“I… I…”

My anger burns hotter at his stuttering shock written there. How could he? How dare he? “I see you, Jhamal.” Flames flicker on my fingertips and I pin him harder to the wall.

“Rue.” Julius pulls at me, but I snatch my arm away.

“J-Jelani,” Jhamal stammers back, my flames flickering in his eyes.

“It takes a despicable kind of monster to pretend to love.”

He starts to speak, his eyes glazed with tears. From regret for what he did or regret from being caught, I don’t know. Tears sting my eyes too, and one steals its way down my cheek.

“Just tell me. Was it ever real?” I ask, cutting myself deeper, just to feel something.

“Jelani—” His face is hazy behind my salty vision.

“You could’ve been on my side,” I say, my voice cracking. I’m a wound bleeding, oozing everywhere, and I don’t know how to stop it.

He cuts Kai a glance and she’s sitting, a nasty smirk dancing on her lips.

“I have to stand with Kai on this, Jelani,” he says, and something inside me cracks. I hold him there a little longer, pretending the words he just muttered never existed. But the longer they hang in the air, the heavier they become. I can’t deny the truth anymore. The Seer predicted this betrayal. I just never in a million years thought it’d be him.

I touch his face once more before letting him go, running my fingers across the brow that sweat for me, the lines worn into creases around his eyes, the ones that sink in his cheeks. For what we had, what we once were, what I wished we would become. But my fingers feel foreign on his skin.

“I hate you,” I breathe, hoping my words break him. I let him up, my magic evaporating. Kai feels around her mouth, stretching her lips. I turn my back on Jhamal; I can’t look at him. Not now, not ever again. “I’m casting the spell, summoning the Ancestors. If I were you, I’d be far away when the time comes.”

Crunch.

Julius’s fist connects with Jhamal’s cheek. “That’s the least you deserve, bruh.” He sneers. “You’re welcome.”

My insides quake, but I choke them down and rush to the door, the crack buckling, shattering what’s left of me into a million pieces. Kai whispers as the door clicks shut. Outside, I hold the doorknob, its etchings digging into my skin, when Julius gently touches my shoulder.

“Rue, let it go, fam.”