Page 80 of The Marriage Narrative
“Good night,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Zinnia
Being severely burned out and homesick for two weeks hadn’t been on Zinnia’s schedule. So, she showed up where she wassupposed to be, went through all the required Zaffre motions, and did her best to be present. They probably didn’t even notice she was going through it. Or care.
She still wasn’t entirely better but was finally beginning to feel closer to her usual self.
Sort of.
While walking to the pocket forest, she took a rogue left turn and headed for the nearest kitchen instead. The house had three—one full and two smaller ones for outdoor entertaining at the pool and open yard, respectively. Naturally.
Honey Gingerclickedat her.
“Follow my lead or don’t.” Zinnia managed a smile that felt more demented than friendly. “I don’t care today.”
Production lived and thrived by scheduling, so she truly didn’t expect to cross paths with Wylie, randomly sitting on the floor and playing catch against the opposite empty wall.
He set one headphone back behind his ear. “Where are you going?”
“Rogue.”
He smirked. “Took you long enough.”
Two good things happened post-attack.
Grace had been right. Everyone was nice to her now, especially Lulie. She apologized for everything and kept changing her schedule to spend time with Zinnia instead.
But then, lo and behold, Eric had been granted visitation rights. He was with Lulie now, off doing whatever teenagers in love did.
Without his twin, Wylie had been left to wander around solo. Zinnia had only seen him at dinner lately.
“Is this what you’ve been doing all day?” she asked.
“There’s not much else around here. I don’t go into town anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Got tired of getting recognized.” He shrugged. “It’s never like, ‘Oh hey, I’ve seen your show, do you wanna hang out?’ Everyone is always so weird about it. Like, obviously taking pictures of me is kind of weird.”
“So, you chose the bubble.”
His face scrunched in confusion. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Nope, but it’s okay that you did.” She dropped her bag and sat next to him. “Personally, if someone did that to me, I’d taketheirpictures and go talk to them about it.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve never had a problem with confrontation until I came here. You Zaffres were just too much for me.”
“Because you were trying to be nice.” He said it so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. His camera pod noticeably shifted positions to get a better angle.
“I was,” she admitted. “I really did want everyone to like me. At first.”
“But now you’re rogue.”
“I am.” She grinned. “I’m also too stubborn to actually give up.”
Wylie started throwing and catching the ball again. Visions of being “accidentally” beaned in the forehead made her instinctively lean away from him.
