Thoughts swirled in my head as I passed through those doors. Once again, I was back in Yang’s Diner, comforted by the warm aroma of freshly cooked food. Unlike many places in this city, it felt like home. Footpaths worn into the floor led inside, where vibrant dark green walls and cozy décor wrapped around you. A wooden cuckoo clock ticked away on the wall while lucky plants lined the window, passively taking in light. The diner was empty save for Lily wiping down a table.

  "Just me?" I asked.

  She looked up, pausing from her work. A cheerful smile spread across her face.

  "Ethan told me you were coming; I decided to give you the whole place, you know, for privacy. It's mostly takeout these days anyway," she said, wiping up the last bit of the table and straightening up.

  "You didn't need to bother. Three cops in the same place would clear everyone out anyway," I said.

  "It's the thought that counts," she shrugged. "Besides, I wanted to feel like part of the team. It’s no bother."

  I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. She really did miss me. I wondered if for her I was one of those people you wondered about sometimes because you didn't know if they were okay, but you wished to God they were. I'd get the courage to ask her someday.

  “I’m starting to feel like the only one out of the loop,” I said, finding a seat in a vacant spot by the window.

  Visibility was my friend. It meant no surprises. If anyone was coming, you’d see them from a mile away. The only thing missing was my back against a wall. On the line of duty, instincts like this kept me alive. They kept bad actors from getting the jump on me. In my daily life, they were a chain around my neck, refusing to ever let me drop my guard and live purely in the moment.

  “It feels like old times, doesn’t it?” Lily asked, knocking me from my thoughts. “Both our mothers loved green walls. Your mother insisted on that green floral wallpaper, right?”

  “I’m surprised you remember,” I whispered.

  Just another thing we had in common. It wasn’t only in our ethnic mix, being both half and half, or the first letters of our names. Tiny things added up over time, filling slowly with deep truths and the most innocuous of details. I tried not to think too much of it during the time we were busy with our own lives, chasing our own dreams, and going different directions. I thought I’d never see her again, but somehow we ended up crossing paths again through happenstance.

  “Looks like we have company,” she said, cutting off my train of thought.

  A car pulled up and parked in front of us. The gleam of the finish hinted at a fresh wash. The time on the clock landed neatly on the dot. Textbook Ethan. Instead of two passengers, as I expected, there were three. Gabe climbed out with an easy smile on his face. Why was I the only one who came alone?

  The whole gang filtered in. With Gabe and Noah already acquainted, that only left Ethan. He hadn’t seen Lily since we were teenagers, and unlike Noah, he was old enough to remember her as a friend. That took longer. Together, we almost looked like family, but I never had a sister. If she had been, maybe life would have been easier for me. Our home was filled with the kind of love that left distance between us. My brothers stuck together. My mother never knew what to do with me. My father was always missing on some important work assignment. And then there was me, not sure where to go or who to confide in.

  “Ethan said you had a surprise for us,” I said, biting my tongue about why he got to know first.

  Noah excitedly patted his pockets, looking increasingly concerned as they each turned out empty.

  “Don’t tell me you forgot it,” I muttered.

  “He didn’t,” Ethan said. “I made him check twice before I let him in my car.”

  “Hey, have some faith in me,” he said. “You guys know I live alone and I’m still alive, right?”

  We laughed. Noah and Gabe were the same in that way; they both made you feel like everything was going to be okay. When they walked into a room, the mood lifted a little and the tension melted away. Life was chaotic, and so was Noah, but he was still alive, and he wouldn’t let you forget it either.

  “Don’t let it get you down,” Gabe said. “My parents thought I’d mess it all up, but I’m still alive and kicking too.”

  That was the first I’d heard of Gabe’s parents. He was normally tight-lipped about his personal life. I barely even knew his last girlfriend’s name. When asked, he’d just say they came and went. Whether that included his family or only the girls, he left hanging in the air. It was just as well because without anything to attach the information to, it didn’t really matter.

  “Okay, so I’ve been trying this therapy thing, right?” Noah asked.

  By this point he had finished going through his pockets and started on the bag on his shoulder. He threw the duffle bag down and rummaged through it, talking as he went.

  “I’m learning a lot,” he said. “I think I’ve got it.”

  “Got what?” I asked.

  “What my problem is,” he said. “I get attached way too fast.”

  The girl who lured him out to nearly die came to mind, and I had to agree. If I was an iron gate, he was an open door with a sign asking anyone nearby to come on in. Once again dissatisfied with his progress, he dumped the contents out and sent a pen rolling off the table.

  “See, my therapist says I need to get in touch with my inner child and figure out what I really want, you know? All that deep emotion stuff,” he continued.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  By now he had finally found the small packages hidden in the bottom of his bag, previously sandwiched between a pair of gym shorts and a crumpled notepad. Soon enough, there was one of those clumsy packages in each of our hands.

  “Must be my lucky day,” Gabe said, grinning widely.

  “If you’re important to them, you’re important to me,” Noah said. “Lily gets one too.”

  The key word there was “made.” These were handmade presents. While there was craftsmanship in clean lines and careful edges, there was warmth in messy wrapping paper haphazardly taped together. Underneath that polka dot paper was a small handmade object. The form was abstract, and the colors were bright and clashing, but the wobbly smile across its face made something ache in my chest.

  “It’s terrible,” I said.

  “You love it,” Ethan scoffed.

  “So do you,” I said.

  I wondered for a moment if I’d been too harsh, but Noah just laughed.

  “Yeah, it is terrible,” he said. “That’s the point. The inner child stuff. It needs to be terrible. Otherwise it wouldn’t work.”

  I was starting to get the picture. I didn’t need him to explain it to me. This inner child stuff was about reconnecting to your childlike spirit. The one who didn’t care how much their smudge of paint actually looked like a cat or how wobbly the legs were on their clay figure. Deep inside all of us was a part in love with the present and entirely unfazed by either quality or practicality.

  I was starting to think they were ganging up on me again. After I got out of the hospital with a brand-new arm, Ethan tried the same thing. He gave Gabe a photo to pass onto me with a video of my younger self embedded in it. The words I chose to send myself back then were clumsy and disorganized, but the message meant for the future, bigger version of me hit cleanly. Big me. Adult me. The me that forgot how to smile without a care in the world. The me that forgot how to enjoy the process without scrutinizing the outcome. I could have told them I was touched, but those weren’t the words that came out of my mouth.

  “You’re embarrassing me,” I said.

  “Just admit you love it,” Ethan said.

  “Why?” I asked. “So you can taunt me?”

  “No,” he said, quietly. “Because I feel the same way.”

  That shut all of us up. Even Noah seemed shocked. In the span of a minute, a full year passed. Finally, Gabe broke the silence.

  “I think I’m going to try some of this inner child stuff,” he said.

  “Who are you kidding?” I asked. “I saw that rat doodle you made; you’ve already got the art down to a science.”

  We were both guarded in our own ways. Mine was more obvious, but Gabe’s was in what he didn’t say and wouldn’t allow to linger. Between the jokes and careful deflection was the fact that he turned every serious moment into humor. Things always stayed light as long as he was around. Only in rare instances, when things slowed down, did he allow himself to be just a man. Despite this, he never lost sight of who he was. He knew the dirty weakness we all carried in our hearts, the need for another. For some of us, we’d only show God under threat of death, or maybe not even then.

  “I need to freshen up,” I said, excusing myself from the table.

  “Did I mess up?” Noah asked.

  “No,” I said. “That was braver than I’ve ever been.”

  I retreated to the women’s room and found Lily already hiding inside.

  “I wasn’t sure if I should’ve been there,” she said, admiring the small toy in her hands.

  “You’re a friend,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about things like that with us.”

  Instead of answering me, she twirled the floral object between her fingers.

  “It’s cute, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Her present was less abstract than mine. It looked like a lily, her namesake.

  “You should tell him that,” I said. “He’d like it.”

  “It’s good to see all of you together,” she said. “You deserve it, you know, to be happy.”

  She wasn’t answering me. She looked past all the smoke and mirrors and saw what needed to be said. Gone were pleasantries when old friends decided not to waste words.

  “Is that how it looks to you?” I asked.

  My family only knew how to pull together in times of struggle. Graves and tragedy could safely stand in the center while we huddled around it. First it was our mother, then our father, and then the disaster caused by Zenith. We never let ourselves take that center position; maybe it was too sacred for us.

  “Even if it’s fragile, you should hold onto joy,” she said.

  I jerked and looked up at her, having unconsciously been staring at the ground.

  “You were always like that, you know?” she said. “You were always holding your breath for something to go wrong.”

  I paused to think.

  “Maybe I still am,” I muttered.

  The two of us were more perceptive than anyone ever gave us credit for. People overlook the strength in children, and yet children watch and soak up the world in all the same ways adults do. So what if the window was different? We were always watching, digesting, and turning that noise into meaning. In this city, there wasn’t much room for innocence, but in the space between pain and duty, I was starting to feel more normal again, if I ever was in the first place. This time it was Lily’s turn to excuse herself.

  “I’m going to tell Noah how much I love this,” she said. “I’d be a shame if he didn’t know.”

  That was what she said, but I knew to read between the lines. She wanted to give me space. I envied her sometimes. I knew she would go out there and tell Noah exactly how she felt. She’d fawn over that taped-up piece of paper like it was the next Mona Lisa until even he was embarrassed. It was just her nature, and it was never mine. Even without a chain around my neck, I choked on all the things I really wanted to say.

  I leaned back against the wall and crushed my eyes shut, focusing on stabilizing my breath. Moments like this were rare and beautiful. My family was all in the same place, and my greatest friends were right by their side. It was something I didn’t often get, and yet, instead of feeling joy, I felt fear because joy was temporary and pain was always waiting around the corner. Part of me anticipated a cosmic balancing act where some angry god would snap at the injustice of peace and take something for what was given.

  Lily served us drinks after I came back to the table. I held that liquid courage in both hands, knowing full well that it wasn’t strong enough to get the words I wanted to say out of my mouth. Gabe promised to give his trinket a place of honor next to the drinking bird on his desk. I told Noah he would be the envy of even the most accomplished five-year-olds. Noah promised not to give me any more presents.

  On the way out, Lily and I traded socials and promised to keep in touch. Time passed against our wills, and our paths diverged in all the specifics, but not in the ways that mattered. To an outside view, I was the experienced one who had seen all the darkest corners of humanity. Where was truth and wisdom other than in pain? But Lily, an ordinary woman, was working for truth and knowledge as well in the everyday. There was still something to be learned from her, and a lot I could share as a token of my gratitude.