Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
AKIO
I sat across from Imani in her parents’ dining room the next weekend. Dad and her mother were in a heated conversation again about who would be at the top of the senior class once we graduated, but they obviously didn’t know that Sakura Sato had already claimed valedictorian. Her GPA was too high for even me to reach now.
Imani played with her peas with a fork, rolling them around, stabbing them, and crushing them between the tines. I stared emptily at the table in front of me, barely having touched my food.
God, I was so bad that Nicole had cried the other night.
The first and only time I’d ever had a chance to be with Nicole, and I’d had to completely fuck it up by making her cry. I wasn’t even sure what I had done wrong. She’d seemed to enjoy it, but maybe I said something or touched her wrong. And had I given her those bruises?
Had she even come?
I hoped that she had. It had been my first time ever being with someone, and I didn’t know if I had done it right. Maybe I would be the laughingstock of Redwood when she returned to school, whenever that was. She had practically missed the past week.
Imani kicked me hard in the shin under the table. When I glanced up at her, she nodded to the other room and excused herself from brunch.
Her mother gave her a dirty look, but Imani hummed, “We’re going to talk in the other room.”
My dad and her mom were always trying to get us together. So, they were overjoyed to let us spend some time together.
After stuffing my hands into my pockets, I walked into the other room and sighed. “Thanks for that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Imani said. “I couldn’t last another second in there.”
“Me neither.”
She scratched the back of her head. “About last night … I’m sorry about Kai.”
Oh yeah. Last night, when I had gone to the football game— why did I think that’d be a good idea?! —to warn Imani about Poison, Kai, the quiet hacker from Poison, had put a gun to my stomach and warned me to stay away from her.
“It’s fine,” I grumbled, staring out the window at the orange and brown leaves.
She paused. “I also … kinda wanted to ask you about the pharmacy.”
I arched a brow. The pharmacy?
The only reason that Poison ever wanted to talk to me was because I worked at the pharmacy. They wanted drugs, not to sell, but for more personal reasons. And Imani had been hanging out with them a lot lately. It was almost as if they all had become a couple or a throuple or whatever their relationship was.
“Is this about Jo?o?” I asked.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Maybe …”
“You want information about why he needs that medication from me?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I know why he needs it. I just want to know who else gets it too.”
Who else was prescribed medication specifically for HIV?
I tensed. “You know I can’t give you that kind of information, Imani.”
“Please, Akio,” she begged, grabbing my hand. “It’s important to me.”
After pulling my hand out of hers, I looked toward the doors to make sure our parents weren’t listening in on our conversation, then lowered my voice. “I’ll tell you, if you promise to hang out with me this week, maybe study for Barnes’s class with me.”
“Why do you want me to hang out with you?” she asked.
Well, I really couldn’t tell her that I had been desperately trying to get my mind off last week with Nicole. Because she hated Nicole. But also because I didn’t want all the questions about what had happened or the drama leaking out to anyone else.
Especially Mom.
So, I glanced down at my feet, jaw twitching. “Because, Imani, nobody else understands what it’s like to have parents like ours. The other rich kids become like their parents, and the kids who live in the slums hate us. I don’t …” I swallowed hard and shook my head. “I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this shit.”
Great semi-lie, Akio.
Though … it was partly true. I didn’t have any friends who understood the struggle of having parents who were fucking psychotic sometimes. Imani’s parents weren’t as bad as Mom was in terms of … hurting and killing people, but I saw the expectations they had for Imani.
Imani nodded. “In exchange for names, I’ll hang out with you. We can go get ice cream with Allie or something.”
I pushed my glasses up my nose. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
After I nodded as a thank-you, we returned to the other room just as Dad pushed in his chair. I blew out a breath, said goodbye to Imani and her mother, thanked myself for thinking ahead and bringing my own car here today.
When the front door shut behind us, Dad cleared his throat. “Your mother?—”
“I have something to do,” I said, hurrying down the walkway to my car.
Nicole hadn’t been in school for days now—thankfully, our project wasn’t due until the end of the semester—but her being absent meant that I hadn’t been able to return her clothes. And I wanted to make sure she was okay.
“Akio!” Dad called.
But I had already slipped into the driver’s seat of my car. “I’ll be home later.”
A few hours later, after I had found her address, I pulled onto the curb in front of Nicole’s house. I grabbed her fresh clothes from the backseat, walked to the front door, and knocked a few times. When nobody answered—although I knew she was home by her car in the driveway—I knocked again.
Someone shouted from inside the house.
I pushed my glasses up my nose and waited a few more moments, thinking they were shouting that they’d be down to open the door for me soon. But when nobody came and the shouting continued, I peered into the window next to the door.
The foyer looked empty, but I could see two figures in the next room.
In order to try to get a better view, I walked around the house and peered into the side window. My eyes widened when I spotted Nicole bent over her family’s couch with a man much, much older inside her.
Chest tight, I stared at the way he used her in terror. His large hands were around her throat, his fingers digging so deep into her skin that they turned white. Nicole stared down at the couch cushions, emotionless.
I clenched my jaw and pulled my gaze away.
Just because she fucked you doesn’t mean she likes you, Akio.
How stupid was I to believe that she’d liked me like that at all? She’d probably only come over to sleep with me so I’d do the entire science project myself.
By the looks of it, I wasn’t even her type. She wanted someone to be rough with her, someone much older and bigger than my scrawny ass was.
Because I couldn’t help myself, I glanced into the window again to see her staring at me in horror through wide eyes. The man—who looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on how I knew him—had pulled out of her and collapsed onto another couch. But she hadn’t moved from her bent-over position.
Suddenly, she shot up, matted down her skirt, and ran over to the window to close the curtains. After cursing under my breath, I walked toward the front of the house, where I had come, only to hear the back door open and footsteps approaching. Quickly.
So, I picked up my pace and walked to the car.
It was wrong for me to be here. I shouldn’t have come.
And I didn’t want Nicole to think that I was stalking her … or that I liked her.
“Akio!” Nicole whisper-yelled from behind me.
But I slipped into the driver’s seat of my car before she could say another word.