Christos was leaning against a car outside when Marwan left.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Marwan said.

“Your father told me you’d be here,” Christos said.

“He would never do that,” Marwan said.

“Well, my father was with me. He’s at the restaurant now.”

“What are you even talking about?” Marwan asked.

“My father found out about the eggs,” Christos said. “Suffice it to say, he wasn’t happy.”

Marwan just waited.

“I guess, well … do you remember kindergarten moving up?”

“Who could forget?”

“I guess my dad always felt like a real jerk about all that. And when he heard I was sort of being the same way, he wasn’t having it.”

Marwan guessed this was as close to an apology as he would get.

“So I’m sorry,” Christos said.

Wow. “So hell has frozen over,” Marwan said, fighting a smile.

“Bundle up,” Christos said.

“Wait, so why is he at the restaurant?”

“He brought his glass guy, to take some measurements and fix the window, which by the way we did not do. It wasn’t us, I swear. I’ll cop to the eggs but not that.”

Marwan nodded and looked away for a second, spotted an Alaska license plate on a mint-green Fiat convertible right there. He was half-tempted to climb in and try to hot-wire it and drive all the way there.

“Why do you hate me so much anyway?” Marwan asked.

“It’s dumb,” Christos said.

“Well, I know that.”

“It was my great-grandfather’s,” he said.

“What was your great-grandfather’s?”

“The space where your restaurant is,” Christos said. “It was a little Greek restaurant.”

Marwan nodded and said, “Sorry?”

“No,” Christos said. “I’m the only one who has to apologize.”

Christos held out a hand to shake and Marwan shook it and Christos walked off and Marwan went to take a picture of the license plate. He wanted to tell Eden about it, about how he’d finally done it.

Setting off toward the restaurant, he got out his phone and earbuds. He was down to the last episode of the beauty queen podcast, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to listen to it, wasn’t quite ready to be done. He’d either find out the truth about what had happened to her or he wouldn’t and either way he’d be disappointed.

He spotted a flyer on a streetlight post. For a rally against hate on Saturday morning. He took a picture of it and sent it to Eden.

She wrote back right away: I saw.

Eden

EDEN

He was sitting with a few girls Eden didn’t know and didn’t like. But this was happening. Real life. She’d seen his post so knew where he was and decided, simply, to go there. She did not need backup from Anjali or anyone.

“Hey,” she said to him, and he looked up from his phone.

“Hey,” he said.