Am I with Grath? Are we together? Or have I just been using him as emotional support and occasional sex while my life falls apart?
"I care about him," I say finally.
"But?"
"But what if caring isn't enough? What if I'm too broken or too scared or too—" I gesture vaguely at myself. "Too whatever I am to actually be what he needs?"
"What does he need?"
"I don't know. Someone stable. Someone who doesn't lash out when things get hard. Someone who can actually say how they feel without having a panic attack first."
"So, someone who's not you."
The bluntness stings.
"Yeah," I say quietly. "Someone who's not me."
Sienna sighs. Sets down her food. Reaches across the table to take my hand.
"Mar. You're spiraling."
"I'm being realistic."
"You're catastrophizing. There's a difference." She squeezes my fingers. "Grath cares about you. Anyone with eyes can see that. And yeah, maybe you said some hurtful things. But people fight. People mess up. It doesn't mean the whole relationship is doomed."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not if you actually talk to him instead of hiding in here like a hermit."
I want to argue. Want to explain all the logical reasons why Grath would be better off without me.
But before I can, there's a commotion outside.
Raised voices. A crash.
Sienna and I exchange a look, then rush to the window.
Grath is in the street. He's got someone pinned against a car. Someone in an expensive suit who I recognize with a jolt.
Janelle's assistant. The one who sabotaged the petition.
"You think you can just walk around here like you own the place?" Grath's voice carries through the glass. "You think no one's going to call you out for what you did?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the assistant stammers, his voice climbing into a higher register with each syllable. He tries to twist away, but Grath's hand is still flatagainst the car roof beside his head, boxing him in. "I was just, I was passing through?—"
"Just what?" Grath's voice is dangerously quiet now, the kind of quiet that carries better than shouting. "Just visiting the neighborhood you and your boss are trying to destroy? Just checking to see how desperate we all are yet?"
A crowd is forming. Of course it is. It's mid-afternoon on a Saturday, and Main Street is always busy at this hour. Mrs. Boris from the bookshop. The teenagers who hang out at the record store. The couple who run the vintage clothing boutique three doors down. All of them stopping, staring, pulling out their phones.
This is going to be bad. Really, really bad.
I'm already moving toward the door before I consciously decide to, my hands fumbling with the lock. This is exactly what Janelle wants—proof that Grath is violent, unstable, a threat to the community. She'll use this. She'll twist it into ammunition.
But Sienna's hand closes around my arm, firm enough to stop me.
"Wait."
"He's going to get arrested!" The words come out sharper, edged with the panic clawing up my throat.
