The Illusion of Us

Chapter 30

Khalil's fists curled into themselves, his nails digging into the skin of his palm with vigor at the mention of Asher's name, and it took all of the will he possessed not to come flying out of the closet in both anger and frustration.

It seemed that no matter how close he became with Mina, no matter how far he tugged her away from her perfect life, someone always found a way to sneakily weave their way back in.

At first Khalil had only wanted to keep Asher at bay so he wouldn't end up like Noah, crazed and on a trail to convince everyone he met that he was crazy, but now it was about something even bigger.

Though Khalil hated to admit it, it wasn't about suspicion anymore, it was about jealousy.

Asher had been Mina's boyfriend for years before he had showed up, and he would be a fool to think that they hadn't loved each other, but thoughts of what they had shared never failed to plague his thoughts and he was scared that one day she would wake up from this fever dream and choose him all over again.

He blamed himself.

He had meant to get close to Mina, but not this close.

The plan had been to give the Mendes family what they deserved, to hold them accountable for what they had done, but instead he had gotten distracted. He had had a taste of something he hadn't felt in forever, he had had a taste of freedom. Since the night his parents had died all he had ever felt was anger, frustration, and a longing for somewhere to belong to, someplace to call home. Mina gave him a home, she made him feel loved and cared for, and in her figure he had found everything he had been missing in life.

Staring at her through a small sliver of a crack from inside her closet, watching the way Asher spoke to her, eyed her, touched her, he realized he couldn't ever let her go.

"Asher-"

Khalil held his breath, trying to be as quiet as possible as he eavesdropped on Mina and Asher's conversation.

"What are you doing here?" Mina asked.

"I was going to call-" Asher didn't meet her eyes as he spoke. "-but I didn't think you would pick up even if I did." He attempted to chuckle to himself, but the gesture didn't reach the corners of his eyes and clearly brought him pain. "I was half convinced you were gonna tell your mom not to let me in."

"I tried."

Khalil couldn't hide a smirk at Mina's snarky remark.

Maybe he didn't have much to worry about after all.

"I-I deserve that."

"You deserve worse than that Asher." Mina crossed her arms tightly over his chest. "Why are you even here? Did you want to run all the classes and cheer practices I've missed over with me again?"

"I came-" He heaved a heavy sigh "I came to apologize, MJ."

There was a brief moment of silence where the only thing that could be heard was the evening sounds of crickets beginning to chirp through the open window as the sky began to turn steadily darker before Mina spoke.

"I'm listening." She nodded her head towards him, urging him on.

"The way I handled things at school- well I didn't handle them the right way, and I'm sorry for yelling at you and- and coming across as strong as I did and making you feel like you were wrong and dumb for your decisions. You're your own person and you're allowed to make mistakes, no one expects you yo be perfect or-"

"Mistakes?" Mina cut him off quickly. "What mistakes Ash?"

"MJ." He sighed "I can apologize for my attitude at school and the way things went down, but I-I can't apologize for what I said because- well because I don't regret any of it."