He glances up. He’s clean shaven, and his eyes appear clear and sharp. He seems well rested; he’s even well dressed. I haven’t seen him this way in quite a while. I wonder how long it will last.

“I thought you didn’t drink on Sunday,” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t. Héctor and Ella are my only friends at the moment, and one has already disappeared today. I don’t want to upset Héctor as well.

“I thought so, too,” he says, not taking offense. “If you ever know a man who tries to drown his sorrows, kindly inform him his sorrows know how to swim. Here, sit down, sit down,” he says, kicking out the chair across from him. I plop down in it. “How are you?”

“I hate this place, Héctor. I hate it with everything inside of me.”

“Bad day?”

“Every day is a bad day here.”

“Eh, this place isn’t so terrible.”

“How are you always so cheerful?”

“Alcohol,” he says with a sideways grin. He pours himself what looks to be his first glass from the bottle. “I wouldn’t recommend it to others. But it seems to work for me.”

“Oh, Héctor,” I say. “I wish you wouldn’t drink so much.”

He chuckles. Takes a sip. “You know what I wish?”

“What?”

“That you didn’t look so sad all the time, Marina of the sea.”

“I didn’t know that I did.”

He shrugs. “It’s something I’ve noticed, but Héctor is a very perceptive man.”

I look to my left and to my right, pausing to focus on each person here. Then I take the napkin off the table and put it on my lap. I put it back on the table. Then I put it back on my lap.

“Tell me what is troubling you,” Héctor says, then takes a larger sip.

“Absolutely everything.”

“Everything? Even me?”

I shake my head. “Okay, not everything.”

His eyebrows rise and then furrow. “Now tell me.”

I have a deep urge to tell him my secret, the reason I’m here and where it is I really come from. I want to tell him about Adelina and what her role was supposed to be, and what it has instead become. I want him to know about the others, out there on the run or fighting, maybe sitting idly like me, collecting dust. If there’s one person I’m certain would be my ally, who would help me in any way he could, then surely it’s Héctor. He is, after all, a defender who’s meant to hold fast and who was born into power and bravery by such simple means as the name he was given.

“You ever feel like you don’t belong here, Héctor?”

“Sure. Some days.”

“Why do you stay, then? You could go anywhere.”