Aminah shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s our thing! He chases, I tease.”
“So maybe he’s tired of chasing. Maybe he thinks that this is just a game to you.”
“We talk every day! I even made him a cup of tea once!”
I nodded. “Oh yeah. That time he came round with your favorite Chinese food because you were working late on some coursework and he knew you were running on fumes.”
Aminah stared at me. “Whose side are you even on?”
I laughed and grabbed her shoulders, shook her a little. “Yours. Always yours. And that includes not letting you get in your own way and helping you accept that shit doesn’t have to be complicated to be real. Like, you already know you want to be with him—why do you think there has to be work involved to validate it, you know?”
Aminah rubbed her temple. “Wow, I am sobering up quickly. I’m gonna need a Timbuktu tequila shot after this. I hear you. I really do. I just feel like if there’s no work involved then he won’t appreciate me enough. I see how my dad takes my mum for granted sometimes. You should hear how he speaks about her. I mean he loves her, don’t get me wrong, but he’s always like, ‘She’s safe, she’s reliable, I can always count on her, she keeps the home running.’ As if she’s some kind of generator, expending energy to keep everyone else running. But what about her energy? I just feel like if Kofi has to put work in, he’s more likely to, like, cherish me. I want to be cherished.”
“Meenz. Kofi is obsessed with you. And besides, you cherish yourself. I cherish you. And if it turns out that he doesn’t treat you how you should be treated then you have the option to bounce him out your life. And I’ll kill him.”
“Thank you.”
“But you have to at least try. You have to take the risk.”
Aminah sniffed and dabbed the corners of her eyes with the edges of her palms. Excessive alcohol made her extremely emotional. “Shit. You really are good at this.”
I grinned. “I know, right? Being in a fake relationship that turned into an ill-fated real relationship gave me true insight.”
Aminah burst out laughing, which I found a little rude since I was doing some really deep, introspective, emotional reflection and unpacking. “Um, what’s funny?”
Some residual giggles were still falling out of my best friend’s mouth and I waited （im）patiently for her to get them all out. I almost preferred it when she was crying. Aminah shook her head slowly. “What’s funny, Keeks, is that you’re still saying fake relationship.”
“So?”
Aminah tilted her head to the side. “Oh. Oh, honey. That was never, ever a fake relationship. If that boy was ever faking how he looked at you, then Daniel Kaluuya better watch out because there’s a new fine-ass Oscar winner in the village.”
I followed her direction to see Malakai filming people talking by the bar. He slowly moved with the camera and landed on me. He froze. Even with the distance I saw the latent heat in his gaze. He nodded infinitesimally at me in greeting, so tiny that I could have missed it, so tiny that it was heavy.
“Hi,” he mouthed.
“Hey,” I mouthed back.
I allowed myself to risk the head rush of fully taking Malakai in. He was wearing crisp navy trousers and a kaftan, tailored to perfection, and even at my vantage point, I could see the intricate, twirling embroidery on the lapel of the high neck, see the way the material fit around his thick arm in a way that made me want to grab on to it and swing like fruit ready to drop, before I did drop into his lap, where I could pull him closer and kiss him. His thin gold chain winked at me, conspiring with the gleam of his cufflinks.
All of me leaped and unfurled and unleashed: all the missing, all the anger, all the hurt, all the . . . that heavy, soft thing, the pink matter of the matter. Fuck. I was falling, had fallen, when had I fallen? Was it a process, or was it an instant, or did time warp and rupture around us? Because whatever we were defied physics. Which was why falling in love with him had felt like I was shooting up and above and was light and full but not weighed down. I was in love with him. I was in love with a boy that I had thoroughly fucked it with.
Someone tapped Malakai’s arm, asking for a picture, and he tore his eyes away from me. I was breathing hard, my pulse pounding in my ears, feeling an odd storm of happiness at the sight of him and heartbreak at the loss of him, because somehow, I knew that our argument was both of our insecurities colliding, that the mess wasn’t the sum of us, the sum of our possibility. It was part of it, and that was okay. We were beauty within the mess. I pushed him away because I was scared he would hurt me and he let me because he was scared of the same. We were too scared to talk it through, lashing out to protect ourselves and hurting ourselves in the process. What was it that he had said when he walked away from us? That he wasn’t made for this? Wasn’t right for this? I should have said that we would learn how do this together. That he was so sweet and so kind with this. He was so right for me it was like he was made for me. I should have said, I think I’m right for you, Kai. I think we operate at a higher frequency when we’re together. Our energies fuse and we become supernovas. I think we have so much more to share and to give. I think we’ve barely even begun. To not give us a chance would be a shame, a waste, a tragedy.