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My fingers clumsily unfold the gold tissue paper away from the sellotape. Inside is a small black cardboard box. Tugging the top away, the lid pops open. I gently pull out a thin braided turquoise band with a small silver heart looped through. ‘Aiden…’ The heart dangles down, shimmering a little as the light trickles in through the birch trees and strikes the silver.
He takes the bracelet and loops it over my wrist, struggling to fasten it. ‘I think my fingers are too big for this,’ he laughs. ‘There, got it.’
My finger grazes my wrist, the braided ribbon soft under my touch, the heart pendant cold on my fingertip. ‘It’s beautiful. Thank you.’
It is beautiful. But that wasn’t my first thought. I won’t tell him that I worry what my parents will say when they find this bracelet in my room, in my bag, or on my wrist. It’s just one more secret to hide, one more lie to tell.
After we say goodbye, it’s the same routine as usual. I travel through the school, by the drama department, past the library. ‘Sophia?’
She turns towards my direction and then a huge smile stretches up to her cheeks. ‘Oh, hey.’ She balances a pink-rimmed water bottle on top of a small stack of books, each with faded barcode labels facing out.
‘Need a hand?’ I say, reaching up and sliding off her glass water bottle.
‘Thanks. That’s my third one this year. I always seem to lose one in Steve’s car and he never gives them back,’ she giggles.
‘What’s all this for?’ I nod towards the books. Anatomy of the Human Body sits at the top, a very graphic image of the female reproductive system staring at me intensely. ‘Some light reading for biology?’
She clears her throat and squints her eyes. ‘Oh, I just wanted to get a better understanding of…of, um…the human circulatory system.’ Her eyes skim the floor by the feet and I can’t help but smile. Her cheeks start to flush red and I put a hand to my mouth to stop myself laughing.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I grin. ‘Come on, do you want to get a coffee on the walk home?’
She takes a deep breath and wrinkles up her nose like she’s in pain. I’ve embarrassed her, I think. She nods and turns with me.
‘What else are you working on?’
‘I have a history paper due next week and then my French practice exam the week after.’
‘I can help you with your French exam if you want?’
‘You’re so lucky. I wish I spoke it fluently.’
‘You’re good, really. You’ll be fluent in no time.’
‘Steve wants to take me to Paris after graduation.’ She beams, pushing the door open with her hip. A coolness washes over us. The fabrics of my hijab billow out around me in the wind, while strands of Sophia’s hair dance in the air, like she’s floating in water.
‘Jo’s?’
‘Hmm?’ I say, my eyes still fixed on her shimmering long hair that’s bobbing up and down on her back now.
‘Jo’s for coffee?’
I nod and follow her down the path through the courtyard. At the end is Birchwood Road, the street that connects the high school to the primary school and to the main town centre. There’s not much to the centre itself: some shops, three hairdressers (why does a small town need more than one?), two florists, two bakeries, seven pubs (again, why does this town need that many?). But stationed in the middle of the town’s library car park is a large red double-decker bus. Inside, the seats have been lifted and replaced with wooden benches, with feet that curl up like the letter S. At the front, where the driver should be, is a large white counter with a chalkboard sign that lists every kind of coffee and dairy-free alternative that, I truly believe, has ever been created. Jo’s BusStop is our usual place, everyone’s really. It’s the only place to get ‘vegan coffee’ in town. I didn’t know that was a thing until this year. Apparently milk just isn’t ‘in’ anymore. Dairy-free, gluten-free, meat-free…basically any diet that’s free of one major food group is a trend over here.
Sophia bounds up the stairs of the bus. ‘Hi Jo! A medium sugar-free extra-hot vanilla latte with coconut milk, please. To go. Please.’ She struggles with her books and her wallet, and looks up at me. ‘Why are you smiling?’
‘I’m just picturing my mum and dad’s face if I ever ordered that in front of them.’
‘What? You don’t get lattes in Morocco?’
‘Not like that!’
Sophia hands over a fiver and wrestles with the change she gets in return.
‘You forgot your gluten-free raspberry and white chocolate loaf. Want me to order it with my coffee?’
She shakes her head quickly and leans against the counter as the woman who we call Jo, who’s hopefully actually called Jo. ‘No, not today.’
‘Why not?’
She shrugs and is handed a tall white takeaway cup with a brown cardboard sleeve to keep her hands cool. She shifts to the side and lets me order. ‘Coffee, please. Medium.’
Maybe-Jo stares at me for a moment, waiting for me to speak again. Finally, she does it for me. ‘What kind of coffee?’
‘Normal. No fancy milks or sugar-free syrups. Just a regular black coffee, please.’
Maybe-Jo rolls her eyes, as if my order is even more pretentious than Sophia’s and turns to slide a glass coffee pot off the heat base. She pours the scalding dark chocolate brown liquid into a cup and hands it to me. ‘Ninety pence, please.’
‘Wait, why is yours so much cheaper than mine?’ pouts Sophia, looking at her scattered silver coins in the palm of her hand.
‘Why do you think?’ I laugh, gesturing to her cup. ‘You sure you don’t want that raspberry loaf? I’ll split it with you if you don’t want to eat the whole thing?’
‘Nah, thanks though.’ She bounces off the step and stands outside the bus while I sprinkle some white sugar into my black coffee.
My feet land beside hers soon after and we start walking back through town. Instead of going straight up the street, back to school, we turn left down Abbot’s Alley and spill out onto the car park at Aldi’s. Then we cross over and take the river path back towards Golfview Road. Sophia lives in a slightly nicer neighbourhood than me. Her dad’s a doctor like mine, but when we moved my dad’s medical qualifications didn’t meet British standards so he’s the manager at Waitrose now. I know he misses medicine. A lot. But he’d never say it. For him, his sacrifices have granted me the kinds of opportunities I’d never have got back in Morocco. After Birchwood High School, a degree from a British university will get me a job anywhere. I’ll never have to make the sacrifices that my dad made.
‘I think I might switch to skimmed milk next time,’ Sophia says, pulling my thoughts back to her, back to the river we walk beside, back to the life I’ve been afforded here.
‘Oh, why? I thought you were vegan?’
‘Skimmed milk has less calories than coconut milk.’
‘Sophia, you don’t need to be worrying about that. Ever. You’re beautiful just the way you are.’
She scoffs and takes a sip of her coffee. She doesn’t hear me. She’s not listening. She’s not seeing what I’m seeing. And I see skinny. I see skinny everywhere here.
I shake my head. One day she’ll listen, she’ll see. I just need to keep telling her until she does. A deep sigh escapes my lips. ‘Just don’t be one of “those girls”, OK?’
‘OK.’ She laughs and takes another sip of her sugar-free, extra-hot, vegan…whatever.
***
Beyond the woods behind the school, up the dog-walkers’ path, past the cyclists’ trail, is a large open meadow surrounded by the trees that cocoon Birchwood High School. Around the end of April, buttercups the colour of an afternoon sun bloom and cover the entire meadow like a soft yellow blanket. It’s around this time that I watch my school friends carry up a blanket and textbooks and spend their free study period basking in the mild sunshine. Outside of this time, the meadow is peaceful, empty of anyone else, like today. The only dents on the meadow ground are those made by Aiden and I as we lie on our backs, our heads touching.
It’s a welcome break from the usual bench we meet at, and here we get to do something even more risky than sitting side by side. Not only do we hold hands, our touch hidden by the overgrown grass around us, but here we get to lie near each other. Here, our heads, our hands, our bodies touch. Here, we’re closer than ever before. Here, we risk everything.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asks me, as he shuffles in closer.
I push my shoulder gently into his and close the gap between us just a little more. ‘I’m just thinking about Sophia. I don’t know what it is, there’s just something about Steve that I don’t trust. And she seems different when she’s with him.’
‘How so?’ he asks, as he turns and delicately places a kiss on my shoulder, which is covered in dark fabric as it always is. But I imagine what his kiss would feel like and feel the insides of my stomach churn.
‘Not as confident. I’m just worried that he’ll hurt her.’
‘You’re a good friend,’ he says.
I turn and bury my face into his shoulder. ‘I hope so. Thank you.’
A slow whizzing of a motorbike somewhere beyond the meadow pulls my eyes to the bottom left of the field. And then I see something. A flutter of branches. A movement among the trees.
‘What is it?’ he asks, raising his hand to my back as I suddenly sit upright.
‘I thought I saw something.’ I strain my eyes and look deeper into the trees, but all I see are branches and leaves beginning to turn colour and wilt. ‘I was so sure—’
‘Don’t worry. No one comes out here at this time. You might see a dog walker or cyclist, but that’s about it.’
‘That might be enough,’ I mutter, staring into the trees again.
‘Lie back down,’ he urges. ‘It’s so peaceful here.’
I unfold my spine onto the meadow ground again, pressing each vertebra into the soft grass blanket until I flatten out, like Aiden beside me. ‘Yeah, it’s nice to be off that bench,’ I laugh. Plucking a daisy from the ground, I hold it up to my nose and pretend it has a strong smell, like a peony.
‘What kinds of flowers do you get at home?’
‘In Morocco?’
‘Yeah.’
I think back to the tree-lined streets and courtyard displays. Rows of oleander and hibiscus dotted alongside colourful tiled walls and marbled fountains. And for a moment, I’m back there. I’m back home. And everything seems distant, cold. I feel suddenly separated from my life here, from my time with Aiden. A cold shiver creeps up my spine and I sit up again, letting it escape from my body, float into the chilly air and get carried off to somewhere far from us.
‘I don’t remember,’ I lie. Because the truth – the memories – just brings back that gap between us. That gap I don’t like to remember.
‘I’ll have to Google it.’
‘Hmm,’ I mumble, closing my eyes and pushing the hot pink bougainvillea and date palms from my mind.
‘Have you seen the buttercups grow here?’
I smile, open my eyes and stretch my fingers out wide as if I can feel the short stems of the creamy yellow flowers in my grasp already. Now I’m back here in this meadow, right now, with Aiden. The gap is a little smaller again. ‘Yeah, they’re really pretty. I love the yellow.’
‘Your favourite colour.’
‘Good memory.’
He sits up and turns onto his elbow, propping his head with his hand. ‘We can take a walk here when they bloom. Maybe have a picnic?’
‘Can’t. Too many people.’
‘Oh.’ He lies back down and looks up towards the sky, at a low-flying plane soaring and leaving a cloudy streak behind it. There’s an RAF station nearby so occasionally you can see one of the training vessels overhead. He traces the cloudy line with his finger. ‘We could take a walk somewhere else then?’
‘Sure, maybe right in the middle of town. Maybe on my street.’
‘I’m being serious.’
I turn until I’m now on my side and lean slightly more into him. ‘You are?’
‘Obviously not here. But how about we get the bus into Carron or Lennoxtown? That’s about half an hour from here. We shouldn’t see anyone there?’
‘But what if we do?’
‘We won’t. We could walk around, see a movie—’
‘Like a real date?’ The words linger in my mouth and I hungrily grab at them, wanting to pull them close and devour them. A date. With my boyfriend. In public. For once, I’d feel normal, not different. For once, I could act like a typical seventeen-year-old teenager. I could act like one of those girls with time to waste, those I both envy and hate too.
‘Imagine.’ He smiles, gripping my hand.
‘I already can. But it’s so risky.’
‘No, I really don’t think so. I think it’s genius.’ A wide boyish grin stretches across his face, and I can’t help but return it with one of my own.
‘And when would we enact this genius plan of yours? It’s riskier at the weekend.’
‘So, a weekday?’
‘How? We’re at school!’
‘You have a free period after lunch on Wednesdays.’
‘And you have class.’
‘So I’ll miss it for once.’
I roll my eyes. Skipping class would never be an option for me, unless I was really sick. And I mean, really sick.
‘We’ll get the bus when the lunch bell rings at 11.35 and be back for the usual time UCAS Prep finishes. We’d have five hours together.’
‘What if someone sees us getting on the bus?’
‘They won’t. And to be safe, we’ll queue up separately and even sit apart.’ He shimmies closer to me. ‘Whatever it takes. Ulana. It’d be so nice to spend time with you off school grounds.’
His hand grips mine, tighter. I float my head back and see another RAF plane overhead. In the sky, no destination, no purpose. ‘OK,’ I say finally. ‘Next Wednesday.’
‘Next Wednesday,’ he echoes.
‘It’s a—’
‘—date,’ he laughs. ‘See, finishing each other’s sentences.’
I nudge him playfully, then tuck my legs up underneath me.
