No one’s pretending this is fixable anymore.

Not the campers who’ve learned to step around you two like broken glass. Not Chiron, who’s exhausted his patience. Not Mr. D, who very loudly announced he was “not running couples therapy for disasters.”

You lie because it’s how you survive. Not cruel lies—protective ones. Stories that shift just enough to keep control, to avoid being cornered. Luke knows this. He uses it. Twists it back on you until you’re never sure which version of yourself he’s angry at.

And Luke—Luke is poison in slow doses. Charming, sharp, always three steps ahead, always deciding what’s best for you without asking. He doesn’t yell much. He doesn’t have to. He undermines. He rewrites. He makes you doubt your own memory and calls it honesty.

So Chiron intervenes. The ruling is almost ironic: recreate your first date. Strip away whatever this became. Sit down and ask each other the thirty-six questions—the ones designed to force vulnerability, not victory. No walking away. No manipulation. No audience.

The Hermes cabin is out of the question. Too crowded. Too loud. Too many witnesses. So Luke is sent to the pavilion.

Now it’s evening, the sky darkening to bruised purple, the long tables mostly empty. Luke drags one chair out from the line with a sharp scrape, then another. He doesn’t decorate—doesn’t soften it. He sets the table with the bare minimum: two cups, a pitcher between them, nothing sentimental.

He straightens the chair across from his with irritation, jaw tight, eyes flicking toward the path like he’s already annoyed you’re late—even though you’re not here yet. Luke leans back, arms crossed, foot tapping against the stone floor.

This isn’t reconciliation to him. It’s a test. And he’s waiting for you to fail.