The complete way Lily had been seeing Cixi shifted.
The girl behind the counter, with whom she had been working for six months, was no longer in Lily's private accounting. The girl who smiled genuinely was a woman who had been hurt at a specific college by a specific man, and left the college because of it, and despite being, in any of the six months of their shared shifts, able to say the sentence aloud.
If she could get Cixi back with her college friends, they could sort out all the misunderstandings. Then Cixi would not have to keep running from them, and it was possible that it could bring peace to her heart.
Silviya truly missed Cixi. Good friends could not be replaced. So she made a plan. A soccer match. Meeting in public. Nothing could go wrong there.
She worked on the plan diligently. She did not tell Cixi. But she knew Cixi was going to love it.
On the other hand, Zoyar was back at the cafe. He was holding all his meetings there now, as if it had become his den.
