Moyurakhkhi's Cigarettes

15| Black Tea

"Where are you going?" Abbu asked, making me stop at the door. His recliner was surrounded by stacks of children's adventure novels, some on the floor, some on the coffee table. 

"Mihran Sir's house..." I said cautiously. You don't want to mess with Abbu when he's craving the sea. Last night, I saw him trying to download Pirates of the Caribbean from a piracy website and get clickbaited to a hentai app.

"You don't have to go," he curtly stated, putting down Moby Dick.

I groaned. "Why?"

Abbu pursed his lips and sipped his bitter, bland black tea, taking his sweet time. "He has a tacky moustache."

"A tacky moustache?" I threw up my hands, incredulous.

"The point is, it's not right for you. You're getting too invested in literature," said the man buried under books. "I've already told your uncle's driver that you're not going."

A hollowness filled my chest, and my eyes stung with tears. "You know, you're never really around, so I don't think you'd know what's right for me," I breathed, hating how weak my voice was.

"It's not my opinion. It's your mother's."

Slamming the front door close, I stormed to Ma's room. She was lying in her bed, visibly tired.

"Ma, what the hell?! Why do you suddenly have a problem with me going over to MS' place?!"

She was taken aback, but recovered quickly. "Yes. I don't like that man. He has a tacky moustache."

"It suits him!" I exclaimed. I fixed her with a stern stare. "Why are you doing this to me? You were swooning at his book just a few days ago!"

She yawned. "It wasn't a few days ago, it was months ago. Before I found out about his ultramodern ways, with cigarettes and dating boys."

My glare fell cold. A strong, invisible force crushed my chest, pushing all the air out of my lungs. I forgot how to breath.

"What- what are you, uh, talking about?"

She turned to the other side. It seemed that I was disturbing her peaceful slumber. "Listen, there's no need to pretend. I've known all this business since the moment you brought that pack of cigarettes into my house."

Fuck fuck fuck! 

With a deafening crash, the ceiling pummelled down on my head. Buried under the debris, my cheeks flushed, red hot. Beads of sweat appeared on my forehead.

She knew.

"How did- how did you know?"

"I'm your mother, of course I know. Now let me sleep," she said, and yawned again. Her casualness frustrated me even more.

"Did you tell Abbu?" I whispered through clenched teeth. I didn't want to know the answer.

"No," Ma said. "I know better. Now go to your room and study. You are finished with Mihran Zafar."

Pain, embarrassment, anger stung my skin.

I furiously swiped away the tears that leaked from their prison.

"Well since you know everything," I spat. "You must also know that MS is going to provide for my education, which is something you lot are failing at! Guess what? As soon as this year is over, I'm going to go abroad, without your help, to study English! Not to get a crappy engineering degree! I don't need anyone! None of you!"

I did need someone. But you don't always get someone. My whole life, there was only me, isolated in my room, trying to make sense of everything with as much maturity as a child could possibly have.

And funnily enough, that was more than anybody else had to offer.

-

Kabbo stood outside my door in shorts and a t-shirt with a graphic image of a severed head printed on it.

"Hey," he said, pointing upwards at the roof. "Wanna fly a kite?"

I looked inside to make sure neither Ma nor Abbu was looking. With how strict they were being, if they saw me with a boy, they'd probably not even let me step out of the house anymore.

"Um, sure," I said, following him into the elevator.

We stepped under the open sky. The shrivelled, yellow leaves of my vegetable garden cried out in neglect. I rushed to tend to them. As always, Kabbo helped me water them.

"Moyurakhkhi, I actually need your help with something." Kabbo said, dribbling water at the roots of the bottle gourds with an old pipe.

"What's up?"

Hesitance swam in his face, and he averted his eyes, sighing. He sat down on the cement floor.

I sat down next to him, dusting the dirt off my hands. "Kabbo, you can trust me."

"My mom has apparently getting marriage proposals for me already. Eligible doctor-in-making, and all that," he said, cracking a wry smile. "She's suspicious of why I'm not interested in any of them."

"Okay...I'm not sure what kind of help you want from me about it?"

"Will you date me? Fake-date me, I mean."

I doubled back, then smiled. "Oh wow, how the turns have tabled."

He rolled his eyes. "All you have to do is come over and hang out in my room. You can bring Fizz too, if you'd like. Please?"

"Yeah sure, it'll be fun," I said, grinning.

"By the way, I had another reason to call you. I smelt spinach from your flat."

"Ah, of course. Ma's cooking spinach and shrimp. I'll bring some over."

And so I did. I took my spinach and my Fizz and we hung out in Kabbo's room, letting his mom believe that we were a thing.

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