Okay.

The kitchen is dark when you flip the switch. Not late-dark, just that in-between hour when day hasn't quite let go but evening's already settling in. The fluorescent flickers once before catching, washing everything in that particular brightness that makes the rest of the house feel farther away than it is.

You're not sure when you decided to cook. One moment you were sitting on the couch, staring at nothing in particular and the next your body was moving, feet carrying you here. Your hands already know what they're reaching for before your mind catches up.

The refrigerator hums when you open it. A sound you've heard a thousand times but somehow notice tonight, that low, steady drone that means everything inside is being kept cold, kept fresh, kept waiting. You pull out what you need without really thinking about it. Butter. Eggs. Something green that'll need washing. The cold air spills out around your ankles before you nudge the door shut with your hip.

Everything lands on the counter with small sounds. The butter dish clicks against the tile. An egg rocks slightly in your palm before you set it down and you watch it settle, become still. Three of them, lined up. You used to count things out precisely, measuring and planning. Tonight your hands just take what feels right.

The cutting board comes out. The knife. You turn on the tap and water rushes out, loud in the quiet and you rinse the green thing; lettuce, herbs, something under the cold stream. It's colder than you expected and your fingers go a bit numb. You shake the excess water off, droplets scattering across the counter, darkening the grout between tiles.

The knife is heavy. Good weight. You've had it for years, long enough that the handle's worn smooth where your hand always grips. You start cutting without measuring, without that voice in your head that used to say "smaller" or "more even" or "you're doing it wrong." Just the sound. Chop. Chop. Chop. The blade meeting board, that hollow-solid sound. Rhythmic. Your wrist knows the motion. Up, down, rock the blade, slide things aside, go again.

The quiet fills in around it. No music, no TV murmuring from another room. Just the knife and the board and your own breathing, which you only notice because everything else is so still. Outside, a car passes. The hum of it rises and fades. Somewhere else, someone's going somewhere. You're here.

You gather the cut pieces and brush them to the side. They smell green, fresh. That chlorophyll brightness. It's a good smell. Simple. You stand there a moment, knife in hand, looking at what you've done and something in your chest loosens just slightly. Not dramatically. Just a small untightening you hadn't known was there.

The pan comes out next. Heavy-bottomed, the one that always sits on the back burner. You set it on the stove with a metallic thunk and reach for the butter. Butter's always colder and harder than you expect, even sitting out. You cut a chunk, too much probably, but tonight that's fine and drop it into the pan.

The click of the burner is sharp, then the soft whoosh as the gas catches. Blue flame, even and low. You watch it a second, that perfect ring of fire. Then you turn it up slightly and the flame grows, licking up the sides of the pan. Heat starts radiating. You can feel it on your face if you lean close.

The butter just sits there at first. Solid, pale, stubborn. Then the edges start going glossy. A bead of liquid forms, then another. It starts sliding around the pan, lazy at first, then faster as more of it melts. You pick up the pan and tilt it, watching the butter pool and run, coating the surface. The smell hits you, rich, slightly nutty, warm. Butter smells like a promise. Like something good is starting.

You set the pan back down and the butter keeps melting, settling into itself. There's a moment where it's perfectly melted but not yet bubbling, just shimmering there, and you crack the first egg against the counter's edge.

Too hard. Shell fragments into the crack. You swear softly, fishing out the bits with your fingertip. They're slippery, hard to catch. You get most of them. Probably. The second egg cracks cleaner, one-handed and you feel a small spike of satisfaction. Some things you don't forget. The third one goes perfectly.

They sit there in the butter, three yellow eyes staring up. The whites are translucent at first, viscous, spreading slowly. The edges start to turn opaque immediately, that crisp line where egg meets heat. A few bubbles form, then more. The butter starts talking a gentle sizzle, almost whispering. Not aggressive yet. Just a conversation between fat and protein and heat.

You turn the flame down slightly. Not rushing. The eggs will cook when they cook.

Steam begins to rise, thin wisps that catch the light. You can smell it now, that particular smell of eggs cooking in butter. Sulfurous, slightly sweet, fundamentally breakfast even though it's evening. Comforting in a way that doesn't need explaining. Your stomach growls and you realize you're not sure when you last ate. This morning, maybe? Time's been slippery lately.

You grab the spatula and run it along the edge where the egg's already set. It lifts easily, butter-slicked underneath. You tilt the pan and the uncooked egg runs into the space you've made. Sizzle increases briefly. You do it again on the other side, working around the edges, letting the raw fill in the gaps.

The yolks are still intact, proud and yellow. You used to break them immediately, scramble everything together. Tonight you let them be. They'll break when they're ready, or they won't. Either way is fine.

The kitchen's getting warmer. You can feel it, that gradual change. The heat from the stove spreading out, filling the space. The window behind you is starting to fog at the bottom edge, you catch sight of it reflected in the microwave's dark screen. The outside world is misting away. Just you in here, with the heat and the smells and the sounds.

The sizzling shifts pitch as the eggs cook, becoming quieter, less insistent. The whites are nearly solid now, just the tops still a bit glossy. You watch them change, watch that transformation happen right in front of you. Liquid to solid. Raw to cooked. Something becoming something else, irreversibly and that's just how it goes.

When did you stop fighting it, exactly?

The thought arrives without announcement, gentle as the steam. You're not sure. Couldn't point to a moment. But sometime between then and now, you let go of whatever you'd been holding so tightly. That picture of who you were supposed to be. Where you were supposed to end up. The plan that stopped being your plan but you kept following anyway because what else do you do when you've already come this far?

You almost laugh. Right there, spatula in hand, standing over three eggs, you almost laugh at yourself. At how long you held on. How seriously you took it all. The stubbornness of it.

One of the yolks breaks as you try to flip it, too ambitious, and yellow runs out, mixing with the butter. It's fine. Better than fine. It's real. You flip the other two more carefully and they hold together, wobbling slightly as they land. The underside is golden-brown, lacy at the edges where the white crisped up. Perfect in its imperfection.

You reach for the salt. The grinder's weight is familiar in your hand. A few twists and you hear the grains crack, smell that mineral brightness. Black pepper next, same motion, different sound. Sharper. The specks scatter across the eggs, little dark stars.

The greens are still sitting there, forgotten. You grab them and toss them in, right on top of everything. They hit the heat and immediately start wilting, shrinking, their color intensifying. Bright green going darker, richer. The smell changes, adds another layer. Earthy. Green. The butter smells underneath, the egg smell, the pepper. It's all talking to each other now, building something together.

You turn off the flame. The sudden silence is noticeable, you hadn't realized how present that low roar was until it stops. The pan keeps cooking though, residual heat still working. The eggs continue to set. Things finish even after you stop doing anything to them. They just keep becoming.

You stand there, spatula still in hand, looking at what you've made. It's not fancy. It's not Instagram-worthy. It's three eggs, overcooked on one side, underseasoned probably, with some wilted greens on top. But it's also exactly what it needed to be. What you needed it to be.

The kitchen smells incredible. That's not just you being kind to yourself, it genuinely smells warm and buttery and good. The window's completely fogged now, the outside gone opaque. Just your reflection, dim and soft-edged, standing in the yellow light. You look tired. But also something else. Something looser in the shoulders, the jaw.

You didn't plan to be here. Not here-here, in this kitchen tonight, but also here in the larger sense. This life. This version of yourself. You had other ideas. Better ideas, you thought. More impressive. More certain. The kind of life that looked good when you described it. That made sense in the telling.

But that person, the one you thought you'd be, they keep receding. Every choice, every year, every small surrender you didn't notice making. Until one day you look up and realize you're someone else entirely. Someone you didn't account for. Someone you didn't ask to become.

And the strange thing, the thing that's settling in your chest right now with the warmth and the butter smells and the steamed-up window, is that it's okay. More than okay. There's a rightness to it that doesn't need justifying.

You're not who you planned to be. But maybe, probably, that person wouldn't have stood in a quiet kitchen on a nothing evening and made eggs just because, just to do something with their hands and their time. That person was always rushing toward some next thing, some proof of progress. They wouldn't have noticed the way butter melts, the specific sound of water boiling, the satisfaction of a knife through something crisp.

This person, the one you've become instead, they notice things. They stand still sometimes. They let yolks break and don't consider it failure.

You grab a plate from the cabinet. It clinks slightly against another plate as you pull it out. You slide the eggs onto it and they land with a soft, heavy sound. Steam rises up. You turn off the overhead light, just to see, and the kitchen goes dim except for the last bit of evening coming through the foggy window. The eggs glow slightly, pale yellow and gold. Beautiful in the almost-dark.

You turn the light back on. Too much ambiance. You're not there yet. But you smiled at yourself for trying. That's something too.

The pan is still hot when you run water over it. The hiss is sharp, violent and steam explodes up in a white cloud. You step back, laughing at your own impatience. Can't even wait thirty seconds. Some things don't change. You turn off the water and leave the pan in the sink. It'll wait.

Everything will wait.

You carry the plate to the counter. There's a stool there, the one you never sit on because you're always eating standing up or on the couch or not really eating at all, just grazing. Tonight you sit. The stool is higher than you remember. Your feet dangle slightly. You feel childish and also perfectly sized for this moment.

Fork in hand, when did you grab that? you cut into one of the eggs. The yolk that didn't break oozes out, thick and orange-yellow, running into the whites and the greens and pooling at the edge of the plate. You drag a piece of egg through it and bring it to your mouth.

Hot. Too hot. You do that mouth-breathing thing, that little hiss-hiss of air trying to cool it down before you chew. It doesn't really work but you do it anyway. The butter's there immediately, coating everything and then the egg taste, sulfury-sweet and the pepperiness and the mineral green of whatever that was. It's good. Simple and good and real.

You chew slowly. Not trying to be mindful or present or any of those words that show up in articles about finding peace. Just tasting it. Being here with it.

The kitchen ticks quietly as it settles. The oven, you didn't even use it but it ticks anyway, metal expanding or contracting, doing its thing. The refrigerator hums back on with a shudder. The house breathes around you. You're part of it, for once, instead of moving through it.

Another bite. The yolk is ridiculously rich. You'd forgotten how good a properly runny yolk is. All that fat and flavor. You almost, almost feel bad about all the times you've scrambled them into oblivion. But no, that's silly. Different things for different days. That was fine too.

You're halfway through when you realize you're not thinking about anything. Not really. No loop of worries, no replay of conversations, no planning or replanning. Just sitting here, eating eggs, existing. The quiet in your head matching the quiet in the kitchen.

When did that happen?

You finish chewing, swallow and sit there with your fork resting on the edge of the plate. The eggs are getting cold but you don't move to eat faster. You just sit. Look at the kitchen, this totally ordinary kitchen. The marks on the cabinet where you bumped it with a chair once. The tiles that never did sit quite even. The place where the grout's discolored. All of it exactly as it's been, but also somehow different tonight. Gentler, maybe. Less judgmental of your presence.

Or maybe you're gentler. Less judgmental of your presence here, now, as this person you've become.

You take another bite. The egg's definitely cold now, butter solidifying slightly, but it's still good. You're still hungry. Your body wants this. Simple fuel. Simple pleasure. You give it that.

The plate empties gradually. You're not performing some ritual of gratitude or savoring or whatever. You're just eating. Being. Doing this one thing. But there's something about it, the lack of rush, the permission to just be here, that feels monumental in its smallness.

The last bite has the most yolk. You chase it around the plate with your fork, getting all of it. It smears across the white ceramic, thick and golden. You eat it and it's too rich, almost overwhelming. Perfect.

Done.

You set the fork on the plate and it clinks. That's it. That's the meal. Ten minutes to make, maybe five to eat. Ordinary. Nothing. Everything.

You sit there longer than necessary. The kitchen's still warm. Still smells like butter and eggs. Your hands are slightly greasy and you wipe them on your jeans without thinking about it. There'll be a stain probably. Also fine.

Outside, another car passes. Life continuing. Inside, you're continuing too, just differently. Just as yourself, whoever that turns out to be.

You slide off the stool and pick up the plate. Walk it to the sink where the pan is waiting. The water runs cold at first, then warm. You rinse the plate and watch the yolk residue swirl away, yellow spiraling down the drain. The pan's cool enough to touch now. You wash it, feeling the still-warm metal under your hands, the slickness of the butter giving way to the squeak of clean.

Set everything in the rack to dry. Turn off the water. The drip-drip-drip into the sink is the loudest thing in the room.

You dry your hands on the towel and it's rough, familiar. How many times have you dried your hands on this towel? Hundreds. Thousands. All those small ordinary acts that make up a life.

The kitchen light is still on, bright and clean. You look around once more, the cleared counter, the clean pan, the empty stool. Evidence of being here. Of doing something. Of being someone who does this, in this moment, in this life that doesn't look like the plan.

Your hand hovers over the light switch.

Okay, you think. Not dramatically. Not like a declaration. Just a quiet acknowledgment. Okay.

I'm okay.

You flip the switch and the kitchen goes dark, except for the streetlight filtering through the now-clearing window. The fog's evaporating, the outside world coming back into view. But softer. Less insistent.

You stand there a moment longer in the dark, breathing in the last of the butter smell, the warmth, the quiet. Your kitchen. Your life. Your strange, unplanned, perfectly imperfect self.

And then you turn and walk out, leaving the dishes to dry, the kitchen to cool, the day to finish itself without your help.

Some things you have to surrender to. Some things you have to become. And some nights, you make eggs in a quiet kitchen and find out, with something like surprise, something like relief, something like quiet, unexpected joy that you're exactly who you need to be.

Even if it's nobody you planned.