In the back seat, I put an arm around Charlotte. She folds into me, like she’s been holding herself together until now. I press my mouth to the top of her head and don’t say anything.
The city moves past outside. She doesn’t speak the whole way home.
We get inside the house, and I shut the door behind us. She stands in the entryway for a few seconds. Then it hits.
I catch her as she folds, holding her against me. There’s nothing useful to say, so I don’t try. I just let her cry. Let her get it out.Eventually it eases, her breathing settling enough that she can pull back and wipe her face with the sleeve of her jacket.
“I hate it here.”
“I know, babe.”
“Take me back, Dane.” Her voice is wrecked. “To the island. Where Connor is. This place is awful. People are disgusting. I was happy there. We were happy.”
Something tight pulls in my chest. “I know we were.”
“I don’t understand this world. I don’t understand why they won’t leave us alone. I want to go home. Our real home.”
I take her face in my hands and wait until she looks at me.
“I’d take you back if it was safe,” I say. “If it was somewhere we could actually live instead of just surviving one day at a time. But we were fighting to stay alive out there. Every storm. Every dry season. Every time one of us got sick.” I shake my head. “I’m not taking you back to that. I won’t put you at risk again.”
She closes her eyes. She knows. I can feel it in the way she settles, even though it still hurts.
Some things aren’t really requests. They’re just grief looking for somewhere to go.
After a while, we move to the couch. I sit beside her, and she pulls her knees up.
“What do we do?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then?—
“Would it stop if we gave them the story? Would that be enough? Would they leave us alone?”
“No.” I don’t hesitate. “I’m not letting anyone push us into handing over our lives just to get a bit of peace. That story is ours. What happened out there belongs to us. No one else.” I shake my head. “I’m not giving it away because some idiot in a grocery store thinks he’s entitled to it.”
She turns that over, quiet again. “What about—” She stops, then starts again. “What if we gave them something else? Something to look at?”
“Like what?”
“What if we were seen with other people? Dating. So the world thinks?—”
“No.” The answer is immediate.
“Just listen?—”
“Charlotte—”
“It wouldn’t be real. Just for the cameras. They’d see us with other people and lose interest, because there’d be nousto focus on.” She holds my gaze. “They’d get bored and move on.”
The idea feels wrong the second it forms.
Charlotte walking into a restaurant with someone else’s hand at her back.
Charlotte standing next to another man, close enough for people to fill in the rest.
Me watching from a distance, pretending it doesn’t mean anything.
