“The film is mostly done, and—”
“Yeah.” His eyes dropped to my chin, his hands had slipped into his pockets. “Let’s just call it.”
I could feel the atmosphere between us tilt. I knew I asked for this—the fact that I didn’t want this meant that I needed this—but this didn’t stop me feeling like I was sliding downward with nothing to grip on to. I had said words I did feel and didn’t feel and let them tangle up together. The emotional cacophony was making me nauseous. But I knew however I felt then would be better than how I would feel if I let myself enter us fully, and for him to later turn from me, rip it from under me, make me feel like an idiot for even believing in us. I wasn’t ready to risk it. I was right not to risk it. Because he obviously agreed with me.
He was nodding, barely looking at me. “We just met two months ago. And we got lost in the game we were playing.” His voice was cold, mechanical, precise. “And maybe I did want to prove to myself that I’m different to my dad by being with you. And maybe this . . . thing was something you used to make yourself feel better about what happened to you in school.”
I almost smiled through the sharp pain lacerating me. Finally. The dagger, the one I’d imagined being suspended in the air, waiting for Malakai to pick up and twist in me. It was a relief that he’d picked it up. The sentence hung in the air and Malakai’s eyes mellowed with regret immediately, shiny. His anger crumpled. He ran his hand across the back of his head.
“Shit. Scotch, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You did. And don’t call me Scotch.”
The air between us stilled and cooled. Malakai levelled me with a sharp gaze that made my heart whir and then stop. He hit me with an empty, small, half smile that hooked and pierced my chest.
Then he laughed humorlessly, a frigid chuckle that turned my bones brittle. He rubbed his chin, looked at the floor.
“Okay. This is . . . I’m going to walk away now.” He started to back away, and regret flooded in, so quick and heavy I almost staggered with it.
“Malakai, wait—”
Malakai shook his head. “Nah, you’re right. We got caught up. I got caught up. That’s on me. I am not . . . I’m not made for this. Not right for this. It’s cool, Kiki.”
His voice was so forcibly light I had to blink a couple times to readjust myself to the dark that I realized had fallen around us. He was looking at me without looking at me, somehow seeing past me while staring into my eyes, and it hit me square in the gut, causing a seismic shift in my heart, crushing the butterflies that had taken up residence in there since I bumped into him outside the lifts two months ago. I wanted to grab his face and tell him that I was chatting shit, that there was no game, just us, but instead I watched him turn around and walk away. When his footsteps grew faint, I realized that I was out of breath, and that I was panting, and then I was sobbing.
Chapter 26
“Is she even in there?” Chi’s voice flowed under my bedroom door, through the scent of burning incense and wispy R&B.
“I assure you,” I heard Aminah say, “she’s in there. I can hear Jhené Aiko playing faintly, and the tape I put on the door to let me know if she’s left the room is unbroken.”
“What’s that smell?” I could hear the wrinkle in Shanti’s button nose.
“Incense,” Chi said immediately. “Sandalwood and frankincense. So at least I know she read my message about the best thing to burn when you want to cleanse negative energy.” She knocked. “Babe! I brought crystals too! Amethyst!”
“Please, abeg,” Aminah was saying, her voice snapping into a brisk upper-class Lagosian lilt. “None of that juju shit.” She thumped on the door with what sounded like a closed fist. “Kikiola, if you don’t open this door right NOW, I will call your mother. I have had enough. Do you want me to stress Auntie out by informing her that her eldest child is having a meltdown?”
Low, but effective.
I flipped my covers, stared at the ceiling, and allowed the tears that had been filling my eyes to blur a little, before I blinked them away, slumped out of bed, and shuffled toward the door. When I clicked it open, Aminah was standing in her house athleisure with a hand on her hip and a wrap tied around her hair that contributed to the vague feeling that she was about to beat my ass. She was flanked by Chioma and Shanti, who were armed with wine glasses, a bottle of rosé, and a tub of ice cream.