I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY | ✓

▬ 46: ribcage

            The bell chimes. I look up purely out of instinct and continue to stare out of everything but. I'm too weak to fight impulse, and much less yearning, so I don't distract myself when Miles steps through the door. He's wearing my Spice Girls t-shirt. I'm still wearing his grey sleeveless one.

Miles doesn't pretend to be in the need of rice or Powerade and for our simultaneous presence at Barua's to be a Hollywood-worthy event of serendipity like I would. He walks right to me and smiles over the magazine rack.

He sticks to his promise. He's not going to make it easy for me.

To spite me, my ribcage eases up. The fluidity of my voice shocks me. 'Are you stalkin me?'

Miles doesn't berate me for my egocentrism as he did last time. 'Summat like.' With a shrug, he moves on from the confession before it can land. 'Has Justin Timberlake ruined your day yet?'

This is the question that defeats even my fatigue and I breathe a laugh. I glance at M Magazine in my lap. 'Three times.'

Reflecting my grin, Miles circles the rack to join me in the narrow aisle between them. He sits on the shop floor beside me and pulls out a copy of Seventeen because it's what's at arm's reach. Flopping it over to read the back, he peers at it with pursed lips. 

'Why d'you like these? They're so... I dunno, but summat.'

'Sometimes they have fun quizzes.'

Without prompt, I forget Britney Spears and flip through to the end of the magazine, where a quiz indeed waits. The few questions written into tilted hearts are connected with dotted lines that have the options written along them.

'"Who's Your Summer Love?"' I read and turn it to show him the general layout of the page with a grin on my face. 'Okay, first question. "I crush on guys who are: shy and sweet" or "outgoing and fun".'

'Most people are both depend–' He lifts his hands in surrender as I send him a glare. 'Okay. Outgoing and fun.'

He doesn't even think. Miles goes along with it as if filling in quizzes in teen magazines is an activity he does often or at least one that warrants the same respect as the personality test required for a job application or a medical history sheet you complete on a clipboard in the hospital waiting room.

My hold slackens on the magazine as our eyes meet. I could do this forever. You know I could do this forever, right? ...Could you?

I bite down a smile to be able to read the next question. '"It's totally sweet when a guy" either "laughs at my jokes" or "makes me laugh".'

'Makes me laugh.'

'Wow. That's emasculating.'

He rolls his eyes and I laugh and he laughs and I forget to breathe.

I snap back to the quiz, not out of nerves or denial — because it's much too late for either now — but unadulterated fear. I don't look up for the rest of the questions, as if following the dotted lines between hearts is a maze to navigate and losing track would be fatal.

When we reach the end, I finally look at him, deadpan. 'You're in love with Zac Efron.'

'How'd they know?'

The agarwood scent of him rises to my head. Or maybe it's the glue from the magazine spines. Either way, the edges of my mind where the strictest self-imposed authorities reside become hazy, the sensation right before being devoured by sleep when everything makes me laugh.

And I do. I bend over as it pours out of me. Miles leans into the rack as he joins in. The noise alerts Mr Barua out of the backroom with a tingle of the beaded door curtain. His gaze spotlights the crumpled M Magazine on my lap.