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The cafeteria reminded Dylan of the one back in Ordinary.
Fluorescent lights hummed overhead in a steady drone. The tables were bolted to the floor. The air smelled of disinfectant and the faint metallic tang that stubbornly clung to everything inside the Oldest House.
Dylan sat where Agent Kiltti had told him to sit, hands folded in his lap, waiting. After a minute or two, she returned with two paper bowls and two plastic spoons. She set one in front of him and took the seat across the table, angling her body so she could watch both the doors. It wasn't like many passerby would know that Dylan wasn't supposed to be there - or who he was at all - but better safe than sorry, he supposed.
"Alright," she said. "Here you go. Don't take too long. Darling and Trench don't plan to spend much time away today, so we'll have to get you back before they return."
"Thanks," Dylan mumbled. He reached for the bowl. The cold of it leached straight through the thin paper into his fingers.
She peeled the lid off her own bowl and took a small bite of what looked to be spumoni, watching him over the rim of the spoon. "So, kid. Has mint chocolate chip always been your favorite flavor?"
Dylan looked down at the green ice cream. Little dark flecks of chocolate sat in it like freckles. The smell rose up to meet him - sharp mint, cold dairy, the faint chemical note of the freezer it had come from.
"It's not," he said. "I hate it."
Her spoon paused halfway to her mouth. "What? But... it's the only flavor you ever ask Darling for."
Dylan shrugged. He picked up his own spoon, turned it once in his fingers, and took a bite.
The mint hit first. Too strong. Medicinal. It flooded the back of his throat the way toothpaste did when you weren't careful and swallowed some. For a second he almost gagged. Then the chocolate chips found his teeth, and the texture of them - dense, slightly waxy - pulled him under.
Jesse stuck her tongue out at him.
They were standing in the freezer aisle of the little grocery store up the street from their house. The air conditioning was fighting a losing battle against the summer heat outside. Condensation beaded on the glass doors lining the wall.
"But why can't we get something that tastes good?" Dylan had asked, already knowing the answer and hating it.
Jesse grinned, impish and triumphant. She was still riding the high of the A+ on her English test. Their parents had given her a five dollar bill and the solemn responsibility of choosing a treat for her and Dylan to share - her pick.
"Well," Jesse smirked, "I guess you should've studied harder."
Dylan groaned. He had only missed one question on his math test, and that was because the kid behind him had spent the entire hour kicking the back of his seat. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.
Jesse was already sliding the freezer door open with a soft thump. She leaned up on her tiptoes and carefully pulled out a carton with a cartoonish mountain of green ice cream on the front and far too many exclamation points in the name. Extra-Most-Mintiest Mint Chocolate Chip!!! The letters were bright green and looked sticky even through the plastic.
Dylan made a face so dramatic that it hurt his cheeks. "Jesse, that'll taste like toothpaste. And the dentist. Grossssssss."
Jesse laughed, shoving the carton towards Dylan's face. The cold of it brushed his nose. "You're a dramatic crybaby, Dylan. It's just mint ice cream." But her eyes softened a fraction as she turned the carton in her hands. "But... I don't have to get it. We could get something we both like."
Dylan looked at the carton. Then at his sister. The five-dollar bill was already slightly crumpled in her fist. It was her reward. Her A+. Her choice.
"No," he said. "It's yours. You pick your favorite." He tried for an air of dignity and landed somewhere near sulky. "I'll just... pick out the chocolate chip bits and eat those."
Jesse wrinkled her nose at the mental image of him fishing half-melted chips out of a sea of mint sludge. But she didn't argue. She carried the carton up to the counter like a trophy, paid with the money Dad had given them, and accepted the plastic spoon the cashier offered without being asked.
On the walk home the setting sun was already turning the sky pink and orange.
Jesse ate straight from the carton, talking around mouthfuls about how the English test had been "stupid easy" and how proud her teacher had been. Every so often, she would spear a particularly large chocolate chip on the tip of the spoon and hold it out toward Dylan. He took each one. The chips were dark and glossy, still cold enough to leave a faint chill on his tongue. The mint clung to them, sharp and medicinal, but less so than the ice cream itself. He could almost pretend it was something else.
It wasn't so bad.
The second bite was easier.
Dylan let the ice cream sit on his tongue longer this time. The mint was still aggressive, still wrong, but underneath it the cold sweetness was the same cold sweetness it had been back in Ordinary. He found a cluster of chips and crushed them slowly between his molars. The sound was tiny in the vast quiet of the cafeteria.
Memory layered itself over the present again, without asking permission.
The summer heat radiating off the sidewalk in Ordinary, thick enough to make the air shimmer. The cardboard of the carton growing soft and damp in Jesse's hands. The way she had walked a step ahead of him, still talking, occasionally glancing back to make sure he was still there. The shared spoon, already sticky with melted green. The unspoken agreement that the chocolate chips were his and the gross mint surrounding them was the price of admission.
Dylan had been so angry that day. About the math test. About the kicked seat. About the universe's general refusal to be fair to him. And still he had let Jesse keep the ice cream she wanted. Still he had walked home beside her and taken the chips she offered, feeling the residual mint bloom cold across his tongue each time. Still they had smiled and laughed.
Now, Dylan wasn't sure if he still remembered what Jesse's laugh sounded like.
He could have asked for something else. Vanilla. Chocolate. Even that weird pistachio flavor the cafeteria sometimes had. Anything that didn't taste like this. But those flavors belonged to no one. They were the favorites of a Dylan that no longer existed. They didn't hold the memory of that walk home, or the five-dollar bill, or the way Jesse had looked at him when she offered the chocolate chips.
This did.
Dylan took another bite. Then another. He worked methodically, the way he used to when the mint threatened to overwhelm the actual good parts. Find the chips. Endure the rest. Keep going.
Jesse would've picked them out for him.
Dylan's throat felt tight. The paper bowl softened further under his fingers, growing wetter, the cold seeping deeper into the joints of his knuckles. He scraped the last green smear from the bottom with the edge of the spoon. It was thinner now, almost liquid, and colder for it. He ate that too.
When he set the empty bowl down, his fingers left small damp prints on the tabletop that began to fade almost immediately.
He missed Jesse.
The woman sitting across from him cleared her throat softly. "You... you can get a flavor you like, you know. Next time."
Dylan looked at the empty bowl for a long moment. The paper was already starting to soften and collapse inward.
"I know," he said. He didn't want to give up what little he had left of Jesse. "I won't."