Page 163 of Gates of Tartarus

“But–”

“No,” he repeats, maneuvering me towards the door.

“I’m just saying–” I try again.

“Well, don’t. Pub?” he asks Kavi.

“God, yes. We’ve earned it,” Kavi nods his head.

“Alright! Alright!” I exclaim, as they march me out the door. “But don’t blame me if you look underdressed at the benefit.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Jorge says.

Fly or Fall

Monday, 10 December – Kailani

Ihave decisions to make.

The black hole of emotion echoing out from Hideo has become impossible to ignore. It’s eating him alive, even as there’s a strange sense of relief in it. Everything is finally on the table, the dread of years laid bare before him, and he’s losing himself to it. I’ve said I’ll try to forgive him, but I can tell he thinks it’s a false promise, something to smooth our professional relationship enough that we can work together. He stares at me through hungry eyes when he thinks I’m not watching, eating every tiny movement, like the only thing sustaining him is the steady in-and-out of my breath. He’s promised me that he won’t blank his emotions to me anymore, so I know he knows I can feel the vacuum of feeling inside him, but he wears a placid mask of carefully concentrated neutrality any time I look at him.

Sitting in my room, I stare at the calendar in front of me. There’s a soft knock at the door, and I call out to enter. Gemma walks in hesitantly.

I have decisions to make.

“Sorry to bother you, Kai… um... Kailani. I – the guys said you’re all heading out this afternoon to tour the Tower. Is that – we’ve always talked about going, but I didn’t want to... Do you think it’s okay if I tag along?”

I can’t look up at her, staring at my hands as she shifts awkwardly from foot to foot.

“I’ve been told by people that families fight sometimes,” I finally say, voice carefully blank.

Gemma freezes, clearly unsure of where I’m going with this, and I look up. “I don’t have practice in that. I have practice in people leaving me, betraying me, or giving up on me. And I won’t betray you, and I won’t leave you, but I’m really good at giving up on people. So I don’t know how to fight. And I don’t know how to make myself depend on you again. But most families fight, and things that seem insurmountable in the moment are small in the years down the road. This is so big, Gemma,” I say, voice shaking now slightly. “It’sso big. I can’t… It really, really hurt me.”

She nods, eyes watery, but doesn’t say anything.

“So I can’t promise you it’ll be what it was, not right away, but if I said we’re sisters, that has to mean something. You’re the only family I’ve ever had that’s stayed. And you’re staying now, when it’s awkward and awful, and I can’t look at you without being angry and sad. You’re staying when it would be easier to leave, when you have a life to go to outside of us. You’re staying. So I’ll fight. And since we’re family, we’ll just push through it, and years from now I’ll use this against you to get the last scoop of ice cream or something. If that’s what you want.”

Gemma’s face cracks, little splinters of emotion breaking her to pieces that she’s clearly fighting to keep from shattering. “Okay,” she says quietly. “You... you’re my only family too, Kai. It means something to me too.”

“Okay, then.”

We look at each other, hesitant smiles on our faces, and I can feel the start of what ‘staying and fighting’ means. It means that you can be vulnerable and show yourself without fear. That all the secret rooms you keep hidden from the world can be opened, little by little, with the right keys. That when everything else falls apart, and everyone else falls away, there is stillsomeonewho won’t give up on you. Gemma hasn’t given up. She quit her job, a job she loved, she left her home, her boyfriend, everything she knows, to come with me in case I need her, even when I couldn’t look at her.

“I love you, Gemms,” I say suddenly and seriously.

“I love you too, Kai,” she replies, her voice tight with unshed tears and the edge of happiness.

“So we’re going to the Tower this afternoon?”

“Yeah,” she says, a little of her fairy sparkle beginning to light up her face again. It’s been missing for a long time. “With yourboyfriends.”

“Too early!” I groan, burying my face in the pillow, and she laughs.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she says, smiling. “I don’t think we’re meeting until 2:00. Don’t wear those boots, you know how much they hurt your feet, even if they look amazing. And eat something.”

“Yes, Mom,” I snark back, and, just for a moment, I can see that, someday, we’ll be ourselves again, and it fills me with so much happiness I can barely speak.

There’s silence from Gemma, and I know that she’s feeling the same way. “Alright,” she says softly, “I’ll see you in a bit. And Kai…” the last is said hesitantly, almost like she doesn’t want to but has to.