Page 14 of Killing Me Softly

Kenny wriggled in his seat as if just realising that himself, then sidestepped the sudden awkwardness by steering the conversation into calmer waters. “So…whatareyour plans for after you graduate?”

Notcalmerwaters then. Choppy, hazardous ones.

Aaron shrugged and looked away to a couple being seated at a nearby table, their laughter light and easy. As their conversation probably was. Unlike any of his and Kenny’s.

“You’re on track for a 2:1.” Kenny dipped to get back into his line of sight.

“Yeah. Shocker. Considering all the time I’ve spent under my professor. Should be on for a first.”

Kenny narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps you should climb on top of him? See if that works?”

Aaron popped the last bite of his croissant into his mouth. “You saying I just need to top you to push down the grade boundary? Should’ve said. Thought you were a one-trick pony.”

“Stallion. And I meant ride me. But you’re deflecting.”

Aaron sighed. “Sucks being fucked by a psychologist.”

“Final year’s starting in a few weeks,” Kenny pressed, undeterred. “You’ll have your dissertation. It’s the perfect time to tie your thesis to something that could open doors after you finish.”

Aaron swiped the crumbs off his shorts with a little more force than necessary, then dumped some yogurt and fruit into a bowl. Why was Kenny bringing this upnow? He wanted to enjoy breakfast, have a good time here and not think about how in a few weeks, everything went back to shadows and secrets. And in several months, he’d get chucked out of his student accommodation, leaving him to fend for himself. And if he couldn’t, he might end up back in London.

Hundreds of miles from Kenny.

Kenny cocked his head. “You’re avoiding answering.”

Of course, he was avoiding answering. Because he had zero clue what to say.

Aaron stabbed at a piece of melon, spoon sliding off to clatter against the bowl. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you’ve at least thought about what you want to do with your—potentially very good—Forensic Psychology degree.”

Aaron scraped up some yogurt, then leaned back and met Kenny’s raised eyebrow with a challenge of his own. “Why don’tyoutell me?”

“You could earn a lot of money from guest speaking.”

Aaron blinked. “Guest speaking?”

“Yeah. Motivational speaking. At conferences. Like the one I was just at.” Kenny took a sip of coffee. “There are many peoplein prominent positions who’d pay to hear how you’ve overcome your past. Your trauma. It’s a survival story.”

Aaron paused his spoon mid-air, the idea landing like a stone in his chest. He didn’t know whether to laugh or throw the spoon at Kenny. “You think I’m a poster boy for survival?”

“No.” Kenny shook his head as if countering what he’d literally just said. “I mean, you’ve got a story to tell and you could control how it’s told. Control the narrative. You’ve seen how others want it. And they could skew it. This is your chance to take something that people might exploit and own it.”

Control the narrative.The words sounded like freedom and a trap all at once. He stared down at his bowl, then looked up at Kenny, watching him with that maddening blend of affection and analysis.

“You want me to make bank on what my parents did to those people?”

Kenny leaned back in his chair, the space between them thickening as the conversation ground to a halt. “That’s… not really how I saw it.”

Aaron nodded, biting his lip. “It’s how I would. And other people.”

Kenny waited a beat. Then, “Fair enough.”

Aaron looked away, tracking the way the breeze stirred the petals of a bougainvillea vine. The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable. It was vast and suffocating, filled with the unspoken things they never quite knew how to navigate. Because there wasso muchbetween them. So many jagged pieces that didn’t fit neatly together. Maybetoomuch.

Aaron’s stomach twisted as a cruel voice in the back of his mind whispered the truth he’d been trying to ignore. That this—whatever this was—was temporary. Fleeting. Stupid. Naïve. It couldn’t survive reality. He glanced back to Kenny, and he could read all that written across his face, too. So Aaron pressed hisspoon into the yogurt, listening to the quiet scrape of porcelain, pretending he didn’t feel the fragile thread between them fraying at the edges.

“You can do and be whatever you want.” Kenny’s voice held conviction, but beneath it, Aaron heard the desperation. The need to hold on. To claw back what was slipping between their fingers like grains of sand.

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