Page 67 of Science Project

“No,” Akio said, already pulling his card out.

I held out my hand in front of him. “Here, Akio.”

He ignored my hand and gave his card to the cashier, who looked at us weirdly.

“Akio,” I said after they gave back his card and our food, “take it.”

“No.”

Instead of taking my money, he turned right onto the road to head to the school. After grumbling to myself that I had messed everything up, we sat in silence for the rest of the drive. When we reached the high school, he parked in the student lot.

Neither of us had gone for the food yet.

I peered over at him, only to see him staring at me.

Both of us looked away.

“Akio …” I whispered. “I’m sorry. It was just … I …”

My heart pounded in my chest, and I wanted him to say something first. I wasn’t used to all these feelings and especially not having as much control as Akio gave me in whatever kind of friendship that we had.

Akio stared ahead and swallowed hard, his shirt sticking to his scrawny shoulders.

Another awkward silence fell upon us, and then the bell rang over the intercoms.

“I don’t want to be late,” Akio said, grabbing his backpack from the back and exiting the car without taking his food. “I’ll see you later.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX

AKIO

Later, I sat at the dinner table at Imani’s house with Mom, unable to get the words Nicole had said to me out of my head. I swore she had said that she loved me. Me! And like the idiot that I was, I’d completely frozen up and not known how to respond.

So, I had run away from her. I had blown it.

After groaning to myself, I turned back to the dinner in front of me.

Usually, Dad had dinner with Imani’s parents and always tried to set us up. But tonight, Mom was here, and something felt … off. Or maybe I was feeling this way because Nicole had told me that she loved me out of nowhere, and I hadn’t said it back …

Even though I might love her too.

Imani’s mom laughed at something my mother had said, smiled tensely at Imani, then elbowed her. Imani gently rubbed her ribs and cleared her throat. That glint in her eye was the same one she’d had when we snuck over to Nicole’s house the other day.

Which meant that Imani was about to say something she shouldn’t.

And I’d have to clean it up.

“What’d you do to the Koh family?” Imani suddenly asked.

My eyes widened.

Koh, as in Kai, the third member of Poison? Why would she ask that?!

After her parents sucked in a collective breath, an awkward silence fell heavily over the room. I stared at her in hopes of getting her to look at me, to get her to apologize for even bringing it up because Imani didn’t want to know what my parents had done to Kai’s parents.

Imani pursed her lips and looked between my mother and father, who was pale.

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