CHAPTER 6 – A Little Math, A Lot of Rage
981 Words
The spreadsheet was still up. Color-coded and cruel, it glowed from Imani’s phone in the center of the library table. Pastel blocks marked names and dates. Tiny notations in neat, precise handwriting. Every cell a receipt. Every highlight a knife.
Mila stared like it had betrayed her personally. “So you’re telling me he scheduled us? Like a damn group project?”
Imani didn’t look up. “More like a Venn diagram with ego issues.”
Savannah blinked, slow. Her voice was even, but her hands twisted her necklace. “Imani, you included Homecoming?”
Imani didn’t flinch. “Of course. It was the most obvious overlap.”
Mila leaned forward. “Wait—what? He made Homecoming plans with all of us?”
Imani flipped a page in her planner, calm as a surgeon. “With me? Dinner near campus. Said he wanted something private. I called the restaurant to check. The reservation was real.”
Savannah crossed her arms. “He told me he bought a suit. Said his cousin was a stylist. That his mom wanted photos.”
Mila’s face went still. “I was the after-party. Said I was the only one he wanted to end the night with. Called it ‘the real homecoming.’”
No one spoke.
Imani set her pen down. “So we were the pre-show, the red carpet, and the after-hours.”
Savannah rubbed her temple. “He mapped it out.”
Mila’s voice dropped. “He had a damn itinerary. But who was the actual date?”
The clock clicked on the wall. Somewhere in the distance, a printer whined like a machine trying not to cry.
They didn’t say it. But they all thought it. Lia.
Imani scrolled. Her voice went quieter. “He kept journals. Not just sketchbooks. Full pages. Poems. Quotes. Lyrics.”
Mila’s head snapped up. “Wait… like actual handwriting? In a black Moleskine?”
Imani nodded. “With a sticker half-torn off the front.”
Savannah’s voice caught in her throat. “He gave me a page once. Folded it into a paper crane. Said no one else had ever seen it.”
Imani pulled up a file on her phone. “He texted me this after we studied together: ‘You’re the quiet I never knew I needed.’”
Mila dug through her photos, then held her phone up. “Same quote. Different day. Different excuse. He said it came to him in a dream.”
They turned to Savannah.
She didn’t move for a second. Then, “He gave it to me too. On a napkin. From Luna Café. Wrote it right in front of me, like it was spontaneous.”
The silence thickened.
“So he wasn’t inspired,” Mila said. “He was recycling.”
Imani, “Curating intimacy.”
Savannah, “Plagiarizing feelings.”
Mila leaned back, face twisted in disbelief. “I almost wrote his name on my wall. In Sharpie. Right above my bed.”
Imani looked down. “I made him a playlist. I called it ‘Proof.’ Hozier and ambient tracks. I thought… I thought it meant something.”
Savannah gave a brittle, bitter laugh. “He cried on my shoulder once. Told me about his brother. Said he never talks about him.”
That stopped the room.
Imani stared. “He told me that too. Said the funeral changed him.”
Mila didn’t blink. “He said his brother taught him how to ride a bike.”
Savannah, “He told me they weren’t close until the end.”
Imani closed her planner with a soft click. “I asked his friend about it last week. He doesn’t even have a brother.”
Something broke wide open then. Not just hurt. Violation.
Mila’s voice dropped into something ragged. “Okay, I vote we burn something. His hoodie. His house. Whatever’s flammable.”
Imani said flatly, “I’m more into consequences than catharsis.”
Savannah adjusted her necklace again. Her voice was quiet but cold. “He didn’t just lie. He designed it. This wasn’t an accident. It was engineered.”
Imani nodded. “Strategic use of separate school systems. Minimal overlap. He diversified his platforms. Created personas.”
Mila scoffed, but there was no humor in it. “So what, we were his personal brand packages? i********:, Twitter, and whatever the hell else?”
Savannah’s voice tightened. “Different lies for different lives.”
They sat with it. The spreadsheet still glowed, but no one looked at it now. It wasn’t about data anymore.
Imani broke the silence. “This doesn’t just hurt because of him. It hurts because it makes me doubt me.”
Mila was still. Then she said, “Yeah. Like... how did I miss it?”
Savannah’s voice was barely there. “I didn’t. Not completely. I think… I saw it. I just wanted to believe he’d choose me.”
That landed hard. No one answered for a while.
Imani reached for her phone. Her finger hovered. Then she locked the screen, darkening the spreadsheet. “He’s not worth what he took from us.”
Mila looked over. “Then let’s take it back.”
Savannah nodded slowly. “All of it.”
Imani said, “Together.”
Mila tilted her chair back just enough to feel reckless. “Not to be the petty one—but I still think we should burn something.”
Savannah’s lips twitched. “Later.”
Imani flipped to a blank page in her planner. “So we agree: this doesn’t end with him getting away clean.”
Savannah: “We control the story now.”
Mila, “No more secrets.”
Savannah, “No more shame.”
Imani, “Then we decide what comes next.”
They stood together.
Not quite friends. But no longer fooled. And that was enough.
For now.
- Writer
