9. Maris #2
"You're catastrophizing. There's a difference." She squeezes my fingers. "Grath cares about you. Anyone with eyes can see that. And yeah, maybe you said some hurtful things. But people fight. People mess up. It doesn't mean the whole relationship is doomed."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not if you actually talk to him instead of hiding in here like a hermit."
I want to argue. Want to explain all the logical reasons why Grath would be better off without me.
But before I can, there's a commotion outside.
Raised voices. A crash.
Sienna and I exchange a look, then rush to the window.
Grath is in the street. He's got someone pinned against a car. Someone in an expensive suit who I recognize with a jolt.
Janelle's assistant. The one who sabotaged the petition.
"You think you can just walk around here like you own the place?" Grath's voice carries through the glass. "You think no one's going to call you out for what you did?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the assistant stammers, his voice climbing into a higher register with each syllable. He tries to twist away, but Grath's hand is still flat against the car roof beside his head, boxing him in. "I was just, I was passing through—"
"Just what?" Grath's voice is dangerously quiet now, the kind of quiet that carries better than shouting. "Just visiting the neighborhood you and your boss are trying to destroy? Just checking to see how desperate we all are yet?"
A crowd is forming. Of course it is. It's mid-afternoon on a Saturday, and Main Street is always busy at this hour.
Mrs. Boris from the bookshop. The teenagers who hang out at the record store.
The couple who run the vintage clothing boutique three doors down.
All of them stopping, staring, pulling out their phones.
This is going to be bad. Really, really bad.
I'm already moving toward the door before I consciously decide to, my hands fumbling with the lock. This is exactly what Janelle wants—proof that Grath is violent, unstable, a threat to the community. She'll use this. She'll twist it into ammunition.
But Sienna's hand closes around my arm, firm enough to stop me.
"Wait."
"He's going to get arrested!" The words come out sharper, edged with the panic clawing up my throat.
"He's making a scene," Sienna says calmly. "Let him."
"That's not helping—"
"Isn't it?"
But then Grath steps back. Holds up his hands in a gesture that's clearly visible to every camera pointed at him.
"I'm not threatening you," he says loudly. "I'm just asking a question. Why sabotage a petition that was trying to save local businesses? What did you have to gain?"
The assistant sputters, his face going blotchy with indignation. He tries to push past Grath, one hand fumbling for his car door handle, but Grath doesn't move. Doesn't touch him—just stands there, solid as a wall, waiting.
Someone in the crowd shouts, "Answer him!" A woman's voice, sharp and demanding. I can't see who.
Another voice joins in, deeper this time. "Yeah, what's your deal? You got something to hide?"
Then more voices. A murmur that builds into actual questions, actual outrage. The crowd isn't dispersing. They're turning on the assistant instead.
The assistant's face goes red. He yanks open his car door and practically dives inside. The engine roars to life and he peels away from the curb, nearly clipping a parked bike.
The crowd erupts in mutters and speculation, a ripple of voices that grows louder and more animated with each passing second. People pull out their phones, already typing, already spreading whatever narrative feels most dramatic. I can practically see the social media posts forming in real time.
Grath stands there for a moment, solid and unmoving amid the chaos he's just created. His shoulders are still tense, his hands loose at his sides. He's breathing hard—I can see the rise and fall of his chest even from here, through the smudged glass of the café window.
Then he sees me.
Our eyes meet across the distance, across the shifting bodies of the crowd and the glare of afternoon sunlight on glass.
His expression is unreadable at first. Something shuttered and careful. Guarded in a way I haven't seen from him before, not since those first awkward days when he barely looked at me, when every word felt like he was testing whether I'd flinch.
There's a question in his eyes. Or maybe a plea. I can't tell which.
I want to go to him. Want to push through the door and cross the street and tell him, what? That I saw what he did? That I'm grateful? Terrified? Both?
But I don't move.
And maybe he sees that hesitation. Maybe that's what it does.
Because then he turns and walks the other direction. Back toward his rowhouse, his stride long and purposeful, his broad shoulders cutting through the lingering crowd like a ship through water.
Not toward me.
Not toward the café.
Away.
That night, I discover Pebble is missing.
I tore apart the café three times. Checked every cabinet, every shelf, every stupid hiding spot I've found her in over the past few weeks.
Nothing.
She's gone.
Panic tastes like copper. Like the moment before you fall, when your stomach drops and your lungs forget how to work and everything inside you seizes up with the knowledge that impact is inevitable and approaching fast.
I call Grath first. Not Sienna. Not the community board. Not even the emergency number I've got saved for the local shelter.
Grath.
Because he's the one who found her. The one who brought her to me wrapped in that ridiculous flannel shirt, his massive hands so careful around her tiny body. The one who talks to her in that invented nursery rhythm I pretend not to hear when he thinks I'm busy.
The one who would drop everything and tear apart the entire street looking for her.
It goes to voicemail. His voice is gruff, matter-of-fact: "Can't answer. Leave words."
I swallow hard. "Hey. Um. Pebble's missing. I can't find her anywhere. If you—if you see her, can you let me know? Please?"
My voice cracks on the last word. I hate that. Hate how small I sound, how desperate.
I hang up before I can say anything else stupid. Gaze at the phone like it might ring immediately with good news, like he might call back right this second and tell me she's curled up on his doorstep or tangled in the tomato plants he keeps trying to grow in those lopsided pots.
It doesn't.
The screen stays dark and silent.
I call Sienna next. She answers on the second ring, her voice muzzy with sleep but sharpening the instant I explain. She promises to come over and help search. Tells me not to panic, that cats are resourceful, that Pebble's probably just exploring.
I want to believe her.
I can't.
Then I just. Sit.
On the floor behind the counter, knees drawn up to my chest, flour dust smudging my jeans. The café feels enormous around me. Too bright. Too empty. Every shadow looks like a kitten that isn't there.
The café is too quiet without Pebble's demanding meows. Without her tiny paws tapping across the counter.
Without Grath's heavy footsteps and his ridiculous questions about espresso machines.
The emptiness is suffocating.
I think about the last thing I said to him. About not needing anyone.
What a stupid, cowardly lie.
I need him. Need his steadiness and his awful metaphors and the way he looks at me like I'm something precious instead of something broken.
I need Pebble's entitled attitude and her soft purrs and the way she curls up between us at night like she's claiming both of us.
I need my café and my community and the life I've built here.
And I'm losing all of it because I was too scared to admit I needed help.
Too scared to admit I needed him.
Sienna arrives with flashlights and a determined expression. We search the café again. Then the alley behind it. Then the neighboring buildings.
No sign of Pebble.
"She probably just snuck out," Sienna says. "Cats do that. She'll come back when she's hungry."
"What if she doesn't?"
"She will."
But Sienna's voice wavers. Just slightly.
We search until three in the morning. Until my feet ache and my voice is hoarse from calling Pebble's name.
Nothing.
Sienna makes me promise to get some sleep. To start fresh in the morning.
I nod. Agree to things I know I won't do.
When she leaves, I climb the stairs to the roof.
The roof is where I come when I need to think. When the café feels too small and my thoughts too loud.
It's freezing tonight. The late autumn wind cuts through my jacket like it has a personal vendetta, finding every gap and seam, making me shiver despite the layers. The cold bites at my cheeks and makes my eyes water—or maybe that's not just the wind.
I should go back inside. Make tea. Try to sleep, though sleep feels impossible right now, a distant concept that belongs to people whose lives aren't actively falling apart.
Instead, I sit on the ledge, legs dangling over empty air, and stare out at the neighborhood I've come to love despite myself.
Most of the rowhouses are dark at this hour, their residents safely tucked into bed with normal problems and normal sleep schedules.
A few windows still glow with warm yellow light, scattered like stars in the urban darkness.
Lives happening in small, contained spaces.
People with their own dramas and joys and mundane routines, probably not sitting on rooftops at three in the morning questioning every life choice they've ever made.
Grath's window is lit. I can just see the edge of it from here, a warm rectangle in the darkness.
Is he awake? Thinking about me? Replaying our conversation the way I am, picking apart every word and gesture and the terrible things I said?
Or has he already moved on? Already decided I'm too much trouble, too closed-off, too fundamentally incapable of accepting what he was offering?
The thought makes my chest ache worse than the cold air burning my lungs.