At lunchtime, I waited at the entrance to the cafeteria for Imani because I wanted to sneak her into the library to talk. After watching João bury his mom last night, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about my parents. And neither João nor Landon was good at talking about s**t.
As a herd of wild students pushed to get into the cafeteria first, I spotted Imani at the rear of the crowd, pulling off her reading glasses and shoving them into her case.
She looked over at me and smiled. “What are you—”
Before she could finish her sentence, I took her hand and whisked her away toward the library. “I want to eat lunch with you alone today,” I said, not mentioning my parents yet. I didn’t know what I would even say to her about it anyway, but I… I really needed to talk. “Come on.”
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