Chapter 342: Are You Cheating?
I stood there for a moment, watching the space where Wanda had been.
Was she embarrassed? Was that what that was, nearly letting herself cry against someone’s chest and then bolting the second a witness appeared? If so, I couldn’t really blame her. That was probably the most emotionally exposed she’d allowed herself to be in front of another person in a long time, maybe ever. The fact that she’d let it happen at all, even briefly, even while fighting it the entire way, that meant something.
At the very least, I could tell my words had gotten through. Something had shifted. I wanted to believe she’d at least stop entertaining the idea of handing herself over to the Starakians like some kind of offering, like that would fix anything or make anyone safer. I wanted to believe that.
I was really terrible at reading people’s emotions with any precision, so I couldn’t be certain. But something had changed in her eyes before she ran. I was holding onto that.
"You walk around with that honest face but underneath it you’re just a smooth talker stringing women along, aren’t you."
The warmth I’d been feeling evaporated instantly.
I turned around slowly.
Maribel was standing right there, arms already moving toward a cross, expression set somewhere between accusatory and deeply unimpressed.
"What was that for?" I asked. "I didn’t do anything to deserve that."
"Really." She tilted her head. "Where is your girlfriend right now?"
"Excuse me?"
"Cindy," she said flatly. "She’s your girlfriend. Correct?"
"She’s not—" The words came out and then stopped dead in my throat.
I couldn’t finish that sentence.
I stood there for a half second in internal conflict, because denying it, even just for the sake of keeping things quiet, keeping the whole arrangement ambiguous for now, sat completely wrong with me. Cindy was my girlfriend. She definitely was. She meant a lot to me. Saying otherwise, even as a technicality, even in a conversation I could explain away later, made me feel like something I didn’t want to be.
I shut my mouth.
"What’s your problem, Maribel," I sighed instead.
"My problem," she said, enunciating carefully, "is that you appear to be cheating on your girlfriend."
Of course. Of course she wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t seen anything and quietly go about her day. That wasn’t Maribel. Maribel was straight lines and direct angles, she saw something that looked wrong and she said so, immediately, without softening it first. I respected that about her.
Right now, in this specific moment, I respected it a lot less.
"I didn’t do anything that warrants that word," I said awkwardly. "If you’re confused about what you walked in on, Wanda was having a hard time. I was comforting her. That’s all it was."
"I’ve never seen anyone comfort a stranger like that," Maribel said, unmoved.
"She’s not a stranger. She’s a friend."
"Does that make it better?" Maribel raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, it’s already a little strange that you have this many close girl friends. Actually—" She paused, visibly counting something in her head. "You have more women friends than male friends, don’t you?"
I made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh.
That one landed somewhere tender and I wasn’t entirely sure why. It really hurt to hear that actually. Unfortunately I was never able to make friends before and first real male friend I made was Christopher and the world had to turn into apocalypse for that.
"You’re one of my friends," I said, pivoting. "So yes. Is that a problem?"
Maribel blinked. The accusatory posture faltered slightly. "I ...am?"
"Aren’t you?" I asked. "We’ve been through enough together and we talk pretty casually. I thought that was a given."
She looked caught off guard, like the idea hadn’t occurred to her and she wasn’t quite sure how to process it now that it had. Her arms shifted, crossed, then uncrossed again in a way that was completely unlike her usual composure.
"Well. If you want to think of it that way," she said, shrugging with a studied casualness that wasn’t fooling anyone. She almost seemed embarrassed.
I smiled without meaning to.
She really was cute wasn’t she when she wanted.
"What are you smiling at?" Her eyes narrowed the second she caught it, arms snapping back into their crossed position. "Stop that."
"Nothing," I said. "Anyway, you’re misreading the situation with Wanda. She needed someone to talk to. That’s all it was."
"About what?"
"Why are you interrogating me right now?" I asked.
"Because I’m deciding whether or not you’re a cheater," she said, like that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. "I have a strong opinion about cheaters."
"You’ve definitely never been in a relationship if you’re going around making judgments like that," I said.
"So you’re admitting it?" Her eyes sharpened. "You are cheating?"
"I am not!" I said, sharper than I intended.
And then the words sat there, as I started feeling uncomfortable.
In the strictest technical sense of the word, given that I had more than one girlfriend and none of them had formally announced that to the wider world yet ,was I, by some definitions, cheating?
God.
This was humiliating if not to say embarrassing.
"Alright, fine. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt." Maribel let out a short breath through her nose. "Honestly, I have a hard time actually picturing you having the nerve to cheat on anyone anyway."
"I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not," I said, wincing slightly.
"Compliment," she said without hesitation, already turning to walk. "Definitely a compliment. Anyway, I didn’t come over here just to interrogate you. Margaret sent me to find you. Something came up."
"Urgent?" I fell into step behind her.
"Not catastrophically, I think. Hard to tell exactly. Margaret just asked me to go get you." She paused. "That’s when I spotted you suspiciously following Wanda into an isolated corner of the building."
"Who do you think I am?" I asked, my expression perfectly flat.
"You never really know with people," she shrugged, completely unbothered.
"After everything I’ve done for you, that’s the level of trust I’ve earned?" I asked.
"Look, it was suspicious. You went off alone chasing after another woman instead of being with your girlfriend, excuse me for noticing," she said, rolling her eyes with impressive commitment.
I glanced at her sideways. "Speaking of which, keep the fact that Cindy is my girlfriend between us, would you?"
Maribel stopped mid-stride and turned to look at me like I’d just signed a confession. "So! You’re finally admitting it!"
"Yes, alright, I’m admitting it. Happy?" I said, deciding resistance was pointless at this stage.
"Very," she replied. "You’ve been so annoyingly vague about it every single time it came up. Never a straight answer, never anything clear."
"Well, now you have your straight answer. Keep it to yourself."
"Why?" She looked at me, puzzled. "Does nobody in your group even know?"
"Something like that," I said, with the kind of carefully neutral tone that communicates everything while technically saying nothing.
"But why would you—"
"Maribel." I looked at her calmly. "My love life is, with respect, none of your business."
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Then apparently decided there was no angle worth pursuing and lifted both shoulders in a shrug that managed to say ’fine, but I think this is strange’ without using a single word.
"Whatever," she said finally, and kept walking.
We made it back to the main area within a couple of minutes, and I spotted Martin before I heard him, standing with a small cluster of people, expression tight.
"Martin," I said as I reached him. "What’s going on?"
He turned. "Ryan, glad you’re here. It’s Teo’s group. Him and three others went out to scavenge, said they’d check west of here, and that was over two hours ago. They should’ve been back by now, easily. Nobody’s seen them."
West.
So not toward the Boardwalk, which sat to the east and was at least familiar ground with Marlon’s comment keeping an eye on things over there. West was the other side, barely scouted.
"I told them not to push too far out there," Martin said, his fists closing at his sides, with a guilty expression.
"I’ll go check," I said.
He turned to me quickly. "Ryan, you literally just came back—"
"Don’t worry about it," I said, cutting off the protest before it could build into something. "I’ll bring them back."
He held my gaze for a second, then nodded, something in his shoulders dropping. "Thank you."
I turned to go.
"Need a hand, boy?"
Marlon’s voice came from somewhere just behind me and I turned to find him standing there, arms loosely folded, watching me with a serious expression.
"No," I said. "You should stay here. Talk with Margaret, get those conversations going between the two of you. That’s more useful right now."
For the future of Margaret’s community, it would be perfect if they became friends for a start.
"I never had any intention of following you to begin with," he said, which made something twitch at the corner of my eye.
"Then what exactly do you want?" I asked, my voice turning dry.
Marlon shifted his gaze past me, landing squarely on Maribel. "It’d be a shame to lose someone as strategically valuable as you over something avoidable," he said mildly. "Maribel, go with him."
"W... wait, what?!" Maribel’s composure cracked immediately.
"I put you in charge of keeping an eye on Ryan back on the Boardwalk, didn’t I?" Marlon said with a calm expression. "Consider this a continuation of that responsibility."
"That was only within the Boardwalk! That was the arrangement!" She said.
"Do you have something more pressing to do right now?" Marlon asked, his tone shifting into the quieter expression as he pointed out she had indeed nothing else to do.
Maribel’s mouth opened. Closed. She glanced at me with an expression that very clearly communicated that she held me personally responsible for this entire situation.
Give me a break.
I offered nothing helpful in return.
She sighed and turned forward.
"Fine," she relented.
