Page 51 of Rebellious Hearts

The people… were the reason we could do what we did at all. Sure, these people didn’t have the money, but that didn’t change the fact that the people were the bit that kept it all together.

“I’ve never really looked at it that way,” I admitted.

“There are a lot of things you don’t see unless you walk in their shoes,” Sofia said. “Let’s find a local mom-and-pop place and see what we’re working with here.”

I nodded. I wasn’t used to roughing it—that was more Chris’s and Alex’s thing when they went together on their little “adventures.” But Sofia was so dedicated to what she did, so committed to her stance, and her passion was contagious. It made me want to know, too. It made me want to try it.

Instead of ordering a car, the way I always did, Sofia suggested we walk.

“It’s a fine evening,” she said, glancing up. “There aren’t any clouds, and the town isn’t that big.”

I wanted to argue, but I bit my tongue and we set out.

The moment we left the hotel premises, the town enveloped us, and I realized I was very far from home. The buildings were on the older side, with architecture from a different era, and it all felt a little run down. Like the sands of time had worn it down to its most basic form, and it existed only on the bare bones of what it used to be.

It wasn’t an ugly town, though. Everything seemed almost outlandish. But maybe that was because I was so fucking far out of my comfort zone I had to stop myself from turning back.

Sofia drank it all in, though.

She gushed over the cute cobbled streets and the buildings that seemed to have sat down on themselves over the years. Thelittle shops that had long been abandoned but could have been something incredible.

“I’d love to be in that head of yours,” I said to Sofia. “It must be a wonderful place.”

She looked at me, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“You look at the world and see wonder wherever you go. I look at it and see… ruin.”

Sofia shook her head. “There’s beauty in everything, you know. You just have to hold onto the one thing that makes it all possible.”

“And what’s that?”

“Hope.”

The word was so cliché and so simple.

And so true.

Not all the stores were boarded up and abandoned, only closed for the evening, and we stepped into the first restaurant we came across. It really was a small little mom-and-pop place, just like what Sofia had wanted. It was an Italian restaurant, even though the owners were more American than anyone I’d ever seen, and the tables had red checkered cloths on them, and the walls were painted a bright, bright green.

We sat down and ordered sodas, followed by their advertised pizza.

“Who knows,” Sofia said when the owner—who’d taken our order himself—left, “maybe it really is as good as it sounds.”

I snorted and looked around. The restaurant had a lot of good about it but it was clear there wasn’t a lot of money around here, and it wore the same hue of decay as everything else around here.

If we got the project, we could fix up places like this and make them what they were meant to be.

When our drinks arrived, I glanced at Sofia. She looked around, sipping her soda through a straw, and she had to be themost beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. Not just because of her features, but the more I got to know her and her outlook on life, the more I had a feeling I’d been looking at everything through the same glasses.

For a very long time.

Sofia made me want to change that. To see things differently, to react to things differently.

To get out of my box and see what else was out there.

But to be fair, this little box I’d put myself in was very comfortable, and to get out of my comfort zone more often…

Besides, whatever this was that I felt for Sofia was dangerous. I couldn’t get this close to her and I couldn’t afford to make this kind of change to myself.