[rubatosis - english (i think), (n), the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat]

"He kept calling you Cupid."

Blaire was sitting on Vera's white rug, spreading her legs across Amreen's thighs. Amreen sighed; she had given up fighting a long time ago. Amreen's laptop sat in between them, and a slideshow of artwork played on the screen. Vera sat in her chair, with her legs crossed and her laptop on her thighs.

"Cupid?" Rani mumbled from underneath Vera's duvet.

Vera rolled her eyes behind her screen. Cupid. She scoffed, not realising that an accidental sound of disgust escaped from her mouth. Out loud.

"Well, I think it's a compliment." Rani retorted. "He's complimenting you."

"How? How is that a compliment?" Vera found herself asking.

She didn't need an answer. She didn't want an answer. She didn't need Rani's ray of optimism and her silver linings. She didn't want to know what Will meant.

"He's, uh, thanking you that you helped him find his current girlfriend. That's a compliment. To you." Rani said.

"Great, so he dates me and then finds the love of his life? Lovely. I guess I am really Cupid since after me, everyone falls in love with everyone but me." Her words were dripping with scorn, and at this point, she didn't really care.

"Not everyone-"

Vera cackled, placing her laptop on the table beside her. She shook her head.

"Don't mince your words, Rani. I'm saying what we're all thinking." She sighed, and lifted her hands in the air. "I kissed Mitchell, and Mitchell fell in love with Gemma." She put a finger down, and was left with nine. "I dated Ryan, and he found Anna and now they're engaged." Eight fingers left. "I kissed Malik and now he's with Lizzie." Seven fingers. "I kissed Alex and now he's with Aaron." Six fingers left. "Ben's with Chelsea now after I dated him." Five fingers left. "Noah's with Michelle." Four fingers left. "Landon's with Nancy." Three fingers left. "Ben's with Maria." Two fingers left. "Jordan's with Melissa, the other one." One finger to go. "Darren's with Kayla." She re-adjusted her chair. "Leon's now with some girl, and Will apparently found the love of his life, and you're telling me that I should be happy and grateful because he called me Cupid?"

There was an awkward silence in the room. Vera sighed, realising that her anger was misdirected.

"Sorry Rani. I didn't mean to-" She started to apologise.

Blaire interrupted her. "To be fair, everyone knew Alex wasn't straight apart from you, so he doesn't deserve to be on that list."

Vera frowned. "That wasn't the point-"

Blaire interrupted her again, this time placing her finger on her mouth, shushing her. "Those are literally just coincidences! You're acting like these guys kissed you and suddenly found the love of their lives standing right next to you. For most of the couples you just mentioned, it took a while until they found their current significant others. You're being dramatic, and for once, you should stop."

Vera felt defiant. "Blaire, the first three times were coincidences. The next nine? Those aren't coincidences, those are problems."

Blaire opened her mouth to speak but Melissa interrupted her. She removed her glasses and rubbed at her eyes while saying, "Maybe, we should test this theory out." When she realised that she had everyone's attention, she carried on. "The Cupid theory."

Vera narrowed her eyebrows. From Cupid to guinea pig. This evening could not get any worse.

*

Vera's world wasn't steady. The brightly coloured fluorescent lights blinded her at certain angles and her dress kept riding up when she danced anywhere on the sticky nightclub floor.

Melissa flimsily grabbed onto Vera's shoulder and whispered as loudly as she could in Vera's ear. "Look, there's a guy that's been looking your way for a while now. I think his name is Luca? Biggest fuckboy ever. Go kiss him."

Vera might have been drunk but she wasn't stupid. She wasn't going to walk up to a guy and just kiss-

"I'll pay you £5 if you do." Amreen joked.

"Be right back."

Vera walked away, squeezing herself between the dancing people and the girls holding each other's hands in a conga line to the toilets. She ignored the out-of-rhythm shouts in her ear as she tried to walk in a straight line. She giggled; she was clearly failing. A hand appeared on her shoulder, helping her to steady herself.

"You okay there?"

Vera nodded, not able to see her rescuer properly.

"Cool, can't have you falling for me without knowing my name first." Vera swore she heard laughter from around her, but when she turned around, it was only blurred clubbers.

Vera didn't have time to talk – she didn't think she could carry out a coherent sentence in her state. Then, she placed her hands on his face. It was probably the alcohol that made her brave but she didn't know where this courage had been hiding. Then she kissed him.

It was very quick, at least in her mind. Two seconds, at the most. She turned on her heel and lost herself in the crowd.

"I can't believe you just did that." Amreen shouted above the music.

Vera licked her lips. "He reminds me of the time I almost died."

"Did he taste like tequila?" Melissa piped up.

Vera nodded, leaning against the pillar, almost sitting on the sticky ground. The adrenaline pumped around her body, forcing her to jump up from the ground. She swung her arms around her friends and kissed Melissa and Blaire on the cheek.

She smiled.

"So, who am I planting these lips on next?"

*

"You guys! You guys!" Rani shouted from the middle of the campus square, making several people turn around and look.

Blaire and Vera turned around, grimacing at the loud noises. Vera woke up convinced that her head had detached itself from her body. Blaire woke up with her head resting firmly on the closed toilet seat.

Rani's tiny body ducked and dived between the gaps of crowd. The news must've been urgent because Rani slammed a guy with her bag and didn't apologise. When she finally reached them, she didn't seem out of breath.

"What's wrong?" Vera's voice was low, lower than she expected. "Why are you shouting?"

"You were right! You really are Cupid!" Rani said a bit too loudly for Vera's liking.

Blaire shushed her and dragged both girls away from the growing stares. She entered an empty classroom, with Vera and Rani following close behind. She flicked the light switch off, and turned the projector off before rubbing at her temples. Vera closed all the windows, making sure that nobody could hear their conversation.

She texted Melissa and Amreen to let them know where they were, then she sat on the table, crossed legged.

"Why does this feel like a job interview?" Rani mumbled, eyes darting back and forth from Blaire to Vera.

Vera shook her head, sitting on her hands to stop them from trembling. She could already feel the dread in the pit of her stomach, making its way to her throat. She feared that she might vomit if she opened her mouth.

"What happened?" Blaire asked.

It didn't sound like a question, but Vera may have misheard it. Rani placed her bag on the table and started to rummage through it. She passed Vera her phone and Vera typed in the passcode.

"I saw Luca and a girl-"

Blaire scoffed. "Well, that's not new."

Rani narrowed her eyebrows – a warning. Blaire kept quiet, and gestured for her to carry on speaking.

"Anyway, I saw Luca and a girl behind one of the fountains, and he proposed to her." Rani peered at her phone, and quickly played the video.

"You recorded them?" Vera asked, verging on the edge of hysterics.

Rani nodded, placing the phone back in Vera's hands. The video roared to life, and the wind made it difficult to hear what Luca was saying. Vera watched as Luca bent down on one knee and brought out a box. The girl in question covered her mouth with her hands as she looked from right to left, then directly at Rani's phone.

Then it abruptly stopped with an audible 'oh shit.'

"Luca started to run after me after that." Rani admitted, rolling her eyes. "I think he forgot how quickly Punjabi girls can run."

Before anyone could say anything, the door slammed open. It hit the corner table, then rebounded back into Melissa's face, causing her to groan and for Amreen to openly guffaw at her pain.

"Shit, sorry." Amreen stopped once she caught the glares aimed in her direction. "You'd never guess what happened!"

Vera dragged a hand down her face.

"Please don't tell me that our hypothesis is correct." She mumbled, not loud enough for Amreen and Melissa to hear.

Melissa firmly shut the door.

"Vera's Cupid!" Melissa said with a grin plastered on her face.

Vera let out a loud groan, mixed with all the negative emotions she's ever felt in her entire life. She got up and kicked a chair, trying to ignore the pain that grabbed a hold of her big toe. She bit her lip, hoping her brain would sense the pain from another source, but it only seemed to make it worse.

She grabbed the whiteboard pen and started to write on the board. Boys I've kissed was written in the middle with a circle surrounding it. She drew a line from one of the circles and wrote Mitchell's name, then drew a line from that and wrote Gemma's name with a heart next to it.

"Let's figure this out properly."

*

Vera took a step back from the boards. The two whiteboards were filled with Vera's romantic experiences, dating from the first boy she kissed to the escapades of last night's experiments.

"They're all in relationships." Blaire muttered, clearly gobsmacked.

Vera sighed, as she dropped to the floor. She sat with her head in her hands, not knowing what else to do with herself.

"Well, shit. I am Cupid."