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PREVIOUSLY ON SACRIFICE ═══════════════
"Why did you do it?"
Tommy's head snapped up from where he sat next to her. "W-What? Why did I do what?"
"Save me. Pull me out of the water- if that is what happened." She watched him. And she knew she was worrying him for nothing, knew why he did it. But she wanted to hear him say it. "You could've very well told them the current swept me away and left with Jeanie. Or you could've left me and taken her right then. It would've been so easy for you to do it, so why didn't you?"
Tommy made eye contact with her, and she almost felt bad for even questioning him when she saw the hurt in his eyes. And when he spoke, it was in a broken whisper. Why would you even ask me that his voice said.
"Maria... I've been here for years. I have friends here. I have a community that I can trust here. I have a purpose, protection, food, shelter. Here, I have a family. So why would I even think of going out there alone, much less subject her to those dangers too? Why would I leave now? Do you think that low of me? Do you really still think I would leave? After all this time?"
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Jeanie glanced up at them. "We have a lot to do today, and before we get started, I wanna show you two and Jesse somewhere I spotted the other day."
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She had seen the way he acted around Jeanie. They fell in line together as if they hadn't been separated for years. He would braid her hair so gently, so humbly, as if he was accustomed to the motions- as if he had done it all before. He would wrap his arms around her and turn her upside down as she laughed, and Maria couldn't believe help but smile. Anyone would smile at that, was how she rationalized it. Jeanie was happy, and perhaps that was why Maria found the girl's dad easier to be around lately. And she was really starting to see that maybe she was a little harsh in the beginning. Maybe he had really wanted Jeanie back after abandoning her. Maybe, he was a good guy. They had been around each other so much because of Jeanie, it was hard to still be angry at someone who made her daughter so full of joy. That joy that she herself couldn't give Jeanie like a father could. And that knowledge made Maria's chest ache, but that feeling wasn't hatred, it wasn't jealousy. Perhaps... she had forgiven him after all this time. And this feeling... maybe...
When she rounded the corner, she heard giggling, so she followed it and found her at the entrance of Vince's Vinyls store. It was a small store that was part of an outdoor mall, and in it were dozens of shelves full of vinyls from artists as old as the sixties to as new as right before the outbreak.
