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“For real, though. Are you okay?”
It’s a simple question, but it grates on me. I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay since I was nine years old and my family got torn apart. And I certainly wasn’t okay during the two years after that, before I came to live with Kenzo, Tak, and Hana.
But that’s not something I’m ever going to talk about, not even with them.
Some things are too broken to fix.
“I’m fine,” I lie, my voice sharp. Too sharp.
Hana doesn’t push. She never does. But I can hear the concern in her voice. “Whatever it is, you know you don’t have to do it alone, right?”
A smile touches my lips. Hana is one in a million, and I know I’m beyond lucky to call her family. But just the same, alone is what I do best. Alone is where I’m safe. Where no one else can get hurt because of me.
“So how’s the jazz tonight?”
She snorts. “Changing the subject?”
“Obviously.”
She laughs lightly, and I can practically see her rolling her eyes. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
I don’t respond.
“The band is good tonight. I do miss the Monkey, though.”
She means The Golden Monkey, her favorite jazz spot back in Kyoto.
“Tell you what. Help me lean on Kenzo to get us the fuck out of this godforsaken city, and I’ll buy your drinks for a month at the Monkey.”
She laughs lightly. “Deal.” She exhales. “Seriously... Take care of yourself, Mal. You’ve got people who care about you.”
Before I can say anything else, she hangs up, the weight of her words settling heavy in my chest.
I toss the surfboard into the back, slam the gate shut and lean against the side of the truck. I close my eyes, letting the sound of the waves fill the silence. But the memories are already there, clawing their way to the surface.
The night my family died.
I can still see it. The flames licking the edges of the house, the sound of gunfire shattering the air, muffled through the ten feet of water above my head.
The metallic taste of the garden hose. The smoke in the air I breathed through it, hiding deep in the pool with the hose shoved in my mouth, listening as everything I loved was torn apart.
The blood everywhere when everything went quiet and I finally came up.
And then there was Kir.
I hadn’t known who he was back then. I was too young, too scared. But years later, I realized it was him I saw when I clawed my way out of the pool that night, watching the flames destroy my world.
I force the memories back down, locking them away where they belong.
Kir isonekey to all of this.
Freya is another.
I’m going to figure out how it all connects.
I have to.
9
