths the words back to the phone as he hears them;

18.

"Mom, what time is it?"

The world is yet to yawn it's orange breadth into the sky; the air maintains a persistent midnight chill- perfect for early morning running.

"Time for you to come home and visit?"

"Try again."

She sighs. "4:30. But I knew you'd be awake so-"

"No buts," he reprimands, pulling torn sneakers from beneath a pile of sweaters. "You know your not supposed to wake up before seven when you're on your medicine."

"Listening to my wonderful son talk about his weekend is the best medicine."

"Listening to your doctor's orders is the best medicine." He challenges. "My weekend will not have changed in three hours, go back to sleep."

"You won't answer once you're on your run. You haven't posted a thing in days and I feel like I can't keep up with your life anymore! You should get snapchat again! Then we can talk again! Oh Davey, I sound ridiculous, but you know I just get so worried..."

19.

"I gave up Snapchat for Lent, remember? And when was the last time I missed a call when I didn't have class? Never? Never and a half?"

The fridge is well stocked, as it has been for months, and he easily picks out the ingredients needed for two omelettes. He cradles the phone between his shoulder and ear, smiling despite himself as his mother grasps at straws.

"Come visit today." She tries after moments of silence. Dave scoffs.

"No, because a visit becomes laundry day, then shopping day, then Pickles-missed-you-sleep-with-him-tonight day, then you-don't-have-class-tomorrow, stay-and-help-me-knit-this-sweater-for-Rachel's-Coon day, to hey-you-sure-you-don't-want-to-just-help-me-hold-down-shop day, and inevitably I'll-never-see-my-Psychology-book-again day."

He tries, and fails,to keep a firm tone; the struggle becomes futile, especially when drowsy stumbling echoes from the den.

"Are you eating? Every time I see you, you're thinner. You only weighed 120 last I heard, and that's just not healthy."

Giggles accompany the fuzzy hum of dated radio roaring to life in the living room.

"Mom, I am 5'3. My weight is perfectly fine, thank you." He pulls the phone from his ear slightly, pressing a spatula into the pan so that his mother would be able to hear the soft sizzling.

"David, I'm stealing a jacket!" A voice calls from his bedroom.

"No your not!" Dave barks without malice. "Not until you bring my sweatshirt back!"

"I already have it on!"

"Is that Ashley? Did she stay the night? Dave!"

"No, mom, she literally just walked in-"

"Is she eating? You better be feeding h-"

"I'm making us both food ri-"

"Are you cooking safely? You have to remem-"

"Mom, I've been cooking since-"

"You just don't know how much I worry!"

"Mom. 20."

She sighs. "I know you're twenty, but I'm still-"

"No," Dave interjects, "You've said that word 20 times in this one conversation. I know you worry, I worry too about you. That's what we do; worry. It's kinda our thing. But I'm doing great, just like you're doing great, and you have to learn to trust me when I say so. You promised you wouldn't do this."

Ashley slinks into the room quietly, amusement evident in her dark eyes. Already, she bore  a full face of makeup, but stray hairs were slipping free from the tight bun at the back of her head.  Dave tried not to snicker at the sight; she was as beautiful as ever, but in the early mornings, when the floral orange hijab clung to the plaid of her (his) red hoodie, "disheveled" is the only word that came to mind.

"Are you okay?" His mother asks softly. "Answer that and I'll let you go."

"No, I'm not okay." Ashley bumps his hip with hers until he relents and let's her season the eggs. You make them too bland. A little something savory is good for you, really. He smiles, watching as she pulls out a multitude of spices and herbs.

When he was young, his mother would do the same, cooking with delight, until one day she just...didn't. Somewhere between less young and not young, she stopped cooking. Somewhere between then and thereafter, he followed suit.

Without intervention, two people with similar flaws can build each other up. Without intermission, they easily tear each other down as well.

It's what he realized years before, that too little seasoning makes a meal taste bad, but far too much makes the mouth taste bad.

It was years later that he realized, seasons of both extremes could make the mind go bad.

Tragedy fell in measured heaps; add a splash of no father, a pinch of hurricane Katrina, a dash of corporate layoffs- sautéed in spoiled mental image- a lack of proper medication, a teaspoon of self-destruction, a cup and quarter of drug addiction; mix for 17 years and you'll make a cake that can't rise and a mother that couldn't care for reasons she could no longer control.

Then Dave went to college on scholarship, and his mother went missing; by great fortune, both were discovered by peers and revived.

"Freshman year, I was okay."

On his 18th birthday, his mother was found in an alley and was taken into a women's home.

"Sophomore year, I was content."

On his 19th birthday, his mother founded a business making sweaters for animals and employed the other women in the home.

"Now, Mom, I'm happy," Dave promises, and for the first time in a decade, it's true.

On his 20th birthday, his mother found the money to buy and reinvent the women's home to accommodate nearly twice as many people.

"It's an incredible facility." Ashley had told him. "Your mom, she helped me when no one else would; she's a terrific woman."

He had been angry at the time, that the woman who never loved him could love so many others. He was angry, but he understood.

When he was rash, she tried to bring him home for the last time.

When he was ready, he reached out to her for the first time.

"I'm sorry." She sighs, "I know I what I said, just, I just....I want to know that you'll never..."

A thousand unspoken words hang in that silence.

That you'll never leave again.

That you'll never forget that life has purpose.

That you'll never stop trying to forgive me.

That you'll never stop trying.

That you'll never say it wasn't worth it.

"I know." Dave chimes instead, "that I'll never forget to call."

"Yeah. That too."

Ashely dishes out her masterpiece while humming a song he didn't recognize. She's wearing two of his shoes- not a pair.

"I'll talk to you later. I have to go reclaim my jacket so I don't freeze."

"Stay warm, both of you." She pauses. "I love you, Davey."

Ashely whips around the kitchen, dancing much too ungracefully for a dance major. He laughs; she still hasn't noticed that her shoes don't match.

It's days like this that make all the others worth surviving, Dave thinks. It's days like this where he almost forgets-

Donald Trump is still a gosh darn candidate.

"I love you too."