‘It’s him, Lucy! It’s Noah! From the list!’ I yelped. ‘What shall I do?’
‘Swipe right, you idiot! Do it now before he deletes his account or meets someone else! Do it now! He’s so bloody hot.’
‘OK, OK. I’ll let you know what happens.’
Hanging up the phone, I took a moment to compose myself by closing my eyes and doing a bit of deep breathing. I couldn’t believe I had found him and I didn’t have to go to a triathlon to do it.
Whispering ‘Bismillah’, I swiped right and waited, praying that he would do the same.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I didn’t sleep a wink that night. It was impossible with the prospect of Noah matching with me hanging over me like fog, blurring my vision and clouding my senses. I must have checked my phone at least fifty times, if not more, waiting to see if he would accept my swipe, or whatever the correct terminology was. I went through a conveyor belt of checks – was my phone on silent? Were my notifications on? Was my phone even working? – more times than I cared to admit. I knew that he was most likely asleep and therefore hadn’t seen my request. But after hours of evading sleep, I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally.
At around five, I gave up on sleep entirely and pulled on my running clothes. I peeped into Malik’s room to see if he wanted to join me and to my surprise, he was also wide awake, mindlessly scrolling through his phone and looked dully over to me when I opened his door.
‘Hey, wanna go for a jog?’ I whispered.
‘Gimme two mins,’ he murmured back, dumping his phone and getting up immediately. I guess I wasn’t the only one suffering from insomnia that night.
Malik and I jogged steadily and silently together, side by side like equals, not like the first time we went running together when he kept lapping me and then gave up and went home without me.
As our feet pounded on the tarmac, I wondered if Noah would remember who I was. I doubted he’d spent half as much brain power on me as I had on him. That was because of the list, though. If I had left something intriguing behind – like a photo album, for example – then I’m sure I would have become equally as interesting to him. Well, maybe not, remembering the state of my camera roll pre-makeover. Fine. Case notes? Nope, boring. My phone messages weren’t interesting before the list, either. They consisted mainly of texts from Dina of the ‘I’m running late’ variety, shopping lists from Ma or the odd message from Malik.
My life, I was ashamed to admit, was utterly boring before the list. Now, my phone was full of me making plans with my friends and cousins, cool pictures from all the experiences I was having and the occasional text from Zakariyah.
I nearly tripped over the uneven, chewing gum-studded pavement when I remembered Zakariya. Shit. I had forgotten all about him in my Noah-induced haze. Stopping abruptly, I bent forward and clutched onto my knees, trying to gather my breath and my thoughts. The most beautiful sunrise was illuminating the sky, casting the world in an orange glow, but I couldn’t appreciate it because suddenly I felt overcome with guilt.
‘You OK, Dimple?’ Malik asked, stopping beside me. ‘Have you pulled a muscle?’
‘No,’ I panted, turning to look at him. ‘Question. If you were casually chatting to someone as a friend, but you knew they sort of liked you, but you’d never given them any indication that you sort of like them . . . Is it bad to join a dating app and then swipe right on someone else?’
‘I don’t really want to participate in this conversation,’ Malik grimaced. ‘Ask one of your girlfriends.’
My brother jogged away and I stood there, bent over with my hands on my knees, feeling floored. What was I doing, thinking about Noah, swiping Noah, when there was a man out there who I had been talking to, leaning my head on, having dinner with, attending the same Arabic class with . . . what was I, a two-timing floozy?
‘You are not a two-timing floozy,’ Lucy yawned down the phone when I called her in a panic. Her voice sounded gravelly and dry. I checked the time. Oops, it wasn’t six in the morning yet.
‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ I said as I continued to jog home.
‘You did, but I needed to get up soon anyway so it’s OK. But listen, before I go to the loo, please don’t do anything silly. You are not two-timing anyone. You and Zak aren’t a couple, he hasn’t said anything to you to imply that you should put all your eggs in his basket.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But nothing. You owe him nothing. And now let me go before my bladder bursts.’
Hanging up the phone, I pondered Lucy’s somewhat logical reasoning as I slowed down to a brisk walk and made my way back home. I knew she was right, but knowing something and feeling it can be on opposite ends of the spectrum.
By the time I left work in the evening, Lucy had all but banned me from checking my phone for the rest of the night. Sheila was back in the office but not even the danger of her finding me on RateYourDate was enough to make me stop looking at the blasted thing. Noah still hadn’t responded to me and it had almost been twenty hours and three minutes. Not that I was counting, of course. Was he really so busy that he couldn’t check the app that he pretty much forced me to join?
I had to snap out of it though, because on Saturday I would be participating in Race for Life and I needed to focus. I had met my fundraising target ages ago and the months of training were all about to pay off. I had managed to do a 5K run the other week, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to do it all over again. I kept having visions of myself running like Rocky Balboa and had taken to listening to Eye of the Tiger during my training. I had to keep my head in the game.
Unsurprisingly, no one in my household thought to attend the race to cheer me on. I was relieved. The last thing I wanted was Ma going into paparazzi mode and taking a million pictures of me sweating like a goat and posting them on Facebook. She had only recently got into social media and instead of carefully capturing the best moments of her life, she was prone to posting anything and everything. She was also really into sharing dodgy conspiracy theories, which I tried to ignore. But then she would text me and tell me to re-share them because it was important that everyone knew that the government was putting hormones in the water to prevent fertility in women.
On Saturday morning I woke up early, did a Pilates workout to stretch my muscles and activate my core, had a banana and then forced Malik into dropping me off at the park, where Lucy was waiting for me.
‘Can’t you take the bus?’ he grumbled when he came down the stairs, his hair sticking up in all directions. ‘I’m not your personal taxi driver.’
‘You know I need to save my energy,’ I replied testily. ‘I can’t waste my strength now, not when I have 5K to run.’
‘It’s five bloody kilometres. It’s hardly the London Marathon.’ Malik had run the London Marathon a couple of years ago. The entire family – Chacha, Nani, the whole lot – had turned up to cheer him on. Gritting my teeth, I took my phone out to book a ride. I didn’t need my stupid brother ruining the day for me.
‘Whatever, I’ll take a taxi,’ I said, turning away from him.
‘I’m up now. Get in the car.’ He stomped off outside and I stared at his back, wondering why he was making such a big deal of it. He often moaned when I made him take me places, but never this much. I was tempted to ignore him and get an alternative ride anyway, but I forced myself not to. I needed positivity, not a fight.
The journey to the park was quick and silent but the atmosphere both in and outside the gate was anything but. There were women dressed in pink everywhere and friends and family holding pink balloons and banners walked alongside them. I couldn’t spot Lucy and wasn’t sure if this was the entrance she was waiting at.
‘Hold on, Malik, can you stop there for a second?’ I asked my brother and he complied silently, pulling over to the side and putting on the hazard lights. Taking my phone out, I called Lucy, who answered after a couple of rings.
‘Maya, hi! Where are you?’
‘At the park, which entrance are you at?’
‘Seven Sisters Road. You?’
