Page 29 of Until Nalia

“What?”

“The guy you’re dating, how long have you two been together?” The question is filled with disgust.

“A little over a year.”

“Did you live together?”

“No.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“No,” I say, then want to suck the answer back in. “We’re taking things slow.”

“Apparently, if you’ve been with this guy for over a year, you don’t love him, and when you told him you were moving, the solution the two of you came up with is to keep things fluid. Whatever the fuck that means.”

“It was his suggestion,” I tell him, then add, “And none of that matters, Logan, I just cheated on him.”

“But did you?” he mutters, and I realize that we are no longer parked in front of my house but pulling into the driveway of a two-story house made of white brick with black accents around the windows and creeping vines with red flowers crawling up the side of the house. It’s beautiful, and an exact replica of the house I have on one of my vision boards on Pinterest. When did we even leave my house?

Parking next to his Jeep in the driveway, he gets out and walks around to me and opens my door.

“Here.” He hands me the keys to his mom’s car.

“Oh, now I can drive?”

“I’m not riding with you.” He reaches down, grabs my hand, and pulls me from my seat. “Follow me to Mom’s, then we’ll head over to the school.”

I want to tell him that I’ll walk to my house which I’m pretty sure is just around the corner because we didn’t spend forever driving unless I blacked out, and I don’t think that happened.

Do I do that? Of course, not, I instead get behind the wheel of his mom’s car and follow him to his parents’ house, then after he puts her keys in the mailbox next to the front door because she’s not home and neither is his dad, I get into his Jeep with him.

“Did you call him?”

“Who?” I ask a few minutes later as we park in line at the school.

“The fluid guy?”

“Don’t call him that; it sounds weird and gross. No, I’ll call him later.”

“And breakup with him?” I turn to glare at him. “Or is that even necessary when you’re not in a relationship with someone?”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“I’m just asking questions so that I know when I can kiss you again.”

“That’s never happening.” My cheeks are so hot that I’m sure they are red.

“Sure it isn’t.”

“I’m serious, Logan, our kids are friends, and I’m not looking for a relationship or to make things complicated.”

“So, you’re admitting that you’re not currently in a relationship,” he says, and I groan because I did just say that, even though that is not what I meant.

“Can we stop talking?” I cross my arms over my chest and focus out the open window on the playground where the fourth graders are having their last recess of the day. The entire area is open, with just a short metal fence that does nothing but act as a barrier between the playground and fields from the sidewalk and street. Scanning through the kids, I search for Zuri and find her sitting in the grass with a group of girls, including Heather, all of them seeming to pick the yellow weed flowers from the grass.

I sent an e-mail to the principal and her teachers this morning explaining what happened over the weekend and asking that they keep an eye on her and that they try to insist that she not run around like she normally would at recess or during PE. I also had a long talk with her about it last night and again this morning. I’m happy to see that she listened.

As I’m watching her, I see Cooper and a group of boys playing soccer near the girls, but far enough away that they won’t accidentally hit them with the ball. Or I assume that they won’t be able to hit them with the ball until one boy seems to come out of nowhere, kicking the soccer ball before another kid can get to it. The ball flies through the air and crashes into the back of the head of one of the girls sitting in the circle with Heather and Zuri. The impact is so hard that her entire body goes forward.