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How did five years become this? One fight. One goodbye fuck. One heart being shredded in a hotel room. Because, surely, he was just fine. I mean breaking up is unpleasant, but there is no way he would have chosen this if his heart was on the line. Because this felt like hellfire. I felt like I was burning from the inside. He got up, made some kind of gesture, like he wanted to hug me, which couldn’t have been right. I stayed where I was in the bed, in the huge T-shirt I’d pulled on– ironically one of his that I’d stolen from him.

He nodded to himself. ‘Kiki. I hope you know I love—’

‘You don’t need to do that, Malakai. Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear it. If being apart from me will make you happy, then go be happy, but please don’t insult me by telling me you love me.’

Malakai’s expression was shadowed, and I knew he was bounding up everything he felt, ensuring he showed nothing, avoiding agitating the volatile atmosphere.

I sniffed. ‘I’m, um, I’m gonna have a shower. If you’re gonna go, go while I’m in there, please. That’s the only thing I’m gonna ask.’

I wasn’t about to break down in front of him. I couldn’t let him have that.

He was looking at me with his fists balled, trembling, as if he wanted to touch me, hold me. That couldn’t have been right. He wanted this. Nobody who wanted this could have an inclination to comfort me, stop the hurt. He was the cause. He came to the bed and bent over to press a kiss to my forehead. A tear pushed itself from my eyes, but nothing else moved. I was numb, still, everything in my body slowed to inertia. It was only when scalding water was pummelling my skin, when steam was rising up around me, mingling with the smoke of our destruction, it was only when I heard the thud of the door closing, that I sobbed. Big, gulping, racking sobs. I slid to the floor and rocked myself, wrapped my arms around on myself, hyperventilating, gasping for breath, trying to fight a reality that was aggressively, necessarily, clawing its way into my consciousness. Malakai and I were no longer together.

Chapter 15

How Does It Feel?

A few days after the video shoot, I come home from holiday-shopping with the girls to a slim package that reads ‘Fragile’. Dumping my bags on the floor by the door, I open it carefully to see an originalBrown Sugarvinyl. My heart stutters. I know it’s original by the gentle creases, the fading of the sleeve, and when I delicately pull the vinyl out, the small scratches tell me more. They’re like kisses. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It was listened to, loved on. Not worn,livedin. Fulfilling purpose. I peer into the package for a note, and there is one, folded in half, and I know who it’s from even before I see the curving scrawl that’s as familiar to me as my own handwriting, seen in birthday cards and anniversary cards and Post-it notes stuck on the back of my uni room door that read ‘Gone to get my coffee and your ice cream, Sleepy Head’; a message from an early riser to someone violently allergic to mornings. The note before me now reads, ‘To the rightful owner x’.

My eyes blur. I swear under my breath as warmth surges through, becausefuckhim, bless him. I put it on immediately. I light my candles, pour myself a glass of red wine, strip down to my underwear, fold myself on my bed and watch the sunset through my wide windows, physically still but my mind moving through music, through time. I close my eyes and my hand slips under my panties, between my legs and feel him feeling me; I barely think about it, it’s obeying the call of memory, and like the ocean holds both past and present, so does my waters, history repeating itself, waves washing up facts of want, my body shuddering complicated truths, then aching at the absence of a hard truth. I cry out and I cry. I fall asleep and dream of a memory so exquisitely vivid that I’m shocked to open my eyes to an empty bed at 2 a.m. I’m suddenly frantic, and acting on impulse, without acknowledging knowledge, I grab my phone from my side table and send a text.

Keeks

D’Angelo came to my house yesterday.

He replies immediately.

Kai

Oh yeah? Did you ask him when the next album’s coming?

Keeks

Thank you, Kai. You didn’t have to.

Kai

I did. Civic duty. Can’t have Voodoo without Brown Sugar x

I stare at the ‘x’, glowing in the dark of my room. Malakai may have affection for me, but that doesn’t mean he wants me. He’s being kind because he’s kind, I know, but I stare at the ‘x’ like it’s marking the spot that the dream version of him hit inside me, making me come in mysleep. I swallow and note the time, the immediacy with which he replied, and it’s this that informs my boldness.

Keeks

Why you up?

Kai

Couldn’t sleep. Editing. You look great in these by the way. It’s shaping up so sweet. Mapping out the new film too.

I can’t help the smile that licks at my mouth. I slide down under the smooth of my covers, of possibility.

Keeks

I’m glad.

Kai

I think you should keep doing this. I mean, after this is over