I know you saw me reaching for the cookie after we finished dinner last night — that half a chocolate chip cookie you saved from lunch.
It was wrapped in cellophane, and I struggled to get it out, yet you just kept reading the newspaper and eating your enchilada, ignoring my furtive glances in your direction, since after all it was your cookie I was unwrapping, and certainly you’d object. I struggled with the cellophane and glance up at you and struggled and glanced, but still you kept doing what you were doing, and my act of petty thievery went unremarked.
So when I finally held the partial cookie in my hands and ate one half of it and looked longingly at the other half and glanced back up at you only to see you still reading the paper, I had no choice but to say something.
“So can I finish the cookie?” I asked.
You nodded. Or mumbled. Or maybe you just said, “Yes.” But whatever you said, it was clear that you knew all along what I was up to, that I was busted without even being busted.
But here’s the thing: I got to eat the rest of the cookie.
And here’s the other thing: I am so awash in guilt. Guilt for having taken your cookie. Guilt for having eaten not just part but all of what remained. Guilt for having thought that you didn’t know what I was doing when of course you did. And guilt for being up so late on a school night making this confession.