Page 165 of Gates of Tartarus

“You don’t want to save that for the end?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No way. I love the cherries. I had to eat them first when I was a kid or my adopted dad would steal them... it was a game between us. He’d always give me his at the end though, anyways.” The memory came easily, before I could think about it, and it caught me, unexpectedly, gripping me by the throat and making it hard to speak for a second. Shrugging a little, I forced a smile, “Habit, I guess.”

Hideo had watched me through careful eyes, then sighed deeply. “Kai, you’re going to be disappointed in me, then.”

“Why?” I asked, concerned.

“I don’t... I don’t like these cherries.” He whispered conspiratorially, pointing at the bright red maraschino sitting atop his ice cream. “They’re unnatural looking.”

Shaking my head in faux sadness, I replied, “Oh Hideo. And I thought I knew you.”

Quick as a wink he moved the cherry from his sundae to mine, and I popped it in my mouth before he could take it back. “On second thought,” I said, “maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Over the years together we’d developed all sorts of funny little food habits – foam on lattes, splitting fruit, ordering two meals we couldn’t choose between then giving each other half so we’d get to try the other one – but my favorite, my absolute favorite, was every time he passed the cherry from his ice cream to mine.

That memory feels like a million years ago, something that occurred between two different people, and I suddenly feel foolish. I don’t know what I want to do, don’t know what I want from Deo, am not sure where or how we can move forward, and I semi-regret the impulsive move to try to recreate something from when we were good. But I also know Hideo doesn’t have anyone left. That he’s alone, because I was his only family after his mother died.

Do you know that? Traitorous thoughts whisper in my mind. Do you actually know anything about the man in front of you? Or has it all been a lie?

We’ve been sitting in silence now long enough that the ice cream has started melting slightly. Deo watches it, watches the whipped cream and cherry slide to one side, and moves slowly to scoop the cherry off with his spoon and hesitantly place it on my ice cream, without looking at me.

I watch him, not meeting his eyes, and say almost conversationally, “Do you remember about a year ago when we went to Polanski’s wedding together? From the Child Protective Services division?”

Deo looks up, clearly confused. “Yes,” he says cautiously. “We’d worked with him on several cases. Nice guy. Kind of surprised he invited us, but… why?”

“Do you remember what they had for dinner that night?”

“Yes,” he said again. “The taco buffet, right? And then the ice-cream buffet and the cookie table? It was unusual. But cool. What are you... Why are you asking this?” His voice is almost pained – the night was a good one in my memory. Almost, but not quite, a date with Hideo, when we’d decided to go to the wedding together. I’d dressed up; he’d dressed up; we’d danced together several times. It was a golden night. Back when we were friends.

“You got dessert while I was dancing with Polanski’s cousin, remember?”

A quick smile flashes across Deo’s face, so fast it’s like a comet in the night sky, at the memory of the overly attentive cousin and my awkward attempts to avoid him. “Okay?”

“Yeah, well. I escaped the dance to ‘answer an important call’, and while I was sneaking out to the hallway, I saw you order your ice cream.”

Deo looks properly confused, and I glance away from him before continuing. “You ordered extra cherries on your sundae. Like, you had four or five cherries or something piled on top.”

I look back at Deo, who pales slightly, clearly unsure of what to say, worried he’s been caught out in another lie.

“Okay…?” he says quietly.

“So you like cherries.”

“They’re... I mean, they’re just cherries, Kailani.”

“But you got four or five of them. Right? So you really like them.”

He nods.

“And you’ve been giving them to me for, what, two, two and a half years now?”

He shrugs slightly.

“So here’s what I can’t figure out, Deo. All this time, you’ve been lying to me. You were instructed to form a relationship with me, a partnership, you were told to spy on me, to report back. Everything, every moment we’ve had together has been one lie after another after another. I can’t separate out anything in my memory without wondering if it wasn’t part of a bigger plan.” My voice unintentionally grows teeth, the questioning tone now full of naked, ferocious pain. “There isn’t a singlefucking secondthat isn’t ruined. Because all I’ve ever had in my life are people who have lied to me and left me, until you, and Gemma, and Lach. And now you and Gemma have kicked the legs out from under me, and it’s too much weight for Lachy to carry by himself, because I’m a fucking vortex of chaotic emotion. Every. Fucking. Day. I was broken before but now I’m... I don’t know if I can be fixed. What if Ican’t be fixed?” By the end of my speech I’m panting, my eyes tearing up, and Hideo looks like a beaten puppy before me, bracing himself for another kick, not saying anything.

I take a deep, shuddering breath and exhale slowly, reminding myself of why I’m here. “And then, today, out of nowhere, I remembered that fucking cherry. It’s such a small, stupid thing. It really wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d eaten yours. You already knew you had me – I mean, I spent three days baking that stupid freaking manju. Christ,” I spit out. “I was soobviousnow that I look back on it. There was no reason for you to give me your cherry. And then you kept doing it. So okay, maybe it was to get in deeper? I don’t know. But you didn’t have to today. It doesn’t make a difference anymore. So why do it? It’s so stupid, and so small, but why?”

He looks up at me, eyes empty, like a corpse, skin paper thin, a death mask of misery on his face, and he sighs. “It was just…”

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