I finally ask the question I’ve been chewing on for three nights straight.
“Have you been back in the life?”
He doesn’t look up. Not immediately.
Then he does.
His face is a portrait of practiced calm. “No.”
One word. Clean. Precise.
Too precise.
The lie slides between us like a knife.
I don’t call it out.
I just stare at him until his gaze slides off mine, down into the mug, as if the answer might be hiding at the bottom.
It’s not.
“You sure?” I ask, voice low. “Because I know what broken ribs look like.”
He chuckles, but it’s hollow. “Slipped on a rain panel.”
“You’re not that clumsy.”
“Been out of practice.”
I let the silence stretch.
It coils around us like smoke. Chokes us both.
But I don’t push. Not tonight.
I’m not ready to hear more lies.
Instead, I nod. Slow. Mechanical.
And then I turn and walk away.
Ben’s roomsmells like warm sheets and markers. A pile of crayon drawings sits on the edge of his desk, half-tumbled, a rainbow avalanche waiting to happen. I glance at them as I pass, meaning to straighten them later, but one catches my eye.
It’s different.
Bolder. Sharper.
Ben’s drawn Jav.
Sort of.
It’s him—the horns, the grin, the unmistakable eyes—but his body is bigger, stretched with superhero bulk, and instead of arms, he has claws. Big ones. Like tiger paws, inked in neon red.
And above him, in clumsy, blocky letters, it says:
“Mr. K: SPACE CLAW HERO”
I stare at it.
