Page 48 of Collateral Love
Until one night, I realized I was checking my phone for her messages before making sure my mom or X was good.
That was the moment I knew I was fucked. Not because I wanted her body. But because I wanted her mind.
And that was more dangerous.
She started dating again.
Not seriously, just existing in spaces where men circled at the college.
I hated how easy it looked for them to make her laugh. She had a lightness with them that I hated she let them see.
One night, she came to a meeting late, cheeks flushed from the cold, but her energy was fucked up.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said too quickly.
I didn’t push.
But later, when we were alone, she said quietly, “You ever feel like people only want the parts of you they can understand?”
I looked at her. “What you mean?”
“I broke up with Tony.”
I looked at her, confused. “Who the fuck is that?”
She laughed. “Don’t act like you don't keep tabs on me. Everyone wants something from me that I just can’t give. I don’t let them stay long.”
I felt that.
“I’m with you, bestie, that’s why all these bitches can ever get from meis hard dick.”
She leaned in closer to me and pressed her forehead on top of mine. I could smell her sweet, fruity perfume and see the rise and fall of her chest. As much as I wanted to bring my lips to hers, I didn't.
I couldn’t cross the line.
Because what we were building mattered more than what I wanted.
And because some things, once broken, couldn't be engineered back together.
But every time she leaned over my shoulder to point something out on her tiny ass dorm room TV screen, and every time she called me bestie, I was reminded that I belonged to her.
Every time she trusted me with something fragile, like reading me a letter from her brother, Jared, or sharing all her hopes and dreams for her little sister, Channy, with me, I felt the cost of restraint.
And I understood something I hadn’t before, that loving Kenya wasn’t going to be about possession.
The problemwith systems was that once they worked, people got careless.
Kenya warned me about that.
She didn’t raise her voice or repeat herself. She just adjusted the variables and watched who noticed. Who adapted and eliminated who didn’t.
That’s how she caught the leak.
It wasn’t one of the runners.
It was a professor.
