BLACK HEARTS

14. triggered

LEAH

They were making me sick.

I wasn't exaggerating, either. I loved them both like nothing else, but it was times like this one when my roommates were too cute for their own good. I'd walked into a few different situations involving them and I was happy to say that this time everyone was fully clothed. One of Ayanna's limitless 90s playlists was in rotation, her and Max taking advantage of Aaliyah's "I Don't Wanna." He pulled her from the sink where she'd actually been doing dishes. With a few words in her ear and tenderness in his eyes, Ayanna couldn't deny him. Pressed together, they slow danced right on the kitchen rug. Wholly content, completely at peace, their connection was one for the ages. You then could understand how confusing it was in the same breath.

Ayanna and Max had all the making of a relationship.

They were thick as thieves, the best of friends, and had no shortage of attraction towards each other, but they'd never crossed that line into a full-blown romance. Ayanna, very quietly, stopped it from ever going there. All you could do was feel sorry for Max. He loved Ayanna more than he did himself. I was no expert with these things, but that never seemed to bear well for people in the end. We had covered the subject numerous times and Ayanna held her position. Nothing official was going to happen between them. Their dynamic boggled the mind, but that was just it. They had a dynamic. They had each other.

Some of us weren't that fortunate.

Ayanna noticed me watching and tapped Max on the shoulder. "Push off, man. My girl is cutting in."

She pushed him away, beckoning me with one finger. I laughed as she forced me to slow dance. I felt better. Not amazing. Not even normal, but it was an improvement and all I could really ask for. Ayanna had been keeping an eye on me, harassing me was more like it. She'd even woken me up this morning to go running. We had lunch at my favorite vegan place, she'd painted my nails the perfect shade of lavender, and sat through a documentary series she'd normally snore her way through.

Every effort she'd put forth was for me.

I was grateful and glad to report that I hadn't even thought of Darius today. He was such a non-factor that I declined his calls and blocked him on every platform I could. I was just now realizing I'd rather let Ayanna spin and dip me on the kitchen floor than suffer through another one of his faux-intellectual monologues. With strength she shouldn't have, Ayanna brought me up and smacked my backside playfully. She gave Max a shake of the head and a thumbs up.

"What do we owe the pleasure, Ms. Trudeau? Thought you'd be chained to your desk by now," Ayanna said returning to the sink.

That was usually the case. My one day off from school and the gig I still managed to spend with my head in a book. Literally. Not today. You could set your watch by my routine. My life was a perfectly constructed box. I depended on the control, had overdosed on it for a multitude of reasons. The one time I had let myself go, disaster had ensued. Never again would I let myself spin out like that, but monotony had its own downfall. I was less human and more robot and maybe it was time to change that.

Within reason.

"What are we doing tonight?" I asked.

Ayanna and Max shared a look. Ayanna took the lead. "We were about to order out and call it a night. Unless you had something else in mind, that is."

Her slow smile made me uneasy in a good way. She had read me without any explanation and was rolling with it.

"I'm open to a few possibilities," I said.

Max put his hand against my forehead. "Leah, is that you? Does our resident overachiever want to actually slum it with us? We have to make something happen."