Rey noticed. He dried his hands on the dish towel, came and sat across from her. Tell me, he said. She looked at the table, then at him. Something different happened today, she said.
Different how? Garrett found me after school, not in a group alone in the parking lot. She looked at her hands. He didn't threaten me. He didn't say anything about the online stuff.
He just came and stood there for a second. And then he said, "I need to tell you something. " Ray was very still. Hand," he said. And then Marcus Webb came out of the building and called his name. And Garrett looked at Marcus and then looked back at me and the thing on his face.
It closed down like a door closing. She paused. He said, "Never mind. " And walked away. Ry thought about what Dot had told him. Garrett in the diner on Sunday mornings when Harrove wasn't there.
The different person, the one who held doors and listened to his mother, the door that opened and closed depending on who was watching. He was going to tell you something he didn't want Marcus to hear. Ry said, "That's what I think. " Mia said, "How did he look specifically? " He thought about it tired. Like, she searched for the word like someone who's been carrying something heavy and for just a second thought about putting it down and then remembered they couldn't. Ry nodded slowly.
He thought about being 18 years old and believing the only options available to you were the ones someone else had decided on. He'd been 24 before he understood that wasn't true. And the understanding hadn't saved him from 15 more years of wrong turns. "What do you think he was going to say? " he asked. Maya looked at him steadily.
"I think he was going to tell me that he was doing it because Hargrove told him to not because he chose to. And you think that matters? " She was quiet for a moment. "Think it doesn't change what he did, but I think it changes what he is. " She paused. Mom used to say there's a difference between the choices people make and the conditions that made those choices feel like the only options. Rey looked at his daughter.
Linda had said that. He remembered her saying it in the context of him in the early years when she was trying to understand the shape of who he'd been. He hadn't known Mia remembered it. What do you want to do? He said, I want to talk to him.
She said alone without the audience. She looked at Ry directly not to forgive him, not yet to understand him. Because if he knows something about Hard Grove and he's trying to get it out, that matters. Ry looked at his daughter for a long moment, 17 years old, thinking three steps ahead and checking her own motivations in the same breath. Be careful, he said.
I know. If he says anything specific about Harrove, "You tell me word for word. Don't interpret. Don't summarize. " "Word for word, word for word," she said. She finally took her jacket off.
Two days later, Wednesday, Mia found the moment after practice, the parking lot emptying. She came around the side of the gym building and Garrett was there alone this time, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at his phone without really looking at it. He looked up when she came around the corner. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Maya said, "You were going to tell me something Monday. " Garrett looked at the ground, then back at her.