Taco Split

Hunger, at first, is a small thing.

It is the polite clearing of the throat inside the body. The gentle tap on the ribs. The whisper that says, Hey. We could eat.It is not dramatic. It does not yet have opinions.

This is where the hunger begins for Elena Morales—sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment, back against the couch, laptop open but unwatched, the soft blue glow of a paused documentary washing over her walls. Outside, Los Angeles is doing what it always does in the evening: humming, breathing, pretending it is not tired.

Her stomach makes a sound like a distant boat horn.

“Okay,” she says aloud, to no one. “I hear you.”

She stands, stretches, pads barefoot into the kitchen. The fridge opens with its familiar, tired sigh. Inside: almond milk, half a lemon, leftover rice in a container that smells faintly of regret, a jar of pickles she bought during a hopeful phase. She stares. Hunger sharpens a little, annoyed now.

“Not you,” she says to the pickles.

She closes the fridge and leans her forehead against the cool metal. And then the image arrives—not summoned, not invited.

A banana split.

Not just any banana split. A Neapolitan one. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. Three scoops, clean and perfect, nestled between two halves of a banana like they were meant for each other since the dawn of fruit. Glossy chocolate syrup. Strawberry topping that still tastes faintly of summer lies. Whipped cream in generous, cloudlike spirals. A maraschino cherry, red as punctuation.

Her mouth waters so abruptly it surprises her.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, that.”

This is not strange. Banana splits are comforting. They are nostalgia in a dish. They taste like birthdays that didn’t go wrong, like summer evenings when nothing hurt yet. Elena hasn’t had one in years—years—but that’s fine. People crave things they haven’t had in years all the time.

She checks the clock. 8:17 p.m.

The ice cream place on the corner—La Estrella—closes at nine. They make their own vanilla. Their chocolate is darker than it needs to be. Their strawberry tastes like actual fruit and not pink sugar.

Decision made.

She puts on shoes, grabs her keys, and heads out into the night.

La Estrella smells like sugar and fryer oil and childhood. The bell above the door jingles as Elena steps inside, and for a moment she is seven again, sticky-handed, counting quarters, standing on tiptoe to see the flavors.

“Hey, Lena,” calls Marco from behind the counter. He’s been working there forever, or at least since before she moved into the neighborhood. His beard has gotten longer. His eyes crinkle when he smiles.

“Hey,” she says. “You still open?”

“Eight forty-five,” he says. “You’re good. What’s the damage?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “Neapolitan banana split.”

Marco nods, already reaching for a long dish. “Classic.”

As he scoops, Elena watches with an intensity she doesn’t quite understand. Vanilla first. Smooth, pale. Then chocolate, dark and glossy. Strawberry last, pink and flecked with seeds.

The banana is peeled and split with care. The syrups follow. Whipped cream blooms. A cherry lands on top.

There it is.

Her hunger leans forward, eager, almost grateful.

But then—

Something shifts.

It’s subtle. A tightening behind her eyes. A tilt, like a picture frame slipping slightly off level. The banana split is still there, perfect, but suddenly it feels… incomplete. Like a sentence missing a word Elena can almost hear.

Her stomach does not growl.

It considers.

She frowns. “Hey, Marco?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you still have the… uh…” She searches for the word, embarrassed for reasons she can’t articulate. “The meat. From the tacos.”

Marco blinks. “Al pastor?”

“Yes.” The word lands in her mouth with unexpected weight. “That.”

He laughs. “You want tacos too?”

Elena opens her mouth to say no, obviously not, that would be ridiculous—but something else comes out instead.

“Can I get some of it… on that?”

Silence.

The freezer hums. A couple at a corner table pauses mid-laugh. Marco stares at her, scoop hovering over the split.

“On the ice cream,” she clarifies, because apparently this is happening.

Marco tilts his head. “You messing with me?”

“I don’t think so.”

She waits for revulsion, for the instinctive ew to rise. It doesn’t. Instead, her hunger sharpens, narrows, becomes specific in a way that feels almost intellectual. The sweetness of the ice cream. The warmth of the pork. The pineapple notes in the marinade. The salt cutting through sugar. Fat and cold and spice.

Her mouth floods again.

Marco whistles low. “That’s… new.”

“I know,” she says. “I know. If it’s weird, it’s fine. I’ll just—”

“Hey,” he says, shrugging. “I’ve seen worse. You’re paying.”

She nods quickly. “Yes.”

He disappears into the back, returns with a small spoonful of al pastor—reddish, glistening, fragrant. He hesitates only a moment before sprinkling it over the ice cream.

The scent hits her first.

Sweet vanilla. Chocolate. Strawberry. And then—garlic. Chili. Pineapple. Smoke.

Her hunger surges like a wave cresting.

Marco slides the dish across the counter slowly, as though approaching a wild animal. “If you die, I’m telling everyone you asked for it.”

She laughs, a little breathless. “Fair.”

She pays, takes the dish, sits at a small table by the window. The spoon feels heavier than usual in her hand.

She takes a bite.

Vanilla and pork. Cold and hot. Sweet dissolving into savory. It should be wrong. It should clash, revolt, collapse into nonsense.

It doesn’t.

It sings.

Elena closes her eyes as the flavors bloom and argue and then—miraculously—agree. The chocolate adds bitterness that grounds the spice. The strawberry flirts with the pineapple. The banana goes soft and floral, a bridge between worlds.

Her hunger exhales.

“Oh my God,” she whispers.

Marco watches from the counter, horrified fascination written across his face.

“You okay?”

She nods slowly. “This is… incredible.”

She eats another bite. And another.

Halfway through, something new stirs—not discomfort, not nausea. A curiosity. A sense of possibility.

She looks at the whipped cream. Fluffy. Innocent.

And then the thought arrives fully formed, unapologetic:

Red onions.

Her spoon freezes midair.

“No,” she says aloud. “No, absolutely not.”

Her hunger does not argue. It simply waits.

She tries another bite, focusing on what’s already there. Still good. Still thrilling. But the edge dulls. The harmony feels like it’s missing a sharp note, a counterpoint.

She sighs, defeated by herself.

“Marco?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re done.”

“Do you have… onions?”

His face contorts. “For the tacos, yes.”

“And cilantro?”

“Yes.”

She braces herself. “Can I… get some?”

“For—”

“The ice cream.”

A beat.

Another.

Marco puts his hands on the counter and leans forward. “Lena. I like you. I don’t want to be responsible for whatever this is.”

“I’ll tip,” she says desperately.

He studies her, searching for a punchline. Finding none, he shakes his head, muttering something in Spanish about the end times, and disappears again.

When he returns, he carries a small ramekin. Finely diced red onion. Fresh cilantro, bright green.

He places it beside her dish. “I’m not doing it. That’s on you.”

“Fair,” she says.

Her hands tremble slightly as she sprinkles the onions first. They scatter like tiny purple gems across whipped cream and pork. Then the cilantro, a green confetti.

The smell is outrageous now. Dessert and taqueria collided in a way that feels almost religious.

She hesitates only a second before taking a bite.

The onion crunch snaps. The cilantro bursts herbal and bright. The whipped cream softens the spice, sweetens the sting. Everything wakes up.

Elena laughs—an actual laugh, loud enough to turn heads.

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head. “Oh, this is… this is it.”

She eats slowly now, reverently. Each bite is different. Sometimes more sweet. Sometimes more savory. Sometimes the onion bites back. Sometimes the ice cream melts and everything becomes a soft, messy communion.

When the dish is empty, she sits back, breathless and stunned.

Marco approaches cautiously. “So?”

She wipes her mouth, meets his eyes. “You should put it on the menu.”

He snorts. “Over my dead body.”

She tips generously anyway.

Outside, the night feels different. Sharper. Brighter. Like the world has slightly more edges than it did before.

Elena walks home slowly, belly warm, mind buzzing. She feels… awake. Not just full, but answered. As if some question she didn’t know she was asking has finally been addressed.

At her apartment, she kicks off her shoes, collapses onto the couch.

The hunger is gone.

For now.

It returns the next evening.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a gentle nudge. A reminder.

She cooks dinner—actual dinner. Rice, vegetables, chicken. Eats it. Feels full.

And yet.

An hour later, the image returns. The banana split. The pork. The onions. The cilantro.

Her mouth waters again, absurdly.

“This is getting weird,” she says to the empty room.

She checks herself in the bathroom mirror. Same face. Same body. No sudden glow. No ominous signs.

She considers the obvious explanations. Hormones. Stress. A phase. A fluke flavor combination that happened to work.

She goes to bed.

She dreams of spirals—white, pink, brown—shot through with green and purple. She wakes up hungry.

Over the next week, Elena experiments.

She tries to recreate it at home. Store-bought ice cream. Leftover al pastor from a truck she likes. Red onion from her fridge. Cilantro from a plant on her windowsill.

It’s good.

It’s not the same.

She tweaks. Different ratios. More onion. Less chocolate. Pineapple chunks. Lime zest.

Her kitchen becomes a laboratory of desserts that are not desserts. Savory sweetness. Sweet savoriness.

She eats thoughtfully, mindfully, as though listening for something beneath the flavors.

And then one night, as she sprinkles cilantro over whipped cream, the realization hits her with the force of clarity:

This hunger isn’t about food.

It’s about permission.

Elena has spent her life eating what makes sense. Choosing what fits. Staying in lanes. Sweet with sweet. Savory with savory. Work with work. Love with love that looks appropriate from the outside.

She has never put al pastor on ice cream.

She sits on the kitchen floor, bowl in her lap, spoon paused, and laughs softly.

“Of course,” she says.

She eats.

The hunger evolves.

It doesn’t always want the same thing. Sometimes it’s chocolate with chili. Sometimes it’s fruit with salt. Sometimes it’s just onions—raw, sharp, unapologetic—on things they don’t belong on.

Elena starts saying yes to other things, too.

She signs up for a ceramics class she’s been eyeing for years. She texts an old friend she drifted from because it felt easier not to explain herself. She cuts her hair shorter.

At La Estrella, Marco stops asking questions.

“Same thing?” he says one night.

She grins. “Extra onion.”

He shakes his head, smiling despite himself.

A couple at the counter whispers. Someone takes a photo. Elena doesn’t care.

She eats, and in eating, she feels seen by herself in a way she never quite has.

One evening, sitting alone with her dish, she realizes she is no longer hungry.

Not for the banana split. Not for the al pastor. Not even for the onions.

She finishes the last bite slowly, thoughtfully, and sets the spoon down.

Marco watches from afar.

“You good?” he asks.

She nods. “Yeah.”

She means it in a way that surprises her.

Outside, the night hums. Elena steps into it, full in a way that has nothing to do with food.

Hunger, she knows now, is never just hunger.

Sometimes it’s an invitation.

And sometimes the bravest thing you can do is sprinkle red onion and cilantro on top, take a bite, and trust yourself enough to enjoy it.