Free The Refugee Sentinel by Harrison Hayes Page A

the paper to bits. His love and allegiance would always belong to Sarah, even if Sarah hated his guts. “You are a looker. And no, I’m not dating anyone else. It’s just that… you should deal with your life first, before you get to me.”
    “Deal with my life?” Her moist voice gave way to a harsh undertone and Colton shuddered, unsure if this other voice was a permanent part of her, lurking under the tears when she didn’t get what was hers.
    “Let me be,” he said. “You can have any other man you wish.” A smile hung on his face like a coat on a tin hanger. “Your kids. Your husband, if you are still married. They are the most important. Your new career in Seattle. I don’t come before any of these.”
    “Grow a pair and spare me the bullshit.” She stood up, walked away and came back to the table, swift and threatening. “I’m smart and I deserve respect, and you… you are pathetic.”
    “Why don’t you –”
    “I haven’t been myself these days but I am a good person, Colton. If you don’t want to be with me, have the decency to tell me why. Don’t tell me I’m attractive and you’re grateful while you’re acting the opposite. The truth is you despise me –”
    “Look, I –”
    “And you’re rude and selfish. And you want to keep me around for free hospital access.” Her body shook with sobs. “I thought you were different. I admired the way you spoke about life. Now, I know you’re a coward.” Her shoulder-length hair tossed, as if blown by invisible wind.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I’m a good person, Colton,” a fresh avalanche of sobs, “I’ve never done this. Doctors ask me out all the time and I always say no. With you… I don’t know. Maybe it was how we met, you in a hospital bed within an inch of your life.”
    “I’d be dead without you, Sylvya, but we can only be friends.”
    “But you do understand my feelings?”
    Colton had heard enough. Expecting her to understand logic was like hoping the sun would rise at midnight. He wiped off a coffee stain on his chair and leaned back, prepared to wait her out in silence until she was done or until the place closed.
    As if she had seen through his intentions, Sylvya buried her face in a napkin and soaked the recycled paper with fresh tears.

fifteen days till defiance day (16
    The day’s grime and politics were behind Natt, but family dinner wasn’t; a task laden with as many traps as he had navigated during his nine-to-five. He pulled his chair closer to the table. On his right, Eaton and Chloe sat next to each other, chewing in silence. Eating dinner wasn’t a time of many words in the Gurloskey household – it was sitting together for a meal, the old-fashioned way. Natt insisted on this forty-five-minute ritual every night because the streets of downtown Seattle weren’t the only casualties to the rising waters. Notions like family time and finding out about each other’s day were also falling prey to the floods.
    Soup didn’t precede tonight’s dinner and coffee wouldn’t follow it. It was a single-meal, main-course-plus-salad affair. Macaroni and chicken flanked a lonesome bowl filled with broccoli and lettuce. Natt never much cared for vegetables, so the salad was the same as last night’s and as from the night before.
    He chewed several times before swallowing each mouthful. Chloe and Eaton, too, spent the forty-five minutes stuffing food in their mouths, one deliberate forkful after the other. Natt saw through their conspiracy but didn’t want to push his luck; boring wordless dinners plus on-time curfew sign-ins worked fine to keep his family safe, thank you very much. And family was Natt’s most prized achievement.
    Eaton was eight and full of life. After dinner, he would dash to his room to resume charting flight patterns, designing apps, and obsessing over whatever other boys his age obsessed with. Natt loved his stepson with intensity reserved for loving your own. He couldn’t explain why. He