Chapter Twenty-Two: "I Almost Killed You."

WEDNESDAY WAS THE day that the most insufferable and irrational person I knew decided to knock on my door. Loudly. Aggressively.

At one point, I thought the police were trying to ram through my door.

Pulling myself out of bed, a groan filled with agony left my lips in the early hours of that morning. Warm light spilled into my room but the window I had left open that night by accident had me shivering once I kicked off the covers. I fetched my thick blanket, putting the softness around my shoulders before padding downstairs and to the front door.

On the other side stood a joyful Iman. A joyful Iman who started screaming dramatically while blocking my hits against his arm. "Ow! Ow, relax bro! Stop."

I stopped hitting him, putting my hand back on my blanket to secure the fabric over my shoulders. Outside, snow wasn't falling but the breeze that entered through the front door gave me the indication that the bright sun high in the cloudless was for show. "What is wrong with you?"

He snorted, looking down at my outfit. The long pants I was sporting had bananas decorated on the fabric. That was a gift from my dad one Christmas. The pants didn't help the fact that I was wearing a tank top that had a big wide smiley face on it. "You look so funny."

"What the hell?" I spat at him. Two nights in a row I had little to no sleep. He ruined sleep. My sleep-deprived self had every right to be mad at him. "Why are you up right now?"

"It's Toronto time."

He's delusional.

"Iman," I took a deep breath to calm myself down. My hands were fisting the blankets around me as snow started falling. Although it was very light, it drifted into my house from the open door started to hit me in the face. It needed to stop fucking snowing. "It's 9 o'clock. Sane people are still sleeping."

He completely ignored me, rocking on his feet. Immanuel was wearing a thick brown jacket and shoes I hoped wouldn't get ruined if he continued walking in this weather. Never mind. If he was still in front of my house trying to get me out of it in five minutes, I was going to start hoping they did. "C'mon. I'm heading out today. You said you'd think about it."

"I didn't say yes."

"You didn't say no either."

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"C'mon." He locked his fingers together then put them under his chin, pouting his bottom lip.

"What's going on?" Larine came up from behind me, peering up at Iman. Unlike me in my sleeping attire, she looked ready for the day, wearing a plaid sweater and light jeans. In fact, she looked so well on the outside for a girl who had spent most of the night crying into one of her many pillows while being surrounded by junior chicken wrappers and boxes of nuggets.

She also looked a little flushed. She had told me last night that she was going to go for a run in the morning. I guessed that was how she coped with things: by running. Literally and possibly figuratively.

Iman extended a hand in her direction. "I'm Iman."

She shook his hand. "Larine, but I usually go by Riri."

What? She usually goes by what?

My surprise must have shown because she shrugged bashfully. "Old nickname. You can call me either name. It doesn't matter."

Iman pointed at me with his thumb. "Did you know that Jaime's real name isn't Jaime?"

"Um," Larine looked equally surprised. "No."

Iman clapped his hands as if he was about to solve every problem. "See, today would be a perfect day to get to know each other. Listen, since you're roommates with Jaime and I am practically Jaime's favourite person in the entire world--"

"Not at the moment," I muttered.

"Well, in a few hours I will be," He said to me before turning back to her. "Do you want to come to Toronto with us for the day?"

After the day she had had yesterday, I guessed that she would want to wallow at home. But with breakups came stages. One stage I understood even though I had never been through a breakup was avoidance.

She nodded, "I wanna go."

"See. She's ready to go," Iman was practically bouncing on his toes at this point. "C'mon, Jaime."

They both looked at me with hopeful faces. There was nothing to do today besides study. And I had a good grip on studying for my upcoming midterm. In fact, I had the midterm in the bag. I was that confident.

I caved.

"Fine."

"Yes!" Iman put his fists in the air.

"Do you have a planned ride? 'Cause I can drive." Larine gestured to her car parked on our driveway.

Iman shook his head. "No, I need to make sure that Jaime won't back out of this," What the hell does that mean? "Both of you get changed. I'll be back soon then we can hit the road and be in the city around 1."

Around 1? Toronto was a two-hour drive from Jasper Bay and it was only 9 AM. "Where are you going?" I asked when he galloped down our steps.

"I'll be back!" He exclaimed, starting to run down the street without another word.

"Riri," I tentatively said to Larine, almost two hours later. She stood at a distance near the closet as I was pulling on my snow boots, dressed in a long-sleeve, my black hat and jeans.

At the moment, her nickname didn't seem to fit her. She did say that it was an old nickname, but then again, I didn't know much of her personality, to begin with.

Last night had been rough. Not even episodes of Friends, apparently her favourite show, seemed to cheer her up. Nothing was going to do it. I didn't think she was going to stop crying but at some point, she had nodded off after telling me that I should go to sleep.

At this moment, Larine stopped picking out shoes from the closet and turned to glance at me. "Jaiyesimi." She said with a soft smile, also testing my real name in her mouth. Like Aven's one dimple, she had two deep ones on in her cheeks.

"Are you going to be okay for today?"

My heart dropped at the sight of her eyes filling up. But when she opened her mouth to speak, the doorbell rang.

That wasn't Iman. Iman would have knocked horribly like usual. He was the only one that didn't have the competence to sense that the doorbell would be more pleasing to our ears.

Larine blinked back the tears, "I need this. I need to be distracted."

So, she does run. Physically and figuratively.

"Lucky for you, Iman's a great distractor." There was absolutely no lie in my words. Immanuel Wilson was one of my favourite people in the entire world (I was never going to admit that to his face) and he was a light in my life. If there was a person in the world that could give someone a warm huggable feeling without even trying, it was him. And Yasmeen.

"He's an even greater friend to people if he doesn't know them," I informed her, squeezing her arm before walking towards the door when the doorbell rang again.

Aven stood on the other side, giving me his soft smile as he put his hand down from the doorbell. "Hello,"

The checkmark on his black sweater glinted at me underneath his unzipped dark blue jacket. On his feet, he wore his chunky Timberlands. On his neck, the sun high in the sky made his chain wink at me. I was aware that the more I roamed him, wandered, that he was seeing me eye him openly yet I was unable to pull away.

It was the flicker of movement behind him that allowed me to pull my gaze from him. At a distance, Iman was leaning on the passenger side door of Aven's car, waving to me. "Iman wrapped you into doing this, huh?" Aven asked.

Over Aven's shoulder, I raised my hand towards Iman and gave him the finger. Yet the smile stayed on Iman's face as he shot me double of the gesture I had given him.

Removing my gaze from him, I focused on Aven. Tall, bright, smooth by the lack of stubble on his cheeks I knew would appear in the upcoming days, Aven. "You got the car for the day?"

"Dev's staying in, so I have free reign."

"He didn't wanna come?"

"Said he needed to talk to his girl."  I didn't press further on that. It wasn't my business.

"Okay, then," I peeked around Aven's side to look at Iman once again. I didn't miss the way Aven's hand went to my elbow as if I was about to fall but he didn't touch me for that. When I glanced up at him, the expression on his face let me know that he touched me just to touch me. And I didn't move his hand when I yelled at Iman, "Shotgun."

Iman immediately made a face. "No!"

"Do you want me to throw up?" I reminded him.

"Okay, it's yours!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two-hour ride was probably longer than I originally thought it was. It consisted of me and Aven fighting over what should be playing on the aux until Iman all but yelled at the two of us, putting on the radio for us to hear what felt like the same generic pop song over and over again.

By the time we had hit Toronto, we were passing through the highway entering the downtown core. From my peripheral view behind me, Larine was leaning her head against the window, viewing the CN Tower.

Judging by the way her gaze seemed to be fixated on everything and yet nothing, it was delirious to think that she wasn't thinking about anyone but her ex-boyfriend, Benny.

By the time we had found a parking spot, the snow was getting a bit heavier but I didn't mind it now. Coming from a town like Port Yonge, there wasn't any skyscraper buildings or business and financial areas. Instead, we had a lot of beaches, cottage houses, and parks. Here in Toronto, a city I've been to maybe two or three times a year, managed to grasp me every time with its big buildings, busy streets of people in various outfits from suits to sweats walking and going about their days yet always looking like they were on a mission.

And then there were us four, who were tourists in a big city, simply moving along to find an apparent one-of-a-kind Dolly Parton CD at a one-of-a-kind store because Immanuel Wilson needed this more than anything in the world.

Larine and I were leaning against the side of the car as the boys returned from the parking meter. "Okay," Iman stared down on the Google Maps application. "We need to go that way." He walked one way then turned again, almost bumping into someone as he passed. "Shit, no we're going the other way."

"Iman," I held a hand out for his phone. "We know how you are with directions. Remember--"

"The taxi and how I almost killed you. Yes, yes, we all know the story." He placed the phone in my hands and I started leading us to the store when Larine's eyes rounded.

"You almost killed her?"

"Okay, I didn't almost kill her!" Iman exclaimed, louder than he really should have because his words had people glance back at him as they passed by our group.

Aven fell into step with me in front of the other two, glancing over at the screen of Iman's phone in my hand. "Basically, we were trying to get to this really good sushi place downtown because you know Jaime and Mariam are fucking crazy about sushi—mostly Yas, but we didn't really know Yas at this time," Iman said. "They all could eat, like, thirty rolls each. It's crazy. Anyways, Mariam couldn't go with her to the place, so Jaime invited me to go but it was across town. It would've taken a long time to take the bus there."

I spoke up. "And I was down to take an Uber but Iman had to test out this new taxi service that this person told him about. Before I knew it, we were in the taxi with this really scary dude."

"He was huge," Iman dramatized, spreading out his arms for emphasis. "Like this huge and he spoke like someone out of a horror movie. Super deep voice."

"I thought I was going to die when his car started jerking," I shivered at the memory. Iman was right the man's voice was scary. "Then Iman made it worse. He suggested a route he had no idea about. We ended up outside of Jasper Bay."

"At least I managed to get us out of there." He grumbled.

"And into the middle of nowhere," I retorted, articulating my last three words. "Iman was so fucking freaked by that point, he told the guy to let us off on the side of the road."

Aven whipped his head to Iman. "You did what?"

"He was fucking scary, man," Iman sounded like he was whining. Attempting to defend himself as if the event had happened seconds ago and not months ago. "If you were in that car, you would have wanted to get out too."

No, I didn't think Aven would have gotten us out of the car until he had signal on his phone. Unlike Iman who had practically thrown himself out of that car.

"Anyways," Iman continued. "By the time I had managed to call an Uber, it was only after forty minutes of walking before any of us could find service to use our data. It was dark. It was scary. I thought I was going to die."

"Well, we lived to tell the tale, didn't we?" I scornfully said.

"Barely." He grumbled.

Aven chuckled, looking over at the phone in my hands. "Take a left on Adelaide Street."

"So, Larine, what do you do?" Iman asked her as we made the turn, passing by the stream of people walking around us.

"I'm in computer science."

"No way! Me too," Iman looked at her once again. "Wait, I have seen you before. You were in one of my classes in first year."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you always sat with that guy with the shaggy red hair."

Quickly, I turned to see the down look on Larine's face, "That was my ex." Oh, fuck.

Iman winced, "I'm sorry if I struck a nerve."

Larine shrugged. Yet she looked around as if she wanted to dart off through this unknown city. "It's okay. We broke up yesterday."

"Shit," Aven mumbled.

But Iman was Iman and he just shot her grin, bouncing on his toes, as if the energy from him that had never left and kept his spirits high could be transferred to her instantly. "That just means we have to give you a great day today. C'mon."

Iman always stayed true to his word. By the time we had reached the record store, he had Larine laughing as they went through the numerous records and CDs looking for the album he was trying to obtain for his brother.

He had whispered something in Aven's ear the second we had entered the store before dragging Larine over to an employee. I didn't know what he said but it left me and Aven alone for a long while as Iman conducted his search.

Currently, Aven and I stood in the corner looking at the various posters they had on sale. "Larine was the person on the phone last night, right?"

Barely anyone was in the little shop, crammed with lines and lines upon CDs, records and posters hanging on the wall. A part of me felt content within the tiny store as if I could stay here forever, but with Aven, the feeling was overwhelming, especially with the proximity between us and his voice.

"Yeah," I said, taking a needed step away from him and to another box filled with records, flicking through the album covers. "I didn't mean to ditch you or anything. She was hurting. I wasn't going to abandon her."

Aven followed. "He broke up with her out of the blue?"

"In the most disrespectful way possible. He had been planning it for a while or something. God, he's trash." I muttered, getting hot with anger for Larine.

My fingers danced along the edge of each vinyl cover I surpassed, "Ugh, I just—God, why? Men suck."

"Yes, we do."

At least he knows. I flicked through each record before I recognized the cover of one. "Ooh, I was going to show you this song." I pulled out the album cover from the box, holding it up for him to see.

Aven examined the name of the album and then the artist, "It's from the 80s."

"I didn't think you wanted to listen to older music." Although he did like 90s music because his mom listened to it when he had been growing up.

Aven looked puzzled. "Did you think I'd tell you not to show me?"

I shrugged, feeling unsteady under his gaze, "I don't know. Maybe."

His hand reached for the vinyl cover and he flipped it over in his hands, looking at the title track. When he spoke, he kept his focus on the record, "Jay."

"Hmm?" I peered up at him.

He still wasn't looking at me, his eyes trailing along the tracklist on the back, "I've gone through your yeehaw and giddy up playlist despite making fun of country music every time I'm near you."

His sudden confession made me blink. He's never told me that. "You have?"

He put the vinyl back in the box, picking up another one to examine. His lips curved. "I still don't like country music, but I'll listen to whatever you tell me to listen to. 80s music or not. I don't think I could say no to you."

My lips parted to respond but for the second time that day, my larynx system failed to work. The implications of that last sentence shoved their way into my mind. It lingered as he put the vinyl cover back in the record box, and glanced over at my roommate and one of the people he was the closest to before he rested on my features.

And roamed.

From the braids of my hair to my small, hooped earrings and the necklace laid upon my heart. He unapologetically wandered me as I had wandered him this morning, making me exposed in his presence. Was this how he felt when I had done the same?

I cleared my throat, turning to the left where I had a very good view of the CN Tower from the shop's window. "So, since we're in Toronto, are you going to see Ezekiel?"

Aven looked at a box of CDs next. "Nah, he's in Seattle for a game tonight."

"Damn." That was the only response I had. I knew how much Ezekiel meant to him and Iman. And from the phone call he had with his mom and sister it was clear he was missing home.

"Why?" The question came out in an odd way from him. I wasn't sure if he was amused or jealous. Both. One part of my mind settled for both. "You don't have a thing for my friend, do you?"

"No!" I squeaked.

"You sure?"

"I'm positive."

"I won't be offended. He is an NBA player." You won't be offended?

"Where did you get that idea? We're in Toronto. He plays for the Raptors. He's Iman's brother and he's your best friend. I just figured you'd want to see him while we're here and—stop looking at me like that!"

Aven chuckled, lifting one CD from the box and inspecting the tracklist on the back, "I'm teasing."

"Sounded more like accusing than teasing," I muttered. "Don't worry, I'm not going to ditch your loser self for your famous friend."

He flashed me a grin as we continued to look through the boxes of CDs.

But the mention of his best friend pressed into my mind. He had asked the question as it was a test. As if his best friend could enter the store right now, cloud in newfound fame and glory, and I shove Aven to the side. As if I was going to use Aven or replace Aven that easily. Yet even now at the peak of our friendship, Aven Montaque wasn't a person that was replaceable in my books. Once you had him in your life, it was abstractedly set in stone. There was no one else that could fill the hole if he left it.

He changed the conversation to one we bonded over again, music, mentioning the music he had grown up listening to courtesy of his mom. I showed him music my dad and mom had played in the house and in the car growing up whenever I found a familiar artist in the little shop. We were in our own little bubble as the topic continued, finding ourselves deep in the back of the store for as long as the time passed by. I didn't know. I didn't care.

"This song is good," I said, pointing out another album. The glare of the ceiling light above us close to us was blocking out half the names on the list. I moved to shift the album so we both could see but Aven put his hand over mine that was holding the album, shifting it so we could both see the names.

The touch of him made me stare at our hands for a moment too long before I regained my composure, "You should add it to your 4 playlist. It would suit the energy."

"You should add it to your um, what's the playlist you have that has the fruits on it? On the cover?"

"Oh, that's me and Yasmeen's playlist," We had created it a few weeks ago. "It's called grapes and cantaloupes because we were eating them at the time."

"You guys collab and make playlist together?"

I nodded. "Her music taste is very radio and pop, so I was trying to show her other music. But you're right, this song would fit. But add it to the 4 playlist."

"It would not fit the 4 playlist."

"Aven?"

"Yes."

"Add it to the 4 playlist," I demanded and he locked eyes with me.

I hated this game. I hated the staring with Aven game until one of us crumbled. And I was not going to crumble. I usually always did.

But I was going to smile the second his lips twitched. His lips twitched. I broke out in a grin that had him shake his head as he matched my elation, glancing down at the song once more time, breaking the eye contact. He lost but didn't seem to mind. He licked his lips, nodding. "Fine. I'll it to the playlist."

Before he let go of the album from where his palm was against the back of my hand, he glanced down at the song one more time. Then he squeezed my hand before pulling out his phone to do as I demanded.

Not half a second later, I heard Iman shout from the other side of the store, all eyes going to him. He held a CD in his hands, lifting it high above his head as if this was something out of The Lion King. "Found it!"