Mara sat down in one of the chairs as if she had done this kind of thing before, even though the situation was different this time. She gave Marceline a look that showed she was interested but not nosy.
"He told you something true, didn't he?" Mara said, "And now you're trying to talk yourself out of it."
She saw Marceline. "Did he talk to you about it...?"
"He didn't have to." Mara poured coffee into three cups with the ease of someone who had done it a million times before. "I can tell when someone is carrying something they can't put down."
She pushed one of the cups toward Marceline. "I carried it for a while myself. It's almost the same weight, but with a different kind of situation."
Marceline grabbed the cup. "What happened?"
"Someone reminded me that being wanted and being settled for are not the same thing," Mara said.
She looked at Rex for a second in a way that wasn't obvious, but that Rex noticed right away. "It's hard to forget once you know the difference."
