I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY | ✓

▬ 13

I NEVER DOUBT MYSELF MORE THAN I DO WHEN YOU'RE AROUND

            I stifle a yawn and open another of Sonia's kitchen drawers. They slide open with no noise or difficulty and have silencers to make slamming impossible — good in theory but it would be far too easy for someone to rob their cutlery when they don't have to joggle the drawer back and forth to gain access, alerting everyone in the house and wasting precious time.

Since lessons are over and Hannah's Pantry is shut for the start of the week, Sonia offered to do tutoring at her place. Miles is late. Obviously. Self-obsessed dickhead who has no respect for other people's time, innit. He'd probably go into anaphylactic shock if he thought about someone else for once.

I've decided not to be confused anymore.

Hopefully, he won't show up at all.

He never responded to my text and I spent the weekend ducking at every risk of him spotting me through a window. I even refused to get the post, which earned me a twenty-minute lecture from Iya about how lazy and spoilt I am, interrupted only when Mrs Azad came by with a plate of fresh cardamom biscuits to thank Iya for the help with her sprained ankle last week.

Bored with Sonia's cutlery drawer, I move to the one below it, which, along with cooking utensils, is filled with no shortage of peculiar devices. I pick one out. With the thin rod poking out of the handle, it looks like some sort of torture device. I nearly drop it when I press the on-button and it starts to buzz loudly.

'The hell's this? A vibrator?'

Sonia sighs from the breakfast bar. 'It's a cappuccino whisk. You use it to make milk frothy.'

'What?' A scoff rolls against the roof of my mouth. I turn it off and chuck it back in the drawer. 'A vibrator would be more useful.'

Adjusting my bucket hat, I look at the clock again. It's nearly quarter past and still no sign of Miles.

'He's probably not coming.'

With a groan, she throws her pencil down onto the sketchpad. Apparently, it's not Miles she's annoyed with because she glares at me and not the door, eye contact with her so rare that I shrink back. 'What's going on with you two?'

What is she talking about, "going on"? Why would she think something's going on? The only thing going on is that he's a dickhead.

'Nothin.'

Too impatient to deal with me, she returns to her drawing. 'I think there is. You're always staring and all you do is talk about each other–'

'That's not true. You're bare makin that up.'

'You've been here for twenty minutes and he's all you're interested in. You could tell me I look nice or ask me about the weekend, but no, it's Miles Miles Miles.'

I scowl. That's not true. I asked her about her weekend when I first came in. Must've. Right? I screw up my face but all I recall asking is whether Miles had arrived already. Astaghfirullah. Maybe Iya's right: I really do lack basic manners.

Think about something else. Anything else.

I round the kitchen island where she sits on a barstool. The last time I saw Sonia outside of school must have been before GCSEs. Used to uniform, she looks almost disturbing, albeit beautiful too, in her dungarees and rainbow-striped crewneck.

'Your outfit's cute.'

She smiles at her sketchbook. 'Yes, I know. Thank you.'

'What're you drawing?' I slip into the stool beside her, the chain looped to my trousers clattering on the wood, to look at the ridiculously detailed picture of the train station. She's not drawing this from memory, is she? Best not to ask. 'Should we just get on since he's clearly doin somethin more important–?'