Chapter 209: Part 6

Talya

I was still at Rondy's apartment three days later. The first twenty-four hours after "the kiss" was strange, but then things went back to semi-normal. Every once in a while, I caught him looking at me with something more than friendship, but I ignored it. I taught him to play chess on an old, boxed checkerboard/chess set with plastic pieces that he dug out from a closet. He caught on fast and I realized Cecily was right, he was intelligent.

"So why don't you go to school?" It had bugged me since our breakfast with Cecily.

His eyes snapped up to mine. "The school's in Teo's territory. It's filled with Riots. I stopped going when they killed my brother."

We'd had a lot of conversations about the rival gangs, though Rondy rarely mentioned his brother. I had to ask, "How did they get your brother?"