I am so sorry this took an age!
Every tie Noa has to her past before the outbreak and cross country travel is gone. Jonny was the last of anybody who knew her before her boots hit Austin, the rest of them were gone long before; taken by the sickness or abandoned at the Florida/Georgia line. Having people around with deep roots is only ever something that she can understand from an outside perspective, and it’s not always something she envies, especially not if she were standing in Willa’s shoes.
“I was always going to lose him, it was just a matter of when,” Noa replies, offering her own little smile that’s not really a smile, and a glimpse of the kind of woman she is. Not cold, because she’ll always miss him, but missing him and making it something she gets stuck on won’t help the here and now of their world. “But I’m sorry about yours too,” she adds, because even if Willa’s man is still out there, he’s not here so the loss might feel close to the same. It’s not something Noa wants to assume either way.
Starting arguments, being right, those are things that Noa needs to do or be, so she doesn’t say what’s on her mind exactly, just shrugs a shoulder and replies, “Maybe not.” Even she can’t deem herself an expert on the Dog Park and it’s little intricacies. “I ain’t gonna be opening my mouth and passing on anything you say, sweetheart. It ain’t my thing. We got enough gossips ‘round here without me adding to it.” She offers a quirk of her mouth and a raised eyebrow, her expression adding another layer to what she thinks about gossips in general. “I don’t like it when shits being passed ‘round about me, I’m not going to do it to someone else.”