I DID WORK.
I. DID. WORK.
Avery Ramos does not do work. He sits back and relaxes. With a grade point average of three-point four and perfect b's in a straight row, I did not even touch a single book my entire junior year until now. Valerie thinks it is a miracle and she drops her steel thermos on the carpet for dramatic effect. She thinks it is a miracle, I think it is for purely selfish reasons. All the work I did will only be useful if Kamil does his part too and I hope he lets me teach him my type of fun.
At school, Elliot wonders about the cringe-worthy note but ends up with no conclusion and I don't think she gives much fuck about it. She just presses me about what happened with me and Kamil. She hits my head like a fucking bell when I accuse her of having an obsession with him. It is not an actual lie, I do believe that Elliot likes Kamil or at most, she is intrigued by him. There are multiple reasons about how I can prove it. Beginning from how she compliments his lacrosse skills more than me to the extra fake giggling when he is here and the middle thirty-second disappointment when I told her that we made out. But Elliot is kind of complicated whose head and heart are in the totally opposite direction. And assumptions will get me nowhere.
Back to me, I am supposed to meet Kamil at the same park. According to the deal, he will have to bear with me first and then I will tell him about my research on our boring little town which is equally uninteresting.
The park is a small children's place filled with sand that finds its way into my shoes and stabs me. There are a few swing sets and it looks mediocre. Whoever must have made this, would just have created this area for name's sake. The place is unkept with weeds growing on the side and dust becoming a part of the equipment due to the lack of kids around here. I do remember playing with Valerie and other kids when I was in elementary school but that was the end of it. When I started middle school or almost about seventh grade, everyone started to get a little more reserved. And from what I remember, a family who had triplets moved from the town and some kids had a massive fight upon it. God, even middle school was full of stories I used to tell Valerie. Poor baby has to suffer my nonsense after the long days of her freshman year in medical college.
Kamil cuts my thoughts with all his pain running towards me. His hair is coated with oil, in just the right proportion and he wears a shirt and a jacket over it. It's not even that cold yet he is trying to gasp for breath like he just dropped out of the atmosphere. I think about not taunting me about how late he is today.
"Woah, what happened to you? Did someone die or something? Why were you running?"
Sweat beads his forehead, "Oh, um, no. I was caught up in some work. Sorry, then I saw the clock and realised that it has been too late—"
"It's okay, I don't mind. I would taunt you about it, but that would be it. Nothing more, what about you sit on the swing for a while?"
"No, it's fine." Yet he sat on the swing.
"But why did you come running?"
"None of your business."
"You literally made me walk to the library yesterday just because you said it was near. Somehow, fifteen minutes walking be okay to you but it's a problem for me. And that was just yesterday, today we are not walking. So you better tell me why did you come running and not riding your bike."
His voice comes out way too loud, "My parents took away my bike, alright?"
"Why?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay."
He nodded, swinging a little, "You did the work?"
"Of course."
"Wait, seriously?"
I roll my eyes, "Come on, I am not that useless. I can do my part of the share if I feel like it and I felt bad for you doing all the work."
"You just want to drag me in your yesterday's deal, don't you?" So, we are cutting to the chase.
"Yeah, so we are riding my bike since you clearly do not own one. Not even a bicycle for some reason."
"You own a bike?"
"Yeah, how do you think I impress people, huh?"
"You know how to ride a bike?"
"Oh, fuck off, Kamil. And follow me."
"I think it will be better if I ride."
"Bike is mine, and only I can ride my darling. He likes it rough. You can sit and hold my waist, I won't judge." Kamil scowled but I am pretty sure he did it with affection.
"Where are we going?"
"Not to kill you, chill. I still need you to do most of the project."
—
"THIS IS YOUR IDEA OF FUN?"
"Yup, very much."
"I cannot believe that you can be so basic, Avery."
My mind reeled back from being proud as fuck to being confused, "Excuse me?"
Kamil leans a little over the cliff with his hands around his waist, he lets out a low laugh. I do not want to know if that humorous gesture is about me or about this little creek. I grumble my next words, "Don't you dare laugh at this stream."
It might not be the first time Kamil is laughing at me, "What do you do here, huh? Be a cottage core boy, play the lust for life album and click pictures here?"
I gasp, "You went through my Instagram?"
"We follow each other from freshman year, Avery. And—" He crunches up his face, "—money is the reason, we exist! Everyone knows it's a fact. Kiss, kiss."
My cheeks turn hot, "You know what? I hope you drown in this water. And who are you to speak? Your entire stories are filled with anime this an anime that." And this is ridiculous for the fact that I cannot make fun of anime because regardless of the hype, it is good. I admire the art and plotline, plus the action scenes are simply chef's kiss. Maybe after, the anime is outdated, I will roast his brains out.
"This is so ridiculous. If I wanted to jump in the water, I might just go into my backyard. Don't you have a pool too in your house?"
"I do." But no one takes care of it, so it is drained out of the water and a waste of space. "But swimming in a real river—"
"Stream."
"—is way more fun. The noise of the little insects—"
"That's just gross."
"—the sound of the stream—"
"I have Alexa at my house. She is amazing."
"—the entire aesthetic is so pleasing! And we can also play a game which I have invented here, thank you."
"You know that I can literally just leave because this is the most mediocre thing I have ever seen in my life."
"You know that I am your literal ride and you cannot leave without me dropping you off—"
"I will walk home."
"—and if you keep forgetting then somebody made a deal that if somebody does their part of the project, somebody will get to show that certain somebody their type of fun."
"Wow, you are like a homemade youtube version of your personal Disney sitcoms."
I gave him the most irritating glance I could, "So basically, I and Elliot do this a lot. This creek has loads of stones in it."
"And it is special because.."
"Because the stones are colourful. They are in the middle of the river and of course, at the bed. I and Elliot dive into the water and collect as many stones as we are able to. You also have to place it near the river bank. And the one who finds the most—"
"Sometimes, I think you are a seven-year-old."
"Come on, I did not know your level of fun. So, I settled on the activity that I love and it is not even embarrassing or a crime."
"Then what exactly do you do with the stones?"
"We throw it back in the water."
"Wow."
"Strip down to your boxers and jump."
Kamil turned back to me, with his arms around his chest, "What if I do not want to?"
"We will simply skip today, and I won't tell you about the research I did. And we can do another activity which will be worse than this one tomorrow."
"I ain't getting a way out of this."
"No." Kamil gets rid of his jacket and shirt, and it clicks me that we are getting along for the first time. We have had a civil conversation like this in our entire life and suddenly he is talking to me like fifty per cent of Elliot does.
I was not the one who discovered this place. Valerie used to come up here with her friends in high school and during her college years. She took me here whenever mom and dad used to fight, or I had a rough day at school. We used to swim for a while and stare at the sky till it would turn orange and red. In the beginning, swimming felt like a chore and it got boring to swim in the same place over and over again. That is when Valerie invented her game of collecting stones from the bed of the river. It used to teach me to hold my breath longer underwater and a better swimmer. The only reason that I am not in the swim team of my school, is because they shut it down last year due to a kid drowning in the pool.
Last year, I started to bring Elliot here with me because Valerie rarely has time.
I am in my undergarments when I glance at him, "Ready?"
"Till how long are we supposed to do this?"
"Till you don't run out of breath. On the count of three?" He nods. "One, two—"
Kamil dives into the water from the seven feet cliff.
"That's not fucking fair, Qureshi!" I shout before joining him and in a split of a second, he laughs after poking his head out of the water a few feet away and disappearing again.
Fucker is definitely going down.
—
IT WAS TO NO SURPRISE THAT I WON. Fifty to twenty-five, Kamil collected the half of what I did before he started to gasp for air and rolled out of the river like a mermaid. He plopped on the riverbank, chest heaving and drops of water clinging to his body making him shiver. I give him a towel that I bought in my bag and dry my hair as much as I could.
Kamil forces himself to sit up and looks up at me while I throw his clothes on his lap. He has a distant look in his eyes and they are trained on my chest. Normally, I would not mind but the slap of uncomfortably hits me with complimentary dysphoria. I clap my hands in front of his face, "Stop looking at my breast."
He blinks, "Oh! Sorry, I— I was not. I was not looking— Sorry."
"It's okay, I know."
He rubs a hand over his face, "This is so embarrassing, I want to roll off into the river."
My legs stretch with happiness, when I take the spot beside him, "It's okay. What were you thinking?"
"Huh?"
"You were thinking something, right? That's why you zoned out. Or were you just—"
"Nope, thinking. Definitely thinking."
He turns him to be a little while buttoning his shirt, "So, what work did you do?"
"That's what you were thinking?"
"No, but what work did you do? I thought we lived in the most boring place ever."
"So did I, but fifteen years ago someone was murdered."
"What?"
"Yeah."
"Fuck." Kamil throws his back a little when he laughs, "Seriously? Because this could be huge. We can do a lot."
"I know, but that's all I know. We have to go back to the library and look a little better at those newspapers."
He shakes his head, "Lots of newspapers are ruined and have multiple missing pages. I looked through every single one of them and none of them mentioned anything about a murder. Do you have any other information about it?"
"Yeah, but I forgot—"
"Avery—"
"Chill, my manager told me about this. I can ask him about this again. He will tell me."
"Oh, you better come with complete information tomorrow."
"Yeah, I will."
We sit there in the silence for a while. The sound of birds returning home soothes my nerves.
"I cannot believe that you actually did your part as you promised."
"Only because you were willing to do stupid shit with me. You know that, you totally lost today right?"
"You are amazing at swimming, Avery. That is the only reason you won. You must have been doing this for ages."
"Sure, keep lying to yourself. Whatever helps you sleep at night, darling."
He grins before picking up the rock he collected and throwing it back into the river. I never expected to have such a good time with Kamil Qureshi.
—