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SEBASTIAN
Baron’s coffee shop was sparsely occupied by blue shirts and no one else.
I wished at least a few yellow shirts hadn’t boycotted the place for choosing the anti-Goody’s side. The echo chambers were too strong—we’d never win if we couldn’t recruit, and some fence-straddlers could make all the difference in the world.
As it was, the coffee shop wasn’t full like usual. But the other side had gone on a hard campaign to boycott any businesses that supported our cause, and it’d been working a little too well. The town had been divided so deeply, I didn’t know how we’d recover. And all because of Mitchell and his money grab. He’d do anything to get what he wanted, even if it meant bankrupting Main Street.
I stuffed my change in the tip jar and headed out front, wishing I could sit for a minute and enjoy the weather before it got too hot to be outside. But if I sat, I’d have to talk to whoever stopped, and that was the very last thing I wanted to do.
It’d been a few days since everything had fallen apart, and I was still stretched too thin to chit chat or answer any hard questions. I probably shouldn’t have left home at all, but if I had to sit there for one more minute, I was going to lose it.
Instead, I’d headed to the restaurant to check in. Mom had been working there almost every day while Abuela recovered. Of course, half of the time, Abuela went with Mom, wheeling around everywhere she could get to, insistent on making sure everything was running smoothly with her own eyes. While I was down here, I figured I’d visit a few shops to show my support.
I’d just turned up the sidewalk in front of Baron’s when I saw Marnie, though she was too busy unloading her computer onto an iron table and digging through her bag to see me.
I paused, wondering if I should turn and walk the other way or talk to her. Not for my sake, but for hers. She’d had enough to deal with between me and Presley and Priscilla. I didn’t want her to suffer any more than she already had.
I’d nearly reached her table before she finally saw me—her expression shifted from neutral into overdrive, too surprised to mask the myriad of emotions that my presence had called upon. Her hands paused over her laptop with a charging cord in her fist.
“Hey,” I said stupidly.
“Hey,” she echoed. “Can I … help you?”
A chuckle puffed out of me. “I thought it would be weirder if I just walked by without saying hi. Wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong.”
She softened. Smiled. I caught a glimpse of the girl I used to know and the woman I married. The woman I was still technically married to. The one I’d hurt worse than she’d ever hurt me. Even when we were fighting every day, even when we couldn’t find common ground, even when things were at their worst, they were never so bad for her as when I left her.
“You sure you want to be seen with the enemy?” she asked with one brow arched. “It might hurt your cause.”
“Are you sure you want to be seen sitting at Baron’s? I figured you know this place was on the no-fly list.”
“The people of this town might be able to survive without caffeine, but not me. They’ll live.”
“The mayor’s daughter? I can see the headline already. Well, except that the editor is pro-mayor. Don’t know that he’d let anything pass that hurt Mitchell.”
At that, she hardened again. “Why do you always do that? You always find a way to slide in an insult.”
I nodded, glancing at the ground. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything charitable to say about him. Tear gas didn’t make it better.”
“Well, trust me—the feeling’s mutual. And that wasn’t Daddy’s fault. The tear gas.”
I watched her for a moment. “Why do you always defend him? No matter what he does, no matter what he says, it’s gospel.”
“Aside from him being my father? Maybe it’s that I love and believe him. I’m loyal like that, unlike someone else we know.” She laid a pointed look on me.
I couldn’t argue the jab—Marnie had always stuck with me, even when I hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve it. That curious, churning mixture of guilt and hurt whirled around in my ribcage.
“Sometimes being loyal isn’t a good thing, Marnie. Look at what I put you through, and you stuck with me, even when I didn’t deserve it.”
All of a sudden, exhaustion washed over her, the fight seeping out of every limb. “It’s so much easier to be mad at you than admit my part in it. I wasn’t exactly easy to deal with—sometimes it felt like fighting was the only way we knew how to love each other. And it’s true … I loved you through the worst of it, even though in the end, it was me who left. So don’t sell yourself short. I was loyal to you because I believed in you—in us—until I realized it wouldn’t change anything. I’m loyal to Daddy because I trust him.”
