Melody laughed and thumped her friend. "You knew that before you even met him, you twat!" she cried out. "Are you seriously telling me that you've managed to fuck this guy three times – it's three, right? – and you know nothing more than his name and his age."
Ishaana glanced from side to side, a grin fighting its way onto her pursed lips. "Correct," she said. "Facts complicate things."
"Facts turn sex into a relationship," Melody corrected, eyeing her friend.
"Exactly. I don't want a relationship, Mel. I like having no-strings sex."
Melody said nothing for a moment, her eyes on the departures board. Their train would be a couple of minutes late. Her gaze returned to Ishaana, a mixture of concern and disbelief. "It's not no-strings though. That's just a fact. And I'm not trying to complicate things, Ishy, but there seems to be a bit of disparity between what you say and what you think. You say there's nothing, but you think about him." She wiggled her finger, leaning in close. "I see it in your eyes."
Ishaana reached out and plucked Melody's glasses off her nose. "Well, let's stop you from seeing, then," she said, folding them in her hand. Melody couldn't help but laugh, settling against the bench. She could never be too serious for too long, usually dissolving in a fit of giggles or resorting to lamenting the state of her own love life.
"You'll feel so bad if I walk out in front of a train now," she muttered, making no effort to take them back. "And you'll have to explain to my mother that I didn't come home because you took my glasses and I got smushed by a locomotive. I hate to say it, Ish, but I don't think Mum would like you so much if you got me killed."
"Oh, shush," Ishaana said, laughing. "You can see a fucking train. If you can see me right now, you'd be able to see a train."
Melody squinted and jabbed Ishaana's shoulder. "I can see a blurry lump of denial," she said. Ishaana exhaled shortly, her eyebrows knitting together as though an invisible thread closed the gap between them. Folding her arms, she gritted her teeth and turned to watch the passengers on the station. When Melody lunged for her glasses, she put up no resistance. Melody was wrong. She knew that; she knew better than anyone that she didn't have feelings for Casey.
Melody let out a slow sigh when her lenses allowed her to see the hint of turmoil on Ishaana's face. "Look, Ishy, it's none of my business, really. I just love you a lot and I think that if there's even the tiniest chance of you falling for this guy, then you need to get out fast."
There was no chance of that, Ishaana thought. After all, she hardly knew him.
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The train came at twenty past eight. A little after nine, Melody got off at Farnleigh station once she had hugged Ishaana goodbye with a wordless reminder to look out for herself. Several minutes after ten o'clock, the train pulled into Birmingham's main station and Ishaana tipped herself out of the carriage with a couple of ciders in her system, pushing her friend out of her mind as she headed out into the cold mid-March night. The city was quiet at this time, when almost every shop had been shut for hours and the clubs wouldn't kick off until midnight, and she waited at a quiet taxi rank for an eerie couple of minutes before a cab pulled up.
