Find Her, Fix Him

13 | Positive energy

13 | Positive energy

~LILO~

"Did you know that when JK Rowling first tried to publish The Philosopher's stone, it got rejected twelve times?" I say to Khan, as we sit infront of eachother on the train into London, his feet propped up on the seat next to mine. He looks up from my phone, which he stole to beat my high score on Run Race 3D on, and gives me one of his wry smiles, green eyes crinkling.

"Yes, Lilo. I'm pretty sure we covered that about twenty times during our Potter marathon," he says, and I blush, fingers fidgeting of their own accord. I clasp them tightly in my lap to try and stop their movement, watching my knees jog up and down restlessly.

"And did you know that the author of the Throne of Glass spent ten years writing just the first novel?"

"Yes, Lilo, we also covered that. About half an hour ago. Around the same time as you treated me to a fact file on the author of Alex Rider, and the inspiration behind book two, Point Blanc."

"Did you know that the author of Mary Poppins didn't originally want it to be made into a film, because she thought it misrepresented the true-"

"Lilo. Delilah." Khan turns my phone off, hands it back to me and takes hold of my hands, rotating his thumb over my wrists and causing me to breathe in sharply. "Lilo, you're nervous-rambling. You're word-vomiting."

I bite my lip, looking away from him and staring instead out of the window. Allotments and houses whizz past in a blur of green and grey. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm just- scared, I guess."

"I thought you wanted to see your Dad?"

"I do, I do, it's just...I'm scared of-"

"Of what you might find."

I look back into Khan's face, surprised and grateful for how he summed me up so accurately, and see that his expression is serious and intent. "Of what you might hear," he continues, "or worse, what you might not hear. What you might see, or might not see. You want news of your father, but at the same time you don't, because at least in not knowing, you're unaware of anything being wrong."

He doesn't sound as if he's talking about just me anymore. His thumbs still on my hand, stopping their circular motions, and I swallow to try and wet my paper-dry mouth. I clear my throat to break the heavy silence that has settled over us.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I just- I know strokes are really serious, and they can sometimes have really fatal consequences..."

"Your Dad will be fine, Lilo. I feel it. In here." he places a hand over his heart and smiles at me, but it isn't his usual happy, larger-than-life smile. Neither do his eyes hold their usual twinkle.

I've gotten used to being around happy Khan- Khan, who always has this small smile on his mouth as if he's trying not to laugh at a private joke. Khan, whose eyes dance like the whole world is so amusing, and can't anyone else see it? Khan, who seems so quiet, but can make me laugh harder than anyone else. Yet ever since he shouted at me that he hadn't seen his Dad in over half a year, I've had to fit smiling Khan with this new version of the boy- the vulnerable version. The boy who broke down and cried in the middle of the night when he thought no one could hear him. Khan, whose words mean so much than you'd first think. Khan, whose smile is a cover-up for something I don't understand.

Sometimes, I feel like he's beginning to open up to me. Other times, I feel like I'm spending my time with a riddle that will never be solved.

I can't talk, though. I know I'm the same. I guess we're both locked doors in our own ways.