My hands freeze. “Anyone would have done that.” Except the reverend. He would have happily fed me to the zombies to save his own skin.
“Thought maybe we could…” She takes another bite, chews, then swallows. “Bond over our shared trauma?”
I place a tiny cucumber sandwich next to the quiche. “You don’t have to be nice to me.”
“I’m not being nice. I’m being honest.” Her blue eyes are steady, unflinching.
“Look,” I say, “I get it if you hate me. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“I don’t hate you.” She frowns. “Why would I?”
“Because I was going to marry Cameron? Because my father blackmailed your boyfriend’s family?”
“Did you know about the blackmail?”
“No.”
“Then why would I blame you?” She tilts her head. “That’s on your dad, not you.”
The simplicity of her words doesn’t reflect the complicated, mixed emotions they spark inside me.
Why would she blame me?
I stare at my hands, arranging tiny, perfect bites of food that no one will appreciate, and I’m still doing it—trying to make things acceptable, even as the world crumbles around us.
What would happen if I just… stopped?
If I let the plates crash to the floor, walked out, and never looked back?
“Dakota?” She places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes flick to the ground before returning to mine. “I wish we’d figured it out before all this. Before you got caught in the crossfire. I got into a big fight with Cam about it, but I understood where he was coming from. He felt the need to save his family. All his time, Julien—Anyway, what I wanna say is I’m sorry.”
I stare at her. Not sure what to say. How did we go from ‘she should be hating me’ to ‘her apologizing’?
My mother will hate me for what I’m going to say next. “Can I—” Tell you that I was actually relieved he didn’t go through with it, although we need the money? “You don’t have to apologize. Everything happens for a reason, right? Besides, you two obviously have… belong together.”
Her features soften. “He’s my person. Has been since that stupid corporate team-building retreat where he fell off the climbing wall and landed on his ass. I knew right then.”
I feel a strange twinge.
“Do you have someone?”
I laugh, the sound sharp and brittle. “No.”
“Not even a crush? Some celebrity?”
“Not since I was fourteen and plastered my walls with boy band posters.” My mother made me take them down.
She snorts. “Can I ask you something? For real?”
“Depends on the question.”
“Were you in love with Cam?”
“Why does it matter now?”
