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LANDON
After Kai and Imani walked back into the room twenty minutes ago, I had sat tensely in the basement and gritted my teeth. I hadn’t been able to stop since Maddie and Imani had started working on their project in the back of the room because Imani kept looking over at Kai and Kai kept looking over at Imani.
It was back and forth, back and forth, and I didn’t know if I could handle any more.
I needed to know what they were to each other. I didn’t want to sit back and let this happen. If they were friends, I wanted to know if they were friends. If they just had sex, I wanted to know that they just had sex. If they loved each other …
I took a deep breath.
If they loved each other, I needed to know.
Both Imani and Kai deserved to be happy. But so did I. And I didn’t want to fall back into that hole of worrying endlessly about what she was doing behind my back because she hadn’t done anything that I didn’t know about. I assumed the worst. That wasn’t fair to her.
Deep down, I knew that Kai and João both meant more to her now than they ever had meant to Imani. João would never admit it, but Kai was close to telling her that he loved her. I could see it in his eyes. He had never looked so content.
Still, the insecurity built up inside.
“See you at school,” Imani said from the doorway, waving Maddie and Allie off from the basement door.
It was just Kai, João, and Imani left with me here, and I needed to talk to her so badly.
After everyone was gone, Imani shut the door. I stood as Kai did, and I knew that he was about to walk over to Imani and sweep her away back to his place, but I needed to talk to her first. I needed to know. I needed to tell her how I was feeling because that was what my therapist had told me to do.
That was what Imani wanted me to do.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a couple seconds?” I said, nerves bubbling up inside me.
I hadn’t felt this nervous around her in a long time now. I didn’t know what she was going to say. Nobody cared about me the way she did. Nobody ever asked me to tell them my feelings. When I had been growing up, Mom and Dad hadn’t given a shit about me.
Part of me—that terrible part of me—made me wonder if Imani would care.
I knew that she would. But still, it was so hard to unlearn all those little behaviors and thoughts, all those feelings that my parents had beaten into me physically and mentally over the years. Whoever the fuck got through their trauma and made it out alive on the other side was strong as fuck.
“Yeah!” She smiled at me, her cheeks rounding and her eyes wide. “Wanna go upstairs?”
After taking her hands, I pulled her up the basement steps and around the corner into my parents’ house.
She turned on the light and looked back at me. “What do you want to talk about?”
I took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. My stomach turned, my throat closing up. “I …”
I was suddenly lost for words, or maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe I was too nervous to ask her what they meant to her. I knew that I wouldn’t like the answer either way, but what if she thought less of me? Dad had always told me never to share my feelings. He’d taught me that it was weak for a man to show any emotion. I was trying so hard to unlearn everything that they had shoved down my throat.
Imani stepped closer to me, stood on her tiptoes, and pushed some hair off my forehead. “What is it?”
After swallowing my pride, I took her hand and squeezed them hard. “What do Kai and João mean to you?”
Her eyes widened, face flushing. “I …” Suddenly, she pulled her hand away from me and started pacing the room. “Landon … I love you so much. Like, I love you so fucking much.” She licked her lips and looked at me with tears in her eyes now. “I promised myself that I would love you and only you, but I’m afraid … I’m going to lose you when I tell you that …” She ran her hands through her hair and pushed away some tears. “But I also think I’m falling for Kai and João too.”
The last part of her sentence was only a mere whisper.
I had known that it was coming. All these weeks of lying in my bed and staring up at the ceiling, wondering if she really did like them or not, I’d prepared myself for her answer and even her reaction.
“I don’t want you to feel crushed or feel like I don’t love you. Because I do. You’re the first guy that I’ve ever felt this strongly for before. You’re the first guy that I’ve ever loved. I hadn’t told anybody that before I told you. Please,” she whispered, suddenly clutching on to me tighter than ever. “Please, I can’t lose you.”
“Imani …” I said.
I’d prepared for this, yet I still didn’t know what to say.
