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"I don't hate you," Amara whispered into my ear the next morning at the table. I nod. I had almost forgotten she had said such.
Taron texts me to say he's outside. I frowned a little. I didn't ask him to come see me. I'd much prefer if he didn't.
"What's That face for?" Isis asks me, sipping on black coffee. She made her own face, taking a large spoon of sugar and dumping it in her mug, pouring a gulp of milk in after.
"Leave me alone," I say. Pasha patters in, rubbing his eyes. He's still in his pyjamas and it's close to eleven.
He passes me and goes to Isis. I felt a tad wounded when she picked him up and held him close as she drank. I didn't know I was glaring until she pointed it out.
"That's an ugly face," she snorted, "You're pretty, Tatiana, way too pretty to be scowling like that. No man's ever gonna pick you up if you're looking like that." I make another face, bewildered.
"What if I don't want a man to pick me up?" I ask of her.
She snorts again, "A woman then. I've been gone for a little while and you've started to like women, is that it?"
I don't say anything. I just want to strangle her. She was mocking me and I didn't like being mocked by her. She didn't get to do that.
"Anyway," she continued, "Who are you texting?"
I don't answer, but Pasha does, deciding to be a big boy now.
"Tate's got a boyfriend," he said, smugly.
"Oh?" Isis smirked, "Boyfriend, is it?"
I sigh, standing up.
"Is he cute?"
I leave, going to open the door and peer over the balcony. And there he is, sure enough, leaning against his car. He looks up and waves. I gesture for him to come up. I buzz him in and go and wait by the elevator. He pulls me and kisses me once he sees me, "Maths?" he asks.
"Ok." I realise he's got his kit with him. "Game today?"
"Yeah, want to come?"
"Can't," I say, shutting the door behind us. I push him to keep walking to my room, but Isis already spots him.
"Tatiana? Who is this boy?" she asks me. I sigh, walking back to stand at the kitchen door. Taron follows me, looking meek, "You can't sneak a boy in here."
Really, she couldn't tell me what to do, but I didn't say this.
"We're doing maths."
"Uh huh," she voices, as if she knows something we don't, "Does Ren know?"
When I don't say anything, Taron lifts a hand, "Hi Mrs, Miss-. I'm Taron."
"Hello Taron," Isis nods. "I'm Isis, Tatiana's mother." Wrong.
He nods.
"We're leaving now," I say, taking his hand and taking him to my room, shutting the door, despite her calls.
"Shouldn't you answer her?" he asks, letting his bag drop to the floor.
"No," I say. I turn on the small radio on my bedside table, switching it to the right station, then I lay on my bed, an arm over my face, so I don't have to see anything. I did all my homework yesterday. And the house was quiet. After last night, I guess no one could really sleep, so that was why Pasha had just woken up and Jae and Ollie were still in bed. Evie was adamant about avoiding our mother, so she sat with a bowl of cereal in the family room, eyes glued to the TV screen with the dog.

I don't hear Taron for a while, until he's like, "I thought we were going to do maths."
"I wasn't actually expecting you," I say, maybe a bit harshly, yet, I did not much care.
"I had time," he said.
"Great."
"Are you ok?"
"I'm great," I say. He comes to sit on the edge of the bed, looking at me. I know this when I open my eyes to meet his. And they're close. And his mouth. That's close too.
I wanted him to kiss me just once. Only once. I swear. Until he actually did. And then, I wanted him to do it more. He knew, and he leaned over me properly. This was the only time in life when I don't seem to actually think, but I believed that I liked where his hands were. His hand moved to my chest and I waited for him to say something, but he didn't, so I just let him continue. I was allowed to breathe through my mouth when he pulled away, but his lips soon found my neck, and his hand found the buttons on my jeans. And I squirmed suddenly, moving his hand away.
"No, don't." He looked down at me for a movement, before getting off, saying nothing yet. "I-"
"It's ok," he says, "You're not ready."
"Not here at least," I say. It was only the truth. Not in my bed.
"So at mine?" he asked. Oops, "You'd be up for it there?"
I hesitated, "Taron..."
"If you aren't, just tell me," he says.

          

TELL HIM.

But I don't. I search myself and hold a staff meeting in my brain and not a single part of me could find an excuse. I wasn't afraid, it's not like I couldn't. It was all a matter of if I wanted to.
"I'll think about it," I say.
"Ok," he gets his stuff out and sits beside me. He holds my hand as he scribbled down some answers. He liked challenges. He said so. Have fun with me then, I said to myself.
We watch a movie on his phone too, lying together. He had a TV in his room. I knew that. I didn't covet that. One TV was good enough.
He shifts until my backs against his chest. My eyes widen a little because I feel something from between his legs.
Now, it's perfectly normal, but I waited for him to at least say something about it, but he didn't. He just brushed back my hair and lay his chin there.

And then somebody knocked.
"You fucking in there or what?" I heard Jae call. I get up and go to the door and open it. He looks at me, black eye and all, "I'm going out yeah?"
"You're fucking joking aren't you?" I ask.
"Hey, I told you though didn't I?"
"What about them plebs that fucked up your face?"
"I ain't gotta worry about that innit?" he looked unsure though, "You still got my knife yeah?"
"You ain't getting that back. You still have yet to explain."
"Can I just have it yeah?"
"Who gave it to you?"
"No one!" he snapped.
"Jae!"
"I ain't lying, Fine, fuck you," he turned, "I'm going to the fucking library."

I let him go. And Isis stepped out of her room to watch, "It's shit when they don't listen to you, right?"
"He's you're fucking son," I say, shutting the door.
"Everything alright?" Taron asks me when I come back.
"It's just Jae," I say.
"Do you want to go after him again?"
"No," I say. I didn't want to go after anyone. Not anymore. But he was my brother. "Later."

When later gets here, Jae's already back, sauntering in, whistling.
"Where did you actually go?" I ask him.
"Library," he relied, "Like I fucking said."
"You hate reading."
"Yeah, but I have a bunch of it to do at school innit, and I gotta keep up if I'm gonna go back tomorrow innit?"
"I guess..." I'm confused, "You didn't see those-."
"Nah, say nothing," he tried to walk away, but I grabbed his arm.
"Nah..." I glare at him, "Tell me what's going on. Who are those friends you're hanging out with at school?"
"They ain't my friends," he looked serious, so I let him go, "They ain't."
"There's something you're not saying."
"I can't tell you everything," he said, "now leave me alone."
And the thing is, he said it rightly.
I shouldn't have left it there. But in some instances, you'll never realise that until later.
I watched him walk past me into his room. He shut the door and it almost felt like he was shutting me out of his life.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" Haven asked, when she came home just before six. She was already cutting onions.
"No," I say, "He doesn't."
But Taron frowned, "Sure."
"No," I say, "Go home."
"He wants to stay," Haven furrowed her brow, "Let him stay, Tate."
He turns to me, but I've started to walk back to my room, "Don't you want me to stay, Tate? I'll go home if you want," he says, but I know all too well how to hurt feelings. I shake my head instead.
"I'm being stupid. You can stay," I tell him, and I take his hand for good measure. Just so he knows I don't want to wound him.

I stand on the balcony outside my door and wave down to him as he's getting into his car. I watch him drive off and I sigh. It's probably of relief. I can't always be sure why I sigh. A lot of the time it's just because I have so much homework to do.
It's so cold but it hardly matters when there's so much other suffering going on in the world. So many people wish that their only issue was being cold. And I could fix this. I could go inside. Too many situations couldn't be solved by just going inside.

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