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“That is not what I said. Why are you twisting my words?” Heat flushes my neck and the tips of my ears.
Her eyebrows hunker low over her stormy brown eyes. She tightens her mouth, looking off into the distance.
In a calmer voice, she says, “Knowing that,expectingthat your ex will always be hovering around you with plenty of opportunities to make your heart waver, we should have been stronger. We should have been a unit. But we’re not. We have two different ways of communicating and it’s not working for me.”
“What does that mean?” Pure panic tears at my throat.
Her eyes dart to the floor. “Let’s just take some time to think.”
“Think about what?” Desperation makes my voice rise. “I do not need to think. I am certain of what I want.”
Her eyes get hazy. “But I’m not.”
My chest knots tightly.
“Sazuki, I don’t want to be hurt again.”
My phone starts vibrating in my pocket. I ignore it.
“What do you want, Dejonae?”
“I want you to be certain of whatyouwant.”
“I am. How else should I express that to you?”
“I don’t know.”
Her answer rips a groan of frustration from my lips. “I am doing my best. I can’t change that she is Niko’s mother. I can’t change that she lives here in the city. I can’t erase my past.Whatdo you want from me?”
“Like I said, let’s take a pause and try to figure that out.”
“Dejonae…”
“Your phone has been ringing for a while. Niko is probably waiting.” Her expression is resigned. “Go.”
It is my first time getting kicked out of anywhere.
I linger, unsure if it is pride or panic that keeps me in place.
“Leave,” Dejonae hurls at me in a broken voice, “now.”
When I walk away from her apartment, it feels as though I am getting buried alive.
* * *
With our relationship in limbo,my mood sours.
At work, I lack patience.
At home, I retreat into my shell.
The foundation is my own personal hell. It is where I am forced to see Dejonae every day. To look at her dark skin, her quiet frowns, her pensive brows andnottouch her.
Every time I see her, it scrapes salt in the wound.
But her behavior toward me remains civil and detached.
Is she so unaffected by the distance?
