I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY | ✓

▬ 57: how long will we go on ignoring it?

               Seriously? That's the best I could come up with — "wanna go swimming"?

Idiot.

Miles nods, then adds a hum of agreement as if he finds the nod too vague but words a strain in the way, when spoken to after waking up from a nap, you hum because speech would grate away the embrace of lingering sleep.

By the time we're on the bus, we're still silent. Only three other passengers are aboard, so I slip into a four-seater, expecting Miles to take the chair diagonal from mine, only for him to sit beside me.

The sight of our feet aligned under the seats opposite stirs something between my heart and my groin, paired with his arm pressed into mine, an invasion into my territory that I welcome, and I have to suppress a convulsion that attempts to tremble through my bones.

I pull my new lavender fulani braids over my shoulder and sink against the backrest. My tank top exposes my upper back and the flattened wool-polyester blend digs into my skin. I arch and squirm in an attempt to flee from the irritation without having to support my own shoulders, which I know would fail because his body heat has melted my muscles.

Miles glances at me.

Despite my two and a half weeks of avoiding him, we fall back into each other's company as easily as sugar dissolves into tea. But neither of us has addressed our nights at Summer and days in Barua's as if there's an unwritten rule that one subject must always be avoided — now that we openly discuss the vulnerabilities of our pasts, our confessions of the present are covered with a worn sheet and a silent agreement to pretend we can't see them. We're back to tea parties with polka-dot elephants.

It's easy enough with Sonia around but when it's the two of us, my veins are replaced by a grid of electrical wires that spit sparks at the anticipation of his touch alone. My brain is substituted by a floral balloon filled with laughing gas that lays any sense of discretion under anaesthesia; the clump of foil can't come up with any conversation material.

Thankfully, Miles's brain functions more than mine. 'Wanna listen to music?' Clever; we won't need to talk.

He unravels the earbuds from his iPod and hands me one.

Mellow beats from the last decade fill the silence between us and soften the rough fabric under my back. I settle against it only to sit upright at the first note of Living Life by Kathy McCarthy, easily recognisable considering I've had it as my ringtone for two years.

'How d'you know this song?'

Miles has lost himself in the music and stares at me blankly for several seconds of the guitar intro. Adjusting his position, his knee knocks into mine, and rather than flinch away with a string of apologies, he rests it there.

'It's in the end credits of this film Before Sunrise.'

'You've seen Before Sunrise?'

'I used to rent the VHS from the library with my grandma.' A wistful expression glosses his face until he blinks it away. 'Why?'

It's supposed to be my movie. But — an anomaly which nearly shocks me enough to undermine it — rather than a stab of grief that twists its blade to tug my mouth into a frown, bubbles blossom in my chest.

A rush of flutters at the base of my stomach nearly has me jumping to my feet to flee, though I remain firm in my seat and clutch the thrill with my abdomen because, like a free drop on a rollercoaster, the discomfort peels back to reveal a giddiness all the more exciting due to its impermanence.

I love that it's not my movie. I love that it's ours, I love that we share it. It doesn't mean I have to split my squash into two glasses and settle for weakly flavoured water. He has his own.