Page 73 of All That Has Flown Beyond
“Kids are people. Their emotions and behaviours mean something. You’ve got to listen to them,” Kaiyo said. Ahmik looked down at the soapy water. The long silence was filled with the lap of waves, with the past a mist rolling up from the sea to linger between them.
“There are so many things I’m doing wrong,” he admitted quietly. It was the old Ahmik, in that moment. The one who confided in Kaiyo, even when he wore a mask with everybody else.
“Are you trying to do better?” Kaiyo asked. Ahmik took a deep breath, cleaning a plate methodically.
“I don’t know if I have been.”
“But are younow?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at Kaiyo. “Thanks to you.”
Kaiyo could feel the muscle of his heart, the way it had to squeeze to pump the blood through.
“That’s all you can do now, then. Try. Accept help and work hard.”
“Yeah.” Silence fell for a moment, just the sound of the running sink, the clink of plates. “I wish I could talk to Mom. Tell her…shit. I never knew what a good Kephale she was. She was just Mom to me. But she…I never knew to pay attention.”
“It would have been pretty fucked up if you had expected what happened, Ahmik. And your mom would, above all, care about your happiness, and the happiness of the pack. Not whether the pack was big or small or respected or not. Her reputation didn’t matter to her, I don’t think. It was just about…”
“Family.”
“Yeah. The kind you make instead of the kind you just have.”
Ahmik glanced at him. Kaiyo could feel the tension between them like a pressure on his chest. On his Ousía, the core of him.
He wanted to…he wanted too many things he couldn’t have.
“Anyway,” Kaiyo said, “I think you’ve found your niche in pack bonding with this training-and-movie-night combo.”
“Yeah, though I’m pretty sure there would be a revolt if anybody but Isla or Thea got to pick the movies,” Ahmik said ruefully. Kaiyo chuckled.
“Looking back, it used to be that way when we were kids as well. Remember when we got totally obsessed withJumanjiand bought the board game?”
“Excuse me, that was completely your idea. I mean, who even does that? Who watches that film and is like, ‘yep, that’s the board game for me’?”
“I thought it would be an adventure,” Kaiyo protested. Ahmik laughed, shaking his head.
“Well, you roped us all in, that’s for sure.”
“It was fun. Gave us a break on the whole Uno thing we had going on.”
“Jesus, that game was a constant bloodbath. Remember—” Ahmik had to stop talking for a moment as he started laughing. “Remember the time it was just you and Thea playing, and you won in one go? Like, all your cards went together, and she went on a rampage that lasted like—”
“Three full days. Shewould not stop.”
“Her mom had to do like a…cake party?”
“Cookies, she—”
“Oh, yeah. She baked about a million cookies.”
“God, those butter pecan ones.”
“The ones with white chocolate and macadamia? Or the chocolate chip ones, fuck.”
“Holy crap, the chocolate chip ones. How were they so good?”
“I don’t know.”
