Page 95 of Honey and Spice

“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.

“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.Thedagger, 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.

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