Chapter 94: I’m Happy… Yeah. I’m Definitely Happy

Son had called her name somewhere in the parking lot. She’d registered it and kept walking.

Jenna was already deeper inside, moving toward the food section with the casual pace of someone running a normal errand. Maya grabbed a basket from the stand near the entrance and followed.

Then she slowed.

She was three steps in, basket in hand, trailing a girl she hadn’t spoken to in months through a supermarket she had entered specifically because she saw that girl through a car window.

That was a problem.

She stopped. Turned. Scanned the nearest aisle.

Chips. She picked up a bag without looking at the flavor. Turned down the next aisle. Detergent went in. Then cereal. Then pasta, even though she had no reason to own pasta, no pot to cook it in, and no plan for the foreseeable future that involved carbs.

She looked down at the basket.

It looked less like a shopping trip and more like she’d panicked in four different aisles.

That probably wasn’t enough.

She added a water bottle.

Better.

She turned around.

Jenna was already looking at her.

Not the startled kind of looking. The kind that meant she’d been watching for a moment and had already decided what it meant. Her expression didn’t shift — no surprise, no warmth, just the specific flatness of someone who had put two and two together and wasn’t impressed by either number.

Maya’s hand moved to her hair without her permission. She caught it halfway and set it back down.

Normal. She was going to act completely normal.

"Hey." She said it the way you greeted someone you happened to run into. Easy. Unbothered. "I didn’t expect to see you here."

Jenna looked at her for exactly one second, then turned back to the shelf she’d been browsing and kept moving.

Maya followed.

"It’s been a while," she said, falling into step beside her. "How’ve you been?"

"Fine."

"Yeah?" A beat. "Things good with school?"

"Mm."

Maya glanced sideways at her. The monosyllables were deliberate. Jenna wasn’t a monosyllable kind of person — she was the kind of person who could run three conversations at once and still pull out a detail from the first one twenty minutes later. This wasn’t small talk. This was a wall.

"Okay." Maya kept her voice light. "What did I do?"

Jenna didn’t answer immediately. She picked up something from the shelf, read the label, set it back.

"Nothing," she said. "You never do anything."

The way she said it told Maya exactly where this was heading.

"The breakup was fine," Maya said, and immediately hated that she’d said it without being asked. "We both moved on. I literally saw him yesterday. He seemed completely fine."

Jenna’s expression didn’t change. She moved to the next aisle.

"He looked different, though," Maya said, following. "Like — I don’t know. Different."

"How would you know what different looks like?" Jenna said. "You saw him for what, five minutes?"

"I could tell."

"From five minutes."

"From—" Maya stopped. "I’m just saying he seemed like he’d moved on. Which is good."

"He has."

"Right. That’s what I said."

"I mean he actually has." Jenna pulled something off the shelf without looking at her. "He has a girlfriend."

The basket handle pressed into Maya’s palm.

"Okay," she said. The word came out too even, which meant she’d tried too hard to keep it that way. "Who?"

"The redhead." Jenna said it the way you say something you’ve seen with your own eyes. "Saw them together myself."

"Are you talking about Rose?"

"Don’t know her name. Red hair." A small pause. "A little much, but whatever."

"Don’t." Maya’s voice came out flatter than she intended.

Jenna looked at her. "Don’t what?"

"Just don’t describe people like that."

A beat. Jenna’s expression didn’t change. But something in her eyes did.

"You broke up with him," she said. Her voice was quiet and not particularly kind. "You followed me into a supermarket. You’ve been talking about him since you walked over. And now you’re telling me how to describe the woman he’s seeing." A pause. "Tell me what I’m getting wrong."

"I’m not defending anyone." Maya kept her voice flat. "I’m just saying it’s not a good look."

"Sure." Jenna moved toward the checkout. "I have to go."

Maya watched her go.

A hand landed on her shoulder from behind.

"There you are." Son’s voice, easy and untroubled. He came around beside her and looked toward where Jenna had disappeared. "Who was that?"

"Old acquaintance."

"Didn’t look very acquainted."

"We have history." Maya shifted the basket in her hand. "It’s fine."

He looked at the basket. The pasta. The detergent. The cereal that wasn’t her brand. His gaze came back to her face with the quiet patience of someone doing math she hadn’t asked him to do. He didn’t say anything.

"You want to get out of here?" she said.

"I thought you needed something."

"I changed my mind." She set the basket on the nearest shelf. "Let’s go shopping. Actually shopping."

He studied her a moment. Then nodded.

They checked out with just the detergent and left.

Three stores after that. Son was easy company — the kind of person who didn’t need silence explained and didn’t fill it without reason. He commented on things. Held things up for her opinion. Made a dry remark about the shoes she was buying with no real occasion to wear them. He noticed when she reached for something she’d already owned and didn’t make a big deal of it, which was one of the reasons being around him was easy. Between the second store and the third she bought a dress she didn’t need in a color she already owned. Son held it against her and said something that was almost a compliment. She smiled and paid without checking the total. She answered when he spoke, kept her eyes moving, and didn’t land anywhere too long.

In the third store there was a woman with red hair near the back.

Jenna’s voice came back before she could stop it.

The redhead. Saw them together myself.

Maya thought about Rose’s words the night before. He isn’t the same guy anymore. She thought about the parking lot outside the apartment, Adrian’s jaw, the way she’d immediately told herself she hadn’t noticed any of it.

She picked up a jacket she had no intention of buying and stared at the lining.

When had this started.

She didn’t care. She wasn’t allowed to care.

That was all there was to it. She had moved on too.

She put the jacket down.

"Hey."

Son’s voice. His hand came to rest on the counter beside her, not touching, just close enough that she registered it. She looked up.

"What’s wrong," he said.

"Nothing."

He didn’t move. "You’ve been somewhere else since the supermarket."

She opened her mouth to say nothing again. Closed it.

"I texted you last night," she said instead.

He waited.

"I needed to talk to someone." She kept her voice flat. Not accusatory. Just honest. "You didn’t see it. I know you didn’t see it on purpose. But I was in a weird place and you weren’t there, and I just—" She stopped. "Felt stupid about it."

Son was quiet for a moment. Then: "You can come to me." No defense. No explanation. Just the statement, direct and even. "That’s the actual answer. You can."

Something in her chest loosened. The tension she’d been carrying in her shoulders eased before she could stop it.

He wasn’t the problem. She knew that.

She closed the distance between them and kissed him, brief and quiet.

"I know," she said.

He tilted his head, reading her. "What do you want to do."

"Not this." She glanced around the store. "Somewhere else."

He understood without her having to say the rest of it.

They left.

In the car she watched the streets outside without really seeing them. Son drove with the window cracked. She was fine. She was with him. He cared about her and she knew it and that was what mattered. She held onto that the way she’d held onto explanations before — deliberately, both hands.

The thought of red hair came back anyway.

"Pull over," she said.

Son glanced at her. "Here?"

"Just—" She looked at him. "Please."

He found a quiet side street and eased the car to a stop. She was already reaching for him before the engine fully cut. He caught her face between his hands and held it for a moment — not kissing her yet, just looking at her the way he did when he was deciding whether to ask a question.

She kissed him before he could.

She kept her hands pressed into his jacket and her mind deliberately, forcibly blank. She was fine. She had this. She didn’t care who the redhead was. She didn’t care that Adrian had moved on. She was here, right now, and this was what she’d chosen.

His name came back anyway.

Then Jenna’s voice.

Redhead.

She kissed Son harder.

She was happy.

She told herself that, and then again, and kept going until the words started running together, and then past the point where they meant anything at all.