Page 83 of Angel of Thursdays

“It’s five minutes from the house,” Louis added.

Close to the family home but not under the same roof as the parents. Normal, perhaps. Cassiel never wanted to stay overnight at Fremont either.

“Mmhm, really close. Let’s get breakfast tomorrow,” Anna said to May.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“May.” Anna’s voice shifted, stern. “Breakfast.”

“I said maybe!”

“‘Maybe’ is your ‘no,’” said Louis.

The server cleared the bread basket and brought a second round of water. The pendant light above the table buzzed faintly. The one directly over Cassiel’s end had a visible filament that pulsed in a flicker so subtle no one else would notice. He angled his head away from it.

May didn’t say anything, but his hand came up and adjusted the pendant, tilting the bulb away from Cassiel’s line of sight. The flicker moved to the bread basket. May went back to his ginger ale as if nothing had happened and Cassiel’s stomach clenched.

The server brought the dessert menu. Cassiel was staring at nothing, his thumb circling the place where his ring should have been.

After half a minute of looking through the menu with no apparent intent to order anything from it, Louis set his phone face-up on the table with a thud. “So are we gonna talk about New Year’s or what.”

Cassiel looked to May, saw the way his jaw tightened. Cassiel had seen this before—in his bedroom, the night of the fight.

“I had a weird night,” May said. “Wasn’t feeling great. I went home.”

“You looked fucked up. Dad should’ve just given you a ride home. I was telling him that, but he just⁠—”

“Lou, May doesn’t want to talk about it,” Anna cut in.

“May never wants to talk about anything,” Louis said. He looked at Cassiel. “Right? He was supposed to be with you that night. That’s what he said.”

“He is right here,” May said.

Cassiel had been gripping his wrist under the table. Too hard.

Clatter. Sizzle. Noise from the adjacent table. A cook calling out. The pendant light, Edison style, exposed filament, the lumens⁠—

“Yeah? So what happened?” Louis had not looked away. Cassiel stared back at him, held the eye contact, but his teeth were clenched.

What happened? He couldn’t answer. He hadn’t known May was gone for over half an hour. He hadn’t known there was something that could go wrong. He still didn’t know what happened, only how that night ended.

May’s chair scraped. He stood, jacket bunching against the back of it.

“Outside. Now.”

“What—”

“Outside, Lou.” May was already moving around the table, hand at the back of Louis’s neck. Not gripping. Just enough. “Up. Walk.”

“I’m eating⁠—”

“You’re done.”

Louis swore and stood. The chair scraped a second time. Anna’s hand had gone over her mouth and she watched the two of them go, her expression split between alarm and weariness.

The front door opened and closed.

For a long moment Cassiel just sat.