Page 90 of Playing to Win

“She broke up with you?”

Katie nodded, her lips pressed so tight they were turning white.

“Because of aselfie?” he asked. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Not the picture,” she choked out, shoving her phone at him. “The caption.”

He brought up her Instagram app and looked at the photo she’d posted of them ten minutes ago. Underneath she’d writtenHanging with @WarriorColin after a long day’s canvas.

Colin guessed Siobhan wasn’t raging about Katie misspellingcanvass. “You never told her you were campaigning, did you?”

Katie shook her head, tucking in her chin, her shoulders beginning to jerk with the effort not to cry.

“Still,” he said, “it’s pure madness to break up with you over it.” He opened his arms. “C’mere.”

“I can’t—” Katie hugged her own waist as if literally holding herself together. “If I hug you, I’ll cry, and I don’t want to cry in front of all these happy people. It’s bad luck.”

“I think the movement will survive one lass’s tears.” He gently took her wrists. “C’mon, stiff upper lips look silly on American faces.”

She choked out a laugh that morphed into a sob, then reached out to draw him close. “I can’t believe this is happening.” Her body shook against his. “We’ve been together seven months. We loved—” She hiccuped. “We loved each other. Now she hates me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is! After that stupid poll came out Sunday, she got all scared. She got mean.”

Colin thought of how shell-shocked Andrew had looked Sunday morning before the canvass. Would he have turned vicious too, if he’d not witnessed the reality of Colin’s life?

He hugged Katie tighter. “She might come back. Maybe after the referendum—”

“It’ll be worse!” She pulled away so hard, he almost fell over. “If we come this close to winning and still lose, we’ll be crushed. If we win, and we’ve destroyed the Union—” She lifted an arm toward the pigeon-shite-splattered statue of Queen Victoria. “They’ll hate us.”

Colin dreaded either scenario, and right now, he’d no idea which was more likely. Thinking of the nineteenth of September, the day after the referendum, was like looking into a pitch-black crystal ball. “I don’t know,” he said, “it’s been bitter at times, but we’re still one people.”

“No, you’re not.” Katie reached into her pocket and pulled out a ragged tissue that looked like it had already sopped up its share of tears. “I’ve seen it happen in the States. Democrats and Republicans read different newspapers, watch different networks, eat different chicken—”

“Chicken?”

“Chick-fil-A hates gays, remember?” She dabbed at her nose with what was left of the tissue. “My point is, everything is political. Saying ‘Merry Christmas!’ offends liberals, and saying ‘Happy Holidays!’ offends conservatives. Everyone just talks to people they agree with.” She gave up on the tattered tissue and used her sleeve to wipe her face. “Twitter makes it worse, cos you can just tune out anyone with a different point of view. I hate seeing Scotland turn into that.”

“Me too.” Colin looked around the square, at the smiling faces and dancing weans, at the dogs with wagging tails and lasses with waving flags. In the middle ofthis, it seemed every Scot wanted independence. It seemed so possible and peaceful and right.

Yet in his canvassing, he’d met No voters who weren’t stupid, or feart, or uninformed. They simply loved being part of the United Kingdom, with all their hearts, hearts that would break if the sun rose a week on Friday to a shattered Union.

But all births came with pain, and this birth of a new country would be worth it. It had to be.

= = =

“It’s. An actual. Castle.”

“Yes.” Andrew switched off the Tesla and peered at Colin’s face, which was alarmingly pale. “I mentioned that, did I not?”

“I thought you were joking.” Colin seemed to be struggling to breathe.

“My jokes are usually funnier than that.”

Looking entirely unamused, Colin gripped the dashboard as he leaned forward to examine Dunleven Castle through the windscreen.

Andrew gestured to the Tudor-Gothic portion of his home—whose rose-gray facade, he noticed, had lost a few more stones since his last visit. “This bit to the right here is about two hundred years old. It’s where I grew up.”

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