Chapter 29
“Who told you about this place again?” Taissa asked, looking over the restaurant.
“Justine,” Sienna said on a sigh. Perhaps coming here hadn’t been the best idea, but she knew her mother had secured the reservation to make Sienna feel better—and because she had, indeed, not been able to shut up about Min-ji’s heavenly food.
“That makes sense.” Taissa put her hand on Sienna’s arm. “Because she’s here.”
“No way,” their mother said. “Oh, come on.”
Sienna didn’t have a choice. She had to have a peek. She looked over her shoulder, straight into Justine’s face. She quickly glanced away, wondering who the tall, Black woman with the shaved head was opposite Justine.
“We can leave,” Sienna’s mother said. “We’ll get take-out and eat at home.”
Sienna shook her head. “No. It’s fine. We’re going to be in the same room sooner rather than later. I’d best get used to it.” Who the hell was that woman? And why did seeing Justine sitting across from her make Sienna feel more uneasy than looking into Justine’s face? It was hardly rocket science. Sienna was jealous. How beyond ludicrous.
“If you’re sure.” Her mother looked Sienna in the eye. “I want you to feel better. That’s the only purpose of this restaurant visit. If her being here prevents that, there’s no point in staying.”
“The food will be delicious. I want you and Tai to taste it.”
Min-ji appeared at their table. Sienna introduced her mother and sister and then asked Min-ji to bring them whatever she thought was best—just as she’d done on Justine and Sienna’s first date, that hadn’t been a date at all, until one thing had led to another.
Sienna was sure Justine would never admit to it, but this was the place she brought people to that she wanted to secretly impress. Was she on a date with that improbably broad-shouldered woman?
Sienna couldn’t stop herself. She glanced over her shoulder again. Justine and the woman appeared in deep conversation.
“Keep your attention on us,” Taissa said. “Fuck Justine.”
“I’m just wondering who she’s here with,” Sienna whispered, as though Justine might overhear.
“Oh, I know who that is.” Taissa’s eyebrows arched all the way up. “That’s Marcy Baptiste, Nora Levine’s notoriously tough personal trainer. I read about her in a fitness magazine.”
Marcy? Justine’s ex-girlfriend? Was she rekindling an old flame now that Sienna had broken things off? That was a bit quick—as well as impossible for Sienna to stomach.
“Does it look as though they’re, um, together?” Sienna asked her sister, who had a better view of Justine’s table.
“Baby, come on,” her mother said. “Forget about Justine. What is this? The middle school lunch table?” Her mother fixed her gaze on Sienna. “We’re all adults here. Let’s not regress to teenage girls gossiping about their exes.”
Min-ji brought over the first plate of food—the same kind of scallion pancakes Sienna’d had when she’d come with Justine. Sienna soon realized that they should have taken the food to go. She couldn’t eat with Justine only a few feet away from her. With Justine on a possible date with her ex, Marcy.
“I don’t know what Justine’s like,” Taissa said, completely ignoring their mother’s admonishment. “But surely she’s not already dating again. She only turned up at the house asking for you the day before yesterday.”
Sienna nodded, but so much could happen in a few days—her father had died in the blink of an eye. Maybe Justine needed a shoulder to cry on and she had, in a moment of weakness, called her ex. Hadn’t it ended on bad terms between her and Marcy? Sienna could speculate all she wanted, she’d never know. She was going a little nuts at the mere sight of Justine. They hadn’t had proper closure—that much was true.
Taissa cleared her throat, pulling Sienna from her foolish train of thought.
“Looks like she’s coming over,” Taissa said. “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”
Then Justine was standing right next to Sienna. She ignored Maxine and Taissa and focused on Sienna’s side of the table.
“Can we talk, please?” Her voice was soft and low. “Just for a few minutes? We can go outside.”
“Sienna doesn’t—” her mother started, but Sienna held up her hand to cut her off.
“It’s okay, Mom. I can speak for myself.” Her mother had been doing a bit too much talking for Sienna lately. She glanced up at Justine. “Yes, we can talk.” She pushed her chair back and told her mother and sister she’d be right back.
Justine, who clearly knew her way around the place, led them to a door at the back. This gave Sienna a chance to get a good look at Marcy. This was the kind of woman Justine dated? She looked like an Amazonian warrior, with muscles so pronounced you could easily see them through her T-shirt.
A few moments later they stood in the restaurant’s small backyard.
“Thanks for, um, agreeing to?—”
“Is that your ex?” Sienna asked.
“Oh, Marcy? Yeah. I ran into her on set.” She pursed her lips. “She’s dating Mimi’s daughter now. Small world, right?”
For the first time since seeing Justine with Marcy, Sienna could properly breathe again. She had been irrationally jealous. But so what? She was also still angry at Justine.
“Hey, um,” Justine said when Sienna didn’t reply. “I haven’t had the chance to properly tell you how sorry I am for not being at your dad’s funeral. I am really sorry, Sienna. I need you to know that.”
“It made me feel I can’t trust you,” Sienna said.
“I get that, but—” Justine took a step closer.
In response, Sienna stepped back. She didn’t want to stand closer to Justine. She wasn’t sure what it might do to her. Justine was looking all Justine again with her practical clothes and chaotically pushed back hair, impossibly regal and righteous all at the same time, despite being in the middle of an apology to Sienna.
“It made me feel like you don’t have my back because I’m not important enough to you,” Sienna said. “That’s not how I want to feel when I’m dating someone.” Not at this stage, anyway. Sienna was all for trying to win over someone seemingly impenetrable—someone exactly like Justine—at the beginning of a relationship, but when push came to shove, they had to show up for her. That was the ultimate pay-off. And Justine had failed the biggest test life had thrown at her—at them.
“There’s not much I can say to make this better. I did what I did and I can’t rewind the clock and do things differently. But sometimes our actions don’t reflect how we feel, because I hate that I made you feel like you’re not important to me. Because you are. You’re so important to me. You must know that.”
Justine was right about one thing. Nothing she said could change what she had done. On top of that, what she was saying now was totally inadequate and didn’t make a blind bit of difference to Sienna.
“I’m not just angry at you for leaving me in the lurch like that.” When Sienna lay awake, counting slow minutes through another sleepless night, the image of that empty chair at the church often came back to her—the very symbol of Justine’s glaring absence. “I’m also angry because my anger makes me feel like a selfish brat after what happened to Ashleigh. It’s not that I don’t get that you wanted to be there for her. That’s who you are. I know that. It’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to you. But you’ve still made this impossible for me.”
“It was kind of an impossible situation,” Justine said, her voice nothing more than a broken whisper.
“Yeah.” Sienna swallowed something out of her throat. “It’s sad because I really like you. But I don’t want to be with you anymore. I can’t. That would be a big mistake and really stupid of me. I know that much.” A tear dangled from Sienna’s eyelash and crashed onto her cheek. “I’m not going to give you my heart to have you trample all over it again next time the situation is impossible. I can’t count on life being easy that way. And I can’t count on you either.” Sienna tried to steady herself by taking a deep breath. If she stayed here any longer, the waterworks would start churning uncontrollably. “I’m going back to my family.” She walked past Justine to the door.
“Sienna, please.” Justine tried to grab Sienna’s hand, but Sienna avoided her grasp. She had to get out of there pronto. She had to get away from Justine—she had to protect herself.