“It doesn’t matter,” I say, trying to sound defiant again. “I think I got caught up in this idea of Grace Kimura being my mother—like we were going to have this tearful, perfect reunion and suddenly everything in my life would be fixed and I’d feel like I . . .”
Like I belong with someone.
I take a deep breath, trying to retain control. “And somehow, in that fiction, I guess I conveniently forgot that . . . I mean, I don’t know exactly what happened, but no matter how you slice it, she abandoned me seventeen years ago,” I say. “She left me behind and never came back for me. So why would she want me to find her now? I’m worse than Belle, dreaming of some kind of impossible Cinderella ending. I should have remembered that the nure-onna doesn’t really do that sort of happily ever after.”
Henry doesn’t say anything, just squeezes my hand. And we sit in silence for a few moments more.
“I want to take you somewhere,” he finally says. “One of my favorite magical spots in LA.”
My head jerks up. “Excuse me? You know enough about LA to have a favorite spot? Please don’t say Disney-land: that’s not even in LA.”
“Oh no,” Henry says, a mischievous grin overtaking his face. He puts the key in the ignition and starts the car. “It’s definitely in LA. But I want it to be a surprise. Just sit back and enjoy the ride and don’t try to pry any clues out of me.” His grin widens. “You’re gonna love this, I promise.”
“This is your favorite spot in LA?” I have to shout to be heard over the din of bleeps, blings, and screams emanating from the massive carnival swirling around us. “The Santa Monica Pier? One of the cheesiest tourist traps in the city? And by the way, Santa Monica is its own city, so it’s not even LA, actually.”
“Listen to you,” Henry teases, throwing an arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. “What a freaking snob. After all those lectures about LA’s history and range and how I need to rethink my New York superiority complex, you reject my LA landmark?”
“Not exactly a landmark,” I grouse. “Unless you think a rickety old roller coaster and a hot dog stand count as such.”
“It’s right on the beach,” he says, sweeping an arm out.
The pier is a long stretch of weathered old wood that extends over part of the beach and just over the water. It’s packed to the brim with concession stands, kiosks selling T-shirts and cheap souvenirs, and the raucous carnival. A cluster of old fishermen always inhabits the very end, throwing their lines out into the ocean and hoping to receive a bounty in return.
“That’s your selling point?” I say. “The beach? You can get the beach almost anywhere along the coast of this area. And without all the excess noise.”
“I know it’s corny,” he concedes, chuckling. “But I love it. All of it—the rainbow lights from the Ferris wheel, the loud noises from the boardwalk games, people looking for cheap thrills and fried food.” He tugs the brim of his incognito baseball cap. “I feel like I can get lost here, escape into the crowd. It’s hard to do that anywhere else.”
“Hmm,” I say, remembering the ruckus he caused at Katsu That. “I guess I can see that. So what’s your celebratory fried food of choice?”
“Naturally it’s the fried cheese at Hot Dog on a Stick,” he says, his eyes getting a dreamy look. “Like a corn dog, only just cheese inside.”
“You are quite the fried cheese connoisseur,” I say. “People are usually scared of the cheese katsu at my Aunties’ restaurant, but you went all in. Didn’t even hesitate.”
“I never hesitate when it comes to cheese,” he says—and he suddenly looks so deathly serious, I have to laugh. “We need to strategize, though. Rides need to come before fried food. Unless you’re the type of person who’s more likely to get queasy on an empty stomach—”
“I don’t do rides,” I say quickly. “Especially roller coasters.”
He drops his arm from my shoulders and whirls to face me, shock overtaking his expression. “Excuse me,” he says. “But how, why, what? You’re one of the most fearless people I’ve ever met. Are you telling me you’re scared of rides?”
“Not scared,” I protest, crossing my arms over my chest. “I just don’t like them.”
Now he crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing. “That’s it?”
I shrug. “That’s it.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Bullshit.”
“Hey!” I yelp, falling out of my indignant pose. “That’s not very celebratory.”
“I don’t want to celebrate if it means we’re going to ignore how you’re feeling,” he says. “And I know you well enough at this point to realize when you say ‘That’s it,’ it’s pretty much never true.”
“Okay, ouch,” I say, clapping a hand to my chest, mock-wounded. “I thought this was supposed to be a fun time at the carnival, not some weird therapy session.”
“It is a fun time at the carnival,” Henry says, throwing an arm around my shoulders again. “And part of the fun is rides.” He dips his head to whisper against my hair, his lips nearly brushing my ear. “Don’t you want to be all pressed up against me on that roller coaster, holding on to each other for dear life?”
“We don’t need a roller coaster for that,” I mutter, my face flaming.
I study the scene swirling around us again. The rainbow of flashing lights bouncing off the dusky sky and the steady shimmer of the ocean. People laughing and stuffing their faces with cotton candy. And right in front of us, the most gigantic of the roller coasters, a rusting contraption of metal and the same generic “rock” song blasting over and over and over again as people scream their way through the series of loops and drops. The highest drop is, of course, the grand finale of the
