“It’s not a bad thing,” he says. As if the angry man in front of me was conjured by my imagination, every line in Quinton’s body falls. Even his eyes that looked at me with so much hate only moments ago go soft. He reaches out for my hands and rubs them between his, causing feeling to come back into my fingertips before pulling me into a tight hug and tucking my head into his chest. “I think you’ve spent your entire life wanting so badly to fit in with the part of you people can’t see, that you’ve conditioned yourself to excuse the hurtful things they say. You want them to accept you so bad, you’ve become blind to certain things. Even if I was the only Black person in my class, I still got to go home and fit in there. And I can’t hold it against you for finding a way to protect yourself in a world I know nothing about.”

He drops his face, his nose nuzzling into my hair, the kiss on my head speaking volumes. The tears that slowed pick up again, but before I can tighten my arms around him, he pulls away. Dropping his arms, he takes a step away from me and opens his car door.

“I can understand it, but it’s not something that I can bring into my life,” he says. Even after my dad died, nobody looked at me with the amount of pity that Quinton is looking at me with now. “I know this job is important to you and I’ll make sure you can keep it. I hope you can find whatever validation you’ve been searching for, Elliot, but I know that I can’t give it to you.”

He folds his large body into his seat and starts his car, pulling away without even glancing my way. Not that it matters. I’m rooted to the spot he last touched me, wanting to rewind time and tell him everything before it came to this. Questions without any answers run through my mind. I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can’t do anything. All I do is stare after him, watching as his taillights get further and further away, until I can’t see him anymore . . . until he’s gone.

“Come on, sweetie.” Mrs. Rafter puts the strap of my purse over my shoulder and pulls my eyes away from the empty street in front of me. “Let’s get you home.”

I follow Mrs. Rafter out of the middle of the street and down the sidewalk until we reach my car.

Every step jostles me back to reality.

The reality where I had Quinton and lost him just as fast. The one where he took the liberty to try and tell me how and what I feel.