Plastering a fake smile on my face, I turned back to Noah and tried to tune into his chatter. My legs trembling, I followed him to his own car, a flashy two-seater, and somewhere in the dregs of my mind, I wondered how he could afford a car like this when he’d only recently paid off his credit-card debt. Sliding into the car, Noah continued to waffle, I continued to smile and inside, my heart continued to wilt.
I had to go into work on Thursday. I couldn’t bunk for the fourth day in a row without a doctor’s note confirming that I did have the ‘virus’ I claimed to have. The thought of seeing Lucy made me anxious and the thought of running into Zak in Arabic felt just as torturous, but it was time to face reality. And not because some list told me to make amends. If I could open up to my mum, then surely, I could have an honest conversation with Lucy?
On the way into the office, I checked Noah’s notebook to see what number twenty-seven was, hoping it wasn’t anything too intense:
27. GO ON A SOLO TRIP. EUROPE? ASIA? THERE’S SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO!!!
There were no notes, so I had no idea where he went in the end or if he had gone at all. Travelling solo didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I couldn’t think of anything lonelier than being in another country and having no one to experience it with, no one to share meals with, no one to take pictures with. I wasn’t the type to strike up conversations with strangers. I was tempted to give the whole thing a miss, but the stubborn part of me wouldn’t be able to. I had come this far. The end was so close. Everything I had done up to this point had either taught me something about life or taught me something about myself. A solo trip would do the same.
I wished Noah had more faith-related tasks on his bucket list. Maybe then, instead of drawing naked guys and getting temporary tattoos, I would have done more meaningful things, like go for umrah, the smaller Muslim pilgrimage, and started praying more regularly. It was time to start forging my own plans for how I wanted to improve my life, instead of solely relying on Noah’s list.
‘Hey, jaan, how are you feeling?’ Arjun cooed when I walked into the office. I nearly dropped my bag in shock to see him there before me.
‘Am I still delirious? How are you here before me? I must still be sick!’ I gasped, collapsing into my chair.
‘All right, no need to be so dramatic,’ he grumbled as I laughed and turned my computer on.
‘Hey, everyone.’ I looked around to see Lucy walking up to our trio of desks, trepidation oozing from her. I could see it in the stiffness of her back, the way her eyes darted around the room, landing anywhere but my face, the whiteness of her knuckles clasped tight, the tremble of her lips.
Eventually she made eye contact as she sat down. ‘How are you feeling, Maya?’
‘Fine, thanks, how are you?’ I managed to say, averting my gaze because looking at her was too painful. I loved Lucy so much and she had been a good friend to me over the past few months, but now I wondered if it was all a pretence to get closer to my brother through me. Ever since I found out the truth, I had wracked my brains to see if I could remember any conversations we had had about Malik, but I couldn’t. I had been so busy with the list that everything else was a blur.
‘I’m OK,’ Lucy responded, her voice quiet. Arjun looked at me and then Lucy and back at me, the tension between us heavy, like smog settling around us.
‘Oh, you’re back, are you?’ Sheila was the next to swan into the office, dressed head to toe in white, right down to the white stilettos. Lucy and I would have had a giggle about that before, but I didn’t know what the correct etiquette was between us now.
‘I am indeed,’ I said to Sheila, my tone matching hers. She looked startled by my response and said nothing else as she continued to her office. If it had been possible to slam the door behind her, I’m sure she would have. But the glass offices had no doorframes, so it was physically impossible. Ha.
‘Can we talk at lunch?’ Lucy asked a few minutes later, her voice low. ‘Please?’
I shrugged. ‘If you want.’
The bravado I was feeling when I first got to the office faded with every second that brought us closer to lunch. Watched pots weren’t supposed to boil, but the morning sped past at an alarming speed and soon it was lunchtime. Lucy and I both grabbed our phones and headed to the lift, without looking at each other or Arjun. Once we exited the building and were onto the busy street below, I turned to face her. I was done with playing games, beating around the bush, brushing things under the rug and every other avoidance idiom.
‘Why did you hide the fact that you were dating my brother from me?’ I asked plainly, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. Lucy winced. She clearly wasn’t prepared for how direct I was going to be.
‘I-I’m sorry, Maya,’ she stammered. ‘I really am. There were so many times I wanted to tell you . . .’
‘And what? The timing was never right?’ I looked away. ‘Be honest with me, Lucy. Were you trying to get to my brother through me? Is that the whole reason you’ve been so nice and helpful towards me?’
‘No! Not at all!’ Lucy shook her head vehemently, a stricken expression on her face. ‘I wanted to tell you, but he asked me not to. He didn’t want to complicate things more and I had to respect his wishes, Maya.’
‘And what about me? Where was the respect for me?’ I tried hard to keep the bitterness and pain out of my voice as I stared at her face, analysing every twitch, trying to deduce whether I was being played.
‘Maya, I swear I never wanted to hide it from you, but he’s your brother, he got priority over what he wanted you to know. He was adamant that his family shouldn’t know about us. And if I’m honest, I was also scared of telling you. I didn’t want my issues with Malik to get in the way of our relationship.’
I searched Lucy’s clear blue eyes that were filling up with tears and I knew she was telling the truth. She began to cry and I pulled her into a hug.
‘Shall we eat s-something?’ Lucy sniffled after a few minutes of ruining my flimsy, pale blue cotton shirt with her tears and snot.
‘Come on, let’s get a quick Pret.’
We grabbed a sandwich and coffee and she filled me in on how she met Malik at some exhibition, how she recognised him as my brother from an old Instagram post of mine, how he slid into her DMs after. How guilty she felt when she saw him dropping me off at Finsbury Park. I didn’t want to know too many details, but it was clear that she was really into him. But the fact that he was still hiding her from everyone made me wonder if he was ready to take things further. I didn’t say this to her though. As angry as I was towards Malik, it wasn’t my place. I kept my mouth shut and decided that the next time I saw him, I would have it out with him. I was on a roll, after all.
The text from Zakariya came through as I was packing my bag and getting ready to leave the office:
ZAKARIYA: Salaams Maya, are you going to be at Arabic tonight? Can we talk?
I opened my mouth to ask Lucy what to do and then found myself closing it. Now that I knew about her and Malik, I felt weird telling her all my private business. We were friends and I had forgiven her, but it would take me a while to get used to the change in dynamics. I wasn’t ready to articulate what I was feeling either. How confused I felt when I got home last night. How I hated seeing Zak with another woman, even though I was with another man. How irrational the whole thing was.
Sure, I replied, swallowing away all the conflicting emotions. See you then.
My insides were wrought with nerves after Arabic, as I walked out of the building and into the cool night. My cotton shirt gave me enough comfort during the day when it was warm, but now that the sun had gone down and the sky was dark and brooding, it didn’t feel like it was enough. I felt Zakariya approach before I heard his voice, causing a chill to run down the length of my body. I couldn’t be sure if it was the temperature or seeing him that was making the hairs on my body stand on edge.
‘Assalaamu Alaikum,’ he said in his low voice. It was different to Noah’s; deeper, slower. Noah’s voice was always laced with excitement, but I had yet to hear Zakariya show enthusiasm for anything.
