EZRA AND I SPEND ONE NIGHT at Dahlia's place. It feels like a lifetime, in the best sort of way.

In the morning, Dahlia and I rise early to go to the beach for a run. When we get back, she meets up with Marisol to "surf," which is this thing they do where they go out on long, pointed boards and stand up in the water. I keep guard over their things.

At noon, we go back to her house, where Ezra is waiting for us with food. Marisol and Dahlia throw baggy t-shirts on over the revealing little two-piece outfits they call bikinis. My clothes are left crusted over with sand.

In Dahlia's living room, there is a white wooden table in front of the sliding glass doors out onto the balcony, in full view of both the beach below and Ezra working in the kitchen. The three of us all sit there, and he passes out plates and sets three big glass bowls on the table. One is full of these thin, salty, yellowish crackers, the second a chunky white dip similar in appearance to the tzatziki I tried in Greece, and the third all these strange fruits that I've never seen before.

"What is this?" I ask.

"Potato chips," Dahlia explains. "Yo, Ezra, what kind of dip is this?"

"French onion," he replies.

"Literally fuck you," she says. "So that's French onion dip. Aggressively not vegan, but it's whatever."

"You need to eat some," Ezra insists. "C'mon, Dahls, you're breaking my achy-breaky heart. You're wasting away to nothing. At least have a little bit. For me."

"I'll have some plain chips and fruit, you asshole." Dahlia rolls her eyes. "Need I remind you of the McDonald's incident?" The story that Ezra proudly told us of the time he snorted cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom has become known as the McDonald's incident, and any mention of it gets him to quickly shut up.

"What is the fruit?" I ask.

"Um, the orange ones are mango and the yellow ones are pineapple," Marisol says.

"Fruit is such a sexy food," Ezra says from the kitchen. "Like, no matter what kind of fruit it is. It's always such a sexy time, eating fruit."

"I can't tell if you're using sexy in the genuine way or in the meme way and either way, I'm scared," Dahlia replies.

"And aroused?" asks Ezra, pulling a loaf of bread from the pantry. "By the fruit?"

"No normal human being is aroused by fruit, weirdo," Dahlia says, heaping a whopping portion of fruit onto her plate. "Fruit Boy. Hey, Antigone, if we all have superpowers like you were talking about last night or whatever, can that be Ezra's superhero name? 'Cause apparently he's weird about fruit."

"Was this, like, a hypothetical situation you guys were discussing?" Marisol asks, grabbing some chips and fruit and using a metal spoon to scoop some of the French onion dip onto her plate. "All of us having superpowers?"

Maybe it's better that this topic has come up again without me needing to guide them to it, and with Marisol here as well. Maybe, unprompted, one of them will give up something potentially useful.

"Antigone is literally a superhero already," Dahlia replies. "With her—ability to turn things into wine. I dunno, that could always come in handy."

"Emergency communion!" Ezra offers, grabbing two jars—one full of something reddish, the other full of a brown paste—from the fridge and setting them on the counter, next to the bread. "Jesus 2.0! That's her superhero name."

"And we were talking about that and how you're a little bit psychic and I was curious if any of them could do anything like that," I explain.

"Well, Dahlia's not just a little bit psychic," Marisol replies, shoving her mouth full of chips slathered in French onion dip. "She's a full-blown medium."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"She can communicate with the dead," Marisol explains.

"You always make it seem sooo much more dramatic than it actually is." Dahlia rolls her eyes. "It's like—I usually just use a ouija board. Nothing spooky like in the movies. But I have hosted a séance or two."

"And you can see the future," Marisol adds.

Dahlia crosses her arms over her chest. "So can you."

"Yeah, but, like, I only get this gut feeling about things—nothing tangible," Marisol explains. "You can actually, like, see the future and predict what's gonna happen and shit."

"I just read tarot cards and tea leaves. Anyone could learn to do it."

Marisol rolls her eyes. "You literally predicted that Ben Atkinson's boyfriend was cheating on him months before he found out. Stop trying to downplay yourself. Assume the confidence of a mediocre white man."

Dahlia shrugs.

"Speaking of tea leaves!" Ezra says, appearing at the table with four tall, clear glasses full of chunks of ice, a lemon slice, and a cool brown liquid. He places one in front of each of our plates. "I made y'all some sweet tea."

I pick up my glass and take a sip. Sweet is really the only way I can think of to describe it.

He flits back off to the kitchen, where he grabs a knife to slice the bread with, and four more plates. Laying two pieces of bread on each plate, he spreads the contents of the jars out on them, then smooshes them together.

"Thanks, mom," Marisol calls.

"Why did you call him that?" I ask.

"Because he's such a mom," she replies.

"But he's not even a woman."

"Being a mom isn't something that's specific to women," Dahlia explains. "It's... a state of mind."

"Yeah," Marisol agrees, like she just said something really profound. "Also, watch this. Ezra, what's your favorite TV show?"

"House Hunters. House Hunters International if I'm feeling spicy."

"What's your dream car?"

"Probably a minivan."

"With the TV screens?"

"Oh, definitely."

"My point has been made." Marisol shrugs in a cocky sort of way. "Ezra is a mom. He's a childless guy, but he's a mom. If not in actuality, then in spirit."

Still not understanding, I opt for a new question instead. "What's he making?"

"Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," Ezra replies, carrying the plates over and setting one in front of each of us. He sits down, placing the final plate in front of himself. "Antigone, for the true American experience, crumble up some of the chips and put them on your sandwich."

Out of all of the food he's put out for us, I've yet to try any of it. In all honesty, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Back home, even on good days, when I was back home with my mom, we wouldn't have this nearly this much food. We certainly wouldn't have it so readily available, and in such high quality. On any given day at the agōgē, I'd be getting maybe a slice of bread, a handful of olives, a cup of black broth, and some game or something sweet if I was lucky—and quick enough to steal. That's it. For the entire day.

The food we had in Athens and while traveling, and our dinner last night—I had chalked their extravagance up to them being meals that others had prepared for us, with the intention of impressing us. But this lunch is something normal, something that Ezra quickly whipped up—not a fluke, but the kind of food that these Americans enjoy on the daily. And it's twice the amount that I'd see at feasts.

I take a mango slice to my mouth—very sweet. The pineapple is just as sweet, with a hint of sourness to it as well. Having never had any fruits other than what's native to Apollonisi—figs, grapes, peaches and nectarines, apricots, melons—my first taste of these tropical fruits is—to put it in a way that only Ezra Plath could—sexy. Next I try a plain potato chip, which is—if I had to describe it, it would be: the way that a crunch tastes. I dip the next one into some of the French onion dip and go through a life-altering experience, it tastes so drastically different than anything I have ever had in all of my eighteen years on this earth. Last is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is the perfect combination of explode-in-your-mouth sweet and slow-burn savory. After I try it on its own, I do what he told me and crumble some of the chips up onto the sandwich, adding just the right amount of crunch and salt.

"Ezra, you've outdone yourself, really," I tell him.

"I literally did the bare minimum."

"But you did it with love," I insist. "Now could you go get me that knife, the one you used to slice the bread? I want to see something."

Marisol and Dahlia exchange a look.

"I don't like where this is going," Marisol says.

"It's fine," Dahlia assures her. "What's the worst she's gonna do, stab him?"

That's exactly what I'm going to do.

With his mouth full of fruit, Ezra pushes back from the table and returns a moment later with the knife, crusted over with bread crumbs, peanut butter, and jelly.

"Let me see your hand," I tell him.

His face full of doubt, he stares at the knife. "Why?"

"Because I think your dad might have been a god and I want to test to see if you can heal yourself," I explain. "Do you trust me?"

I already know that he can heal himself. I saw it, when he hit his head so hard he blacked out back on Apollonisi and by the time we got to my house the wound had already healed. But I want to gauge his reaction to it happening in real-time, as well as possibly testing out my theory on Dahlia and Marisol. Out of the three of them, Ezra's more likely to be down to try it. If he does it first, then maybe Marisol and Dahlia will be coerced into trying it.

He looks over at Dahlia and Marisol, and both of them aggressively shake their heads at him. Nevertheless, he offers me his hand.

"Only because I trust you."