Honey and Spice(99)
Malakai was knocking on the window, saying, “Scotch, come on.”
I unlocked the car. Aminah rushed into the back, squeezed my shoulder. I don’t remember much, but Aminah’s sweet assurances that she was already working on the picture being taken down, as if that was a remedy against screenshots and shares. Malakai was saying that he would kill Zack, but also, confusingly, that none of this mattered, which made me so angry, because if none of this mattered then why would he want to kill Zack? The irritation at the lie was something grounded that I could hold on to, so I held on to it, because the idea, the fact, that this was happening to me again, that somebody had wielded me against me in some kind of ego trip to fix their reputation, was too much for my mind to process, it would have plunged me in way too deep. I had to stay afloat. So I clung to my anger at Malakai’s well-meaning attempt at consolation, till it cloyed in my mind. My mouth was salty.
When he said, cautiously, gently into the silence, “Kiki, please say something,” I replied, “Don’t do anything to Zack that could get you suspended. Promise me.”
Malakai’s jaw tensed but he nodded. “Okay.”
Then I asked him to pull over so I could throw up.
Chapter 25
I threw my phone on the industrial carpet of the library, forcing myself to not tap the replay button again. I hitched my knees up and leaned back against the shelves, my head resting on some books about Bantu civilization. Speaking of Southern Africa, Nelson Mandela’s estate should sue at Zack’s audacity. It’s one thing to smear my name, but conflating Nelson Mandela’s legacy with your fuckery while you’re doing it? Unforgivable.
The video had already hit over a thousand views and I was pretty sure a good number of them were mine. It was masochistic, I know, but somehow, fully analyzing and processing the attack was the only thing that could give me anything close to relief. This was a calculated, vicious, aggressive ambush. Zack had known he was going to do this, known that the longer he held back, rock in a slingshot, the harder the knock, the further the reach, the deeper the wound. If my integrity was up for question then so was the election, and so was everyone who had anything to do with me—anyone who had come on the show as part of their campaign tour. I’d potentially messed things up for the whole of Blackwell. Simi’s suggestion that I run was now quite poetically comical. Brown Sugar’s subscribers were in a precarious flux since Zack’s broadcast, and way lower than I would need to get into the NYU program. I was fucked.
It had been two days since it happened and the library was the only place I’d left my room for. I missed lectures and seminars and screened dozens of calls and messages from Chioma and Shanti. Aminah was all but holding vigil by my door. Malakai had come by but I told him I needed space. He left and couldn’t have been out of the building before he sent a message.
Kai: I got you, Scotch. Know that. X
Nothing would make me feel better. Nothing that anyone could say could make me feel less stupid for letting the same thing happen to me twice. The one thing I swore to myself I would never allow to happen. The minute I let my guard down, let myself get involved in Blackwell society, I was paying for it, and everyone else would pay for it too. Life was far easier when I didn’t talk to anyone but Aminah—unless it was unseen and through a mic and about what it means when a guy doesn’t like your pictures. I couldn’t believe that somehow, a guy had managed to weaponize his attraction to me against me again, like some kind of poisoned kiss that would always lead to my social demise.
My eyes were stinging again, filling again. I had been sat in my secret spot in the library for at least two hours. Thankfully there were plenty of things to keep me occupied. I was equipped with books about colonialism, Yoruba masks, the matriarchy in ancient African cultures, and half a granola bar. I’d already eaten today so if I saved the granola bar until tomorrow then maybe I could hide out here for like two days. Nobody would ever find me.
I reached behind me and pulled a book out at random. Heaven on Earth: Divine Power in Ancient Yorubaland. Maybe I could tap into my inner celestial being and transcend this situation totally, and rewind time so I was curled up in bed with Malakai, because I missed him, I just didn’t know what to do with us anymore, us felt trapped underneath the emotional debris of Zack’s chaos.
“Kiki—”
My latent powers must have been super potent because I hadn’t even turned the first page and they’d already been activated. I’d willed myself to hear Malakai’s voice. With a little bit of training, I could really run the world. I turned the book around. Was it some kind of grimoire?
“Scotch.” The voice was louder, and I looked up to see Malakai stood in between the two bookshelves. My heart leaned into its compulsion to leap at the sight of him, whatever the circumstance. Malakai sat next to me on the floor. The moment his arm curved around me, I turned to him, curling my legs over his, as he leaned his chin on my head, my body furling into the comfort of his energy. I inhaled deeply, taking in his scent, letting it soothe.
“Look, Kiki, I know you said this was your safe space but the girls were getting worried. I was getting worried. I thought I’d try. Do you want me to go?”
“No.” I sniffed and untangled myself from him, crossing my legs and swivelling so I was facing him. “Kai, I don’t know what to do. It wasn’t like all of it was a lie. But if I admit that some of it is true then people are gonna think that all of it is true and then there’s that fucking picture—”