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IMANI
“Landon?” I whispered, turning over on the mattress and opening my eyes.
Beside me, the bed was empty. Landon’s scent and even all his clothes from last night were gone completely from my bedroom. I sat up to lean against the headboard, yawning and scanning the room for any trace of him that he might’ve left behind.
The window was cracked slightly, a cold wind rolling into the room. My nipples poked through my shirt. After pulling the blankets around my shoulders, I dragged myself out of the bed and moved toward the bathroom to start the shower.
I frowned at the empty bed again, wishing that Landon had at least let me know he was leaving this morning. I wanted to be able to wake up next to him again. It made me feel so good, seeing his sleepy face next to me in the morning.
“Wake up, sweetheart!” Mom said, knocking on the door and turning the knob. When she realized that the door was locked, she banged a bit harder, her voice tense. “Sweetheart! Open up! We have brunch today.”
Quickly hurrying toward the door so Mom wouldn’t ground me for locking it, I yanked it open and gave her a soft smile—at least, the best one I could muster because all I wanted to do was seethe in her direction.
“Morning,” she said, glancing behind me and around the room, as if she was looking to scold me for doing something wrong. When she found nothing—thank goodness that Landon had cleaned up all his stuff—she turned back to me. “I thought I told you not to lock your door.”
“Habit,” I lied.
After giving me a once-over, Mom surprisingly nodded. “Okay, well, get ready. Akio and his father are coming over for brunch.”
“Akio? Why is he coming over?”
Mom gave me a tense smile, then scrunched her nose. “Oh, dear, you need to shower and redo your hair. I thought you were going to take a shower last night, when you got home. They’ll be over in less than an hour and—”
Deciding that I wouldn’t get any kind of answer from her, I stepped toward the bathroom. “Okay, I need to go shower if you want me to be ready in time. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
Once I finally convinced Mom to leave, I shut my bedroom door—and didn’t lock it—and blew out a long breath, eyeing the window. Part of me wanted to jump out of it, run to Landon’s house, and never turn back. Being with him and living in his basement would be far better than this.
“Fuck.” I dragged a hand over my face and headed toward the bathroom, stepping into the shower and reluctantly wiping away all traces of Landon last night.
If it were anyone else coming over, I would’ve left, but it was Akio.
I wanted to apologize to him about how Kai had acted last night after the game …
And maybe get some information out of him about the people he gave medication to at the pharmacy. He had to know something or someone in this town who had HIV, and I knew people weren’t supposed to give out information to randos.
It was unethical.
But it was also unethical to drop used fucking needles all over the place and let a baby crawl all over them. I had promised João that I would get him some information for him to trust me, and this had to be it. I had to at least try.
Because whoever had ruined Ana’s life needed his life to be fucking ruined, too.
Two hours later, I sat across from Akio at the dining room table. Akio’s father and Mom were in a heated conversation again about who would be at the top of our class once we graduated. Akio stared emptily at the table in front of him, emotion evaporated from his face.
The look on his face mirrored what I felt inside.
I kicked him under the table. When he glanced up at me, I nodded to the other room and excused myself from the end of brunch. Mom gave me the stink eye, but I politely told her that Akio and I were going to talk in the other room.
She probably thought that Akio and I would be flirting or something because she immediately plastered a smile on her face and ushered us to the other room, shutting the double doors behind us.
Akio stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked around the living room, sighing. “Thanks for that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I couldn’t last another second in there.”
“Me neither.”
I awkwardly scratched the back of my head. “About last night … I’m sorry about Kai.”
“It’s fine,” Akio said, staring out the window at the orange and brown leaves on the trees.
