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As most of those attending the assembly rose, so did Kei. An orderly procession, though, soon turned into a scurry as news of the fire spread among the crowd. Kei was surprised at how quickly the report moved. Would it be so quick for the community to learn that D-Day was a suspect? It might not take too long either once the fire investigators and detectives saw the camera footage, grainy and far away but fully showing the musician's shirt on camera, and as they discovered the bit of it that was snagged on a Turner property tree. D-Day would be the prime suspect of the arson, and perhaps, also, Lily's disappearance.
"Sorry!"
Kei was pulled out of his stupor by a man with a bad wig and...he soon realized, as the stranger passed between Elliot and Ellie, that it was the very one currently in his thoughts: D-Day. He was in a hurry, which bothered Kei...where was he headed? Kei quickly followed, so quickly that he stepped on a protrusion that almost made him trip. Looking down, Kei saw something so gaudy that he knew it could belong only to Damon—a gold-plated Walkman.
His mind raced—should he pick it up? The old Kei, meaning the one from mere hours ago, would have returned it to Damon, even though he despised the man. But this new creature, one seemingly forged in the flames of the Turner's burning home, could only think this: What a perfect opportunity to implicate this imbecile even further.
Kei looked up to see D-Day literally running out the door. Instinctively, he knew where the celebrity was headed. The presence of that shirt in Lily’s closet meant that Damon had some sort of special relationship with her, just as Kei did. And like Kei, he must have spent time in Lily's room. Blood rose to the high schooler's head as he imagined the worst, that he was not special, like Lily said, that he was one of a line of boys that shared Lily's bed.
Breathe, Kei told himself. You knew Lily...you KNOW Lily. She is the person you think she is.
Kei glanced at the Walkman at his foot—he knew it wasn't needed to implicate Damon further, but more than that, a rush of regret spilled over him. The guilt of what he'd done, what he was still doing, was overwhelming Kei. As much as he hated Damon, Kei realized that the tables had turned: Kei was the one doing wrong, the one who had perpetrated an evil. And as such, he wondered, Was Lily’s assessment of me wrong after all?
He would think about that later, about his complicated feelings and the things he'd done, but first, he had to do something else. Kei walked away from the Walkman, leaving it to be found by someone else, and walked in a direction opposite of the whole town, it seemed. While they walked toward the blaze he had set, Kei ran home.
~~~~~~
There were only two people that had ever known Kei for who he really was. The town saw him as some great hope, as one who was both an "intruder" but also a model of what a newcomer could be, someone popular, diligent, intelligent, who would eventually leave to an Ivy League institution, to which he would indeed be headed after graduation. But Lily knew him for who we really was, for all the complications and complexities within.
The other person who knew that Kei was far from perfect, though, was someone he met even before Lily—but only minutes before.
Up until his sophomore year in high school, Kei attended school, conducted his club activities, and went home, where he studied for hours and hours each night. He hated that life, for he hated his home—a suffocating mother and a raging father who took out all his frustration from work, all his frustrations in life, out physically on his mom, and verbally on him. So to stay away from home, Kei began to go to the ice cream parlor, to study there, but it was a distracting placed, sticky and filled with loud families. So one day—he remembered it well, an autumn day, October 30th, the day before Halloween—Kei grabbed his books and walked over to the Cosy Bear Cafe for the first time.
It was moderately busy that afternoon, but Kei found a small table to himself. He sat and worked through his studies as he drank down caramel frap after caramel frap. Even when studying, Kei always made sure to look the part of the conscientious young man, the type who carried groceries for old ladies while still being admired by guys and loved by girls. But that day, only for half a minute, he failed to keep up the phony face. Kei's mom and dad had a particularly vicious fight earlier—she yelled back at him that morning, which she never did, and never did again after how it turned out. He felt sorry for his mom, but only for a moment, because if truth be told, he hated her more than he did his dad.
And so a sorrowful expression washed over Kei's face for just a bit, not one of sadness for his mom, but for himself, which was when a beautiful young woman—still older than him, and apparently a waitress—sat in the empty chair next to his.
“You alright, sweetie?” Elizabeth gently smiled as she slid into the seat across from the dark-haired boy who had been brooding at table 9 for some time. “You haven’t ordered anything besides those coffee drinks… what can I get you to eat? On the house.” She winked at him playfully, her smile turning into a smirk.
Maybe Elizabeth was just analyzing things too closely, as she typically did, but she had a gut feeling that all was not right in this young man’s life. Although he kept himself busy, she felt that something was off; Lily would often call her an “empath” for picking up on various peoples’ “vibes” or energy this way. Or, perhaps it was just whatever homework he was currently keeping himself occupied with… Either way, it did no harm to the business to offer a free meal here and there. Hopefully she could help him in some way, even if she was reading too far into her own assumptions about a complete stranger.
Elizabeth was right of course—he was not alright. Kei, on the other hand, had no idea how to read the young lady. Truth be told, he was just taken aback at how well she seemed to read him. Maybe she had some special ability, or maybe this was just what it was to be mature?
“Uh, I uh, well…” he stammered.
No, he thought—she’s not typical. This woman is quite sharp. Of all the places to study, he picked an establishment with a waitress that was far smarter than he.
Kei laughed and cleared his throat. “Yes to the second question—your croissants have been calling me all afternoon. And no to the first. I...don’t usually share, and maybe this is more than you want to know, but home life has been hard. It’s really bad actually. I can’t wait to get away...and today, I feel like I would be willing to do so by any means.
But yeah, this is so strange of me to share so much! What I would normally say is, ‘I really like this cafe! And my name,’” he continued, holding out his hand, “‘Is Kei.’”
Elizabeth chuckled, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to pretend here. I don’t mind. It’s really nice to meet you, Kei.” She shook his hand, remaining unphased by how he had just opened up to her. Since she began working at the restaurant, Elizabeth had quickly learned that waitresses and bartenders typically became the public's part-time therapist (especially the bartenders). “You can call me Ellie.” She stood from her chair, deciding not to address the issue right then. “Croissant, coming right up. Sit tight!”
A few moments later she reappeared from the kitchen, a plate full of croissants in hand. “Here you go. It’s still not real food… buuuuut… I suppose it’ll do for now.” She set the plate down in front of him and took her seat back at the table. “I’m sorry about your home life…” She averted her gaze from his, looking at the papers he had been studying. “Mine hasn’t been the best either, so I get it… But hey, life goes on right? C’est la vie!” She met his gaze again, “You just have to try and stay positive… things will work out in the end. They always do.”
“You know…” She paused, considering what she was about to say. “We do have an opening here at the cafe… if you need any excuse to leave home, or have a distraction… I’d gladly hire you as one of our busboys, if you want.”
As Ellie spoke, Kei gently tore a piece from one of the croissants and considered her words. Things will work out in the end. But how could she know that? Rationally, Kei knew that couldn’t be true, not always. Wasn’t a phrase like that just empty semantics, a platitude that you say to someone when you just don’t know what else to say?
But looking at Elizabeth, Kei knew that she meant what she said, and more than that, her own experiences must have bore them out to be true. Logic out the window, Kei felt that a story was just beginning, some sort of journey, a way out of his broken household not built upon what his parents willed, but a new way that he could not yet see, on a path that was still overgrown and filled with people he was just now meeting, like Ellie, and others, perhaps, he didn’t yet know.
And so when the offer came from her lips, Kei paused only for a second, for he knew this was just right. He knew he could trust this woman, despite meeting her just five minutes prior, that this meeting was serendipitous, the beginning of something great as it started with something small—a basket of croissants and a job bussing tables.
“Ellie...thank you. I accept.”
"Yay! I'm so glad. Interviewing can be such a pain. I have a good feeling about you, Kei." She grinned, ignoring the nagging voice in her head telling her that she would have to explain the sudden hire to her father. He would understand… eventually.
"I know it might be strange to say, but… if the cafe isn't open for some reason and you need somewhere to go, I want you to know that my family's home is always open for you." This would be harder to explain to her father, if Kei ever utilized it, but Elizabeth couldn't stop herself. She had a soft spot for situations like this. When her mom had passed away she had felt so alone and lost. If she could help another person who was feeling the same way, it would mean the world to her.
"There is one person I have to get approval from before you start, though…" She giggled before swiveling in her seat to look across the room. "Lil!" An ebony haired woman looked up from the chocolate milkshake she had been stirring around, lighting up with a smile upon seeing Elizabeth. "C'mere! I've got someone for you to meet."
~~~~~~
Kei was drowning in tears as he reached his door—the memories of that day, of first meeting Ellie, who would become his confidante, and of Lily. Oh, Lily…
She wasn’t there, of course, but in a sense she was. Kei thought of Lily as always being with him, though they didn’t see each other daily, sometimes not even weekly. It even terrified him sometimes to know how much passion he felt toward Lily, the only person he loved—the only person, Kei occasionally thought, he had ever loved.
But that thought wasn’t accurate. Kei loved his parents deeply, once, when he was young. Even when they did wrong, Kei blamed himself, for after all, in a young man’s thinking, his parents couldn’t be wrong. But when he became an adolescent, Kei realized what his parents really were, and he lost his love for them, replacing it with rage and hate, feelings that could have overtaken him if not for Lily, if not for that someone he came to love fiercely.
What Kei didn’t realize was that in just mere days, the hole within him that a missing Lily left was being consumed again by bitterness. When you depend fully on someone else, if that person leaves, you’re left with what you had before—and what Kei had was emptiness and fire. It was no wonder that his body reacted as it did at the Turners’ residence, setting the house aflame. It was merely what was within his heart spilling over.
Kei wiped his face, violently pushing away sweat and tears, and entered the home. He witnessed the usual—his father at the table, on his day off, reading a newspaper, and his mother cooking.
"What you do here," Kei's mom asked. "No school?"
"Today's the assembly," Kei said, almost in a whisper, as he walked toward her in the kitchen, near the utensil drawers.
"Hmm," replied his father, all-knowing as usual.
"Ah, crazy day," his mother went on. "They's also fire today. Mayor house all burn down!"
"Yeah," Kei responded, building up his courage through the lump in his throat. He opened the drawer while looking at his parents, and felt around—forks, spoons, and knives.
"That's why I'm here."
Kei's parents both looked up.
He took another breath and looked to the sky, as if he could see someone there. In fact, he could. In the short time that Lily had been missing, Kei had been having visions of her. They were hard to explain: It wasn’t while he slept, and he knew they weren’t real. Kei felt that he was making them up somehow, these visions of Lily all in white. She would speak to him with different phrases and words, but mostly this one over and over: “You can do it, Kei. You are strong enough to do it.”
And so it was this time as well.
His hand caressed a knife, the one he’d always sharpened at his father’s command. He held it for a second as he looked his parents in the eyes.
He took one more deep breath—and then the decision was made.
~~~~~~
The walk was long and hot as Kei carried all that he now had left in the world—clothes and few other possessions in two Adidas bags. It was a suffocating walk as he dealt with his injuries. He vomited twice, but refused to stop walking because he was already late, having texted Ellie who told him where she was, and that he should come as well.
As he neared the destination, Kei touched a slightly swollen eye. His dad had rarely disciplined his son physically, and had never hit him in anger. But today was different, and Kei had been ready for it. He had been strong, as Lily told him to be. Strength, in that moment, meant to not give in to some temptation or ridiculous notion as he did earlier in the day. No, he would not do something from which there was no return.
Kei had let go of the knife and pulled his hand out of the kitchen drawer, and told his parents the truth: "This morning, I broke into Mayor Turner's house because I wanted to visit his daughter's room. She and I have been having an affair. And I was so upset… that I burned the mayor's house down."
There he waited for his father’s response. His admission to arson was the worst thing possible, not because of his son's damaged character, but because of the shame it would bring their family. Kei's father, a man with fists like steel, soon responded to the shocking admission: he hit his son over and over and over again—at first in the face, but then with the knowledge that Kei would be questioned about a bloody face, into his body. The pain was overwhelming, but it was the price Kei would willingly pay for what would come next. Kei would be strong because this assault was the cutting of the string that would set him free.
"You no longer my son! You leave this house! Never come back!"
The words of freedom had rung through the air—Kei's father was telling him to leave. He would not have to be part of this family any longer; he had been tossed out of it. And while Kei knew that his father would hide this moment and not tell anyone that he disowned his son, the ties had been effectively cut.
And now, he was free.
His face swollen and a bit blue, with a lip cut but no longer bleeding, Kei didn't look as bad as he felt. Most of the damage was underneath his shirt. Everything hurt—he could barely hold onto the bags slung over his shoulders, but it was fine because Kei had made it there, outside the pizzeria where Ellie said she was headed. It was fine because he remembered that conversation in October with Ellie, where she sweetly and genuinely told him she would take him in. A chapter that started that autumn day in the café was now almost complete.
Through beaten lips, Kei smiled, and for the second time today, wiped his tears and put his hand on a door.
“Son, can I speak with you a minute?”
Kei turned around and with a gulp of surprise, saw the one person he did not want to see.
Sheriff Spade continued, “There's been a fire." He looked behind and then back at Kei. "And I have a few questions I need to ask."