I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 10: declaration of war

The click of the door is muted as I shut it. Channel Orange booms in the bathroom, and though Ziri cuts the volume in half to call his "hi baby" over it, my greeting is hooked somewhere in my stomach. I slide off my jacket, but can't find it in me to bend down to undo my shoelaces. I stare at them as though they'll unravel with willpower.

Ziri cracks the bathroom door open so he doesn't accidentally hit me with it, which happened several times when we first moved here and were unused to the small space. He's in his underwear, and his hair is sleek with conditioner, the wet coils clipped into sections. The dark skin of his chest gleams where water drips.

'Kiss?' he asks.

I'm too zoned out to lift my eyes from my Nikes. 'Hug?'

His arms wrap around me, cool from the water on his palms. Ziri never hugs half-heartedly. A hug is never a greeting but always a love confession. He cradles me, builds a pillow fort with his arms for me to hide in, and never evicts me before I'm ready to leave.

But it doesn't work today. My mind needs to be in my body to be held.

He slides away just enough to look at me. 'How was it?'

I shrug. How was it? I feel as though I've been hit by a truck in the middle of a marathon and expected to keep running. The only silver lining is that it was the third session. I don't have to go back.

A laugh croons in Ziri's mouth. 'I know,' he says as if I've expressed this thought out loud, and maybe I have. 'Therapy's frickin weird. I go for years to be dissected and then some random Tuesday they go "okay, you're done" like I've graduated.'

I pin my lips into a smile, but there's something rotten on my tongue I can't swallow. I can't swallow it, so I try to spit it out.

'He called it rape.'

Silence.

Ziri's jaw rolls, and I know he's running his tongue along his teeth the way he does when he's uncomfortable. He's uncomfortable, but there's no sign of shock to be found. 'I mean... I thought... Yeah.'

I yank back. Smoke fills my mind again. 'What, so this whole time you've thought of me as some rape victim?'

His arms hover for a moment as if holding my ghost before they drop to his sides. 'No. I think of you as my boyfriend.' Ziri clasps the hamsa pendant on his choker to pull it back and forth on the velvet ribbon. 'I think of him as a rapist, though...'

'You've never even met him!'

As I yell, Ziri's voice sinks. 'I don't need to meet him.' His eyes flit around the entrance a moment before they settle back on mine, the black shining even brighter behind a glaze of tears. 'Miles, you said you didn't want to have sex with him. That makes it rape.'

My ribs creak from the pressure pressing against them. Every kiss was a cherry seed I naively swallowed, and now a tree is growing inside me. My skin might tear at the seams. There's no space for my lungs to expand.

'When've I said that?'

'Every time you talk about it. Every time you talk about it.'

I shift my weight from foot to foot. Pins and needles poke at my calves. 'You always jump to the worst possible conclusion.'

'The very first thing you ever told me about it was "I didn't wanna do it, I just went along with it". What other conclusion could I possibly have jumped to?'

'Yeah, you always know fucking everything, don't ya?' I glare at him. The rot is going to make my teeth fall out if I don't wash it out. 'I'm going for a run.'