The little energy I had left was used to laugh. I felt drained. “Who’s going to believe me? And now Brown Sugar and my summer program are in jeopardy because who the hell is going to listen to me giving advice with my fake boyfriend, when I’ve just been exposed as the biggest hypocrite on campus? I need a sustained high level of listeners and—what?”
“Fake boyfriend?” Malakai’s thumb had stopped its circuit on my wrist.
I blinked and rubbed my forehead. “You know what I mean—”
“Nah, I don’t really, Scotch.” He shifted back. “This thing between us ain’t bigger than the show?”
I froze. “Are you serious right now? The only reason we decided to do this was for the show and your film. Obviously now it’s different, but—”
“Is it? What is this to you? Because, not gonna lie, it kind of feels like this thing between us only exists to you in relation to Brown Sugar.”
I almost recoiled, tilted my head to the side. “I’m sorry. Are you asking me what we are right now? Right fucking now, Malakai?”
It was belated, slow in boiling, but I realized that I was angry. Raging, in fact. The hurt had subsided and now I was pissed at Nile, at Zack, and apparently at Malakai for treating my attention as some kind of leverage.
Malakai’s eyes flashed with something that looked a little like hurt. “Kiki, I’m just saying . . . it low-key feels like you’ve had one foot out of this thing since we started. Like you’ve been waiting for a reason for it not to work. Why did you ask me if I was going to end this the other day? Did you want me to?”
I swallowed, something ugly forming inside me. I could feel it, stinging and agitating its way into becoming. It was the same way a boil formed to fight an infection, gathering every toxin together to expel it. In this case the infection was how much I liked Malakai Korede. So much that even now, I just wanted to call the fight off, put my face in his neck, and be held by his warmth. But I needed to protect myself. Malakai probably thought that what he felt for me was real—the same way Nile wanted me during the moment, the same way Zack had chased me—but it would melt away soon, be proven a fallacy and a fantasy and I’d be punished for letting my guard down. I couldn’t let that happen again.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Malakai. We’re attracted to each other. We hooked up. And maybe you want that to mean something more than it does—maybe that’s why you compared me to Ama.”
Malakai ran a hand over his face and stood up. “You have to be fucking kidding me. I knew you were pissed at that.”
I stood up too, and realized I really was pissed at that. It reminded me of Nile’s desire for me being contingent on the fact that I wasn’t Rianne.
“Do you like me because I’m not her?”
Malakai’s shoulders dropped and his eyes softened. “You can’t think that’s true, Scotch.”
I hitched a casual shoulder. “I don’t know what’s true. Like, do you want to be in a relationship so bad to prove that you can actually be in one? Is it even about me?”
Why was I saying this? Why was I doing this?
The words stung on their way out of my mouth, overflowing like something rotten. When they hit the air, they sounded fascinatingly cold.
Shock and hurt coalesced grotesquely on Malakai’s face. It almost knocked me off balance, almost made me want to eat my words immediately, force them down, but I didn’t. I let them sit, rancid in the air between us.
His gaze bolted into mine, eyes raw, glacial, slicing right through me. “Don’t act like I made this thing between us up. Don’t fucking do that.”
I forced my voice to come out strong, but I heard the crack of my heart threaded through it. “Kai, I don’t think we’re ready for whatever we think this is.”
Malakai stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. “Why do you sound so reasonable right now? Like what you’re saying isn’t nuts?”
“Like . . . when you’re emotionally freaked out your initial response is to shut me out. And you wanted to enter the film contest to prove something to your dad. . . . What if I’m just an extension of that? I’m not your therapy, Malakai.”
He held still and ran his eyes across my face. Then he rolled his tongue in his mouth, and across his lips, as if to rid himself of words he might regret, maybe to wipe away any residual feelings, or maybe to clear his palette for the truth of what I said. My eyes were filling up and my stomach was turning, but I forced myself to continue pushing stinging words out.