This chapter is dedicated to a very intriguing campaign I came across here recently. I'm usually not into the whole social campaign scene on Wattpad (because I think fiction and its themes should largely speak for themselves and not have a big badge stamped on telling me what rights it supports) but this one, I find myself fully rallying behind. It's called NotTalkedAbout. In their own words: " It's a campaign for authors to write about the real, hard truths of this world. " Give them a look and a follow if you think that's something you'd like to get behind.

Tyador drops her off in front of the Siphon Centre. The neon flashes despondently at her as she waits in front of it, taking an occasional twirl.

The Siphon is situated close to the highway and is, as a result, safer than anywhere else. Policemen patrol past her regularly, sometimes stopping to head in and get some coffee and sandwiches. She recognizes some of them. She tells them goodbye in her head.

She is contemplating whether to pull out her phone and call him or not. And then he comes from around the corner, newspaper under his arm and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. Abdul Rahman began smoking this year. Tasha knew it'd happen eventually.

He takes a final drag, tosses it on the muddy, wet dirt and smiles at her. "Hello, Tash."

"Hiya, Abdi."

"Let's go inside, then. It's freezing."

The Siphon is a shopping mall in miniature. There are only around six shops clustered around a food-court in the middle. The ceiling is transparent and she looks up at the moody, ashamed sky as she pops a few sticks of chewing gum into her mouth.

"Flight's at four thirty the day after, if you were going to ask."

Abdul Rahman nods and draws a chair back for her. She orders a strawberry milkshake. He orders black coffee.

She watches him, as long as he'll let her. She's been watching him a lot this past year. That nonchalance and that effete he had to practice to put on is coming so naturally to him nowadays. He is getting much better at shooting. It looks like he genuinely didn't care about anything. This is more for her than for him.

"Are you upset with me?" she asks.

"For leaving?"

She nods. "Yeah, I guess. For leaving."

"No, I'm not upset. I'm not happy about it obviously but you know...life goes on and all that."

"Yeah." She can feel the milkshake slither down her throat, saccharine and clumpy. She knew this would happen. "So that's it, right? We've known each other since we were five and that's it. You're not happy but life goes on."

"Tash, what were you expecting? A tantrum? From me? It's a good thing, probably. You'll never get taken. I don't know if you read the news or anything but," he leans forwards. "This isn't an amazing place to live in for the rest of your life."

She can feel tears threaten to penetrate the curtain behind her eyes she constructed so efficiently this morning. She promised herself she wouldn't let this happen. "This isn't a good thing."

He scratches his fledgling beard. "Hey, it's all the stress. I'm telling you, you'll feel better when you talk to him. Just focus on all that for a bit. Closure and everything. We'll be fine. There's email and skype and facebook and whatever you need when you feel like you miss vampire-land."

She giggles. "I guess."

He takes a sip of her milkshake. "Why do you keep ordering this?"

"Memory's sake." She takes it back from him.

"Tasha Markov." He shakes his head. "I will never understand you."

She smiles at him and for a moment, she is overtaken by this sudden desire to put her hand on his. To intertwine fingers. She does not know what that would mean just then. She clenches and unclenches a fist.

"So, there's this going away present I want to give you," she says. "But first you have to accept my apology."

He nods violently, his eyes rapt. "Apology accepted."

"You don't even know what I'm apologising for," she says and forces herself to smile. She wishes he could be like other people and hide his feelings better. Or is it that she isn't like other people? Is it that she's more attuned to the way people's eyes work?

"What are you apologising for?" he asks.

"For not showing you this when I got it. Which was last year." She opens the clasp to her handbag slowly and deliberately and fishes around for the secret compartment. Her fingers close around one silver bullet. She fishes deeper till she's touching a folded-up slip of paper. She hands it to him.

"You weren't studying so well for the second term last year," she says. "That's the only reason I didn't give it to you earlier. Cross my heart."

He isn't even listening. She finishes her milkshake and sucks its frothy dregs, making rude, loud noises and she watches him read Safiya Abdur-Razzak's letter over and over and over again.

"So, London's where they went. That's interesting. It's interesting they got in." He folds it back up and hands it back to her. She pushes it towards him.

"Keep it." She tries to see whether he understands.

He smiles his sage little smile and she knows he does. "Why do you think she mentioned me? She didn't mention Cihan or Alfiya or anyone else."

"She liked you. That was our thing. I liked Cihan and she liked you. You have no idea how jealous she'd get when Alfiya'd flirt with you."

Tasha remembers walking home with Safiya back then during similar winters, both of them bundled up in blue and purple and pink. She remembers listening to her seethe. She misses her, for a moment.

"She liked me. Interesting."

Tasha smiles. "Yeah. Interesting." 

I hope you enjoyed that chapter. If you did, please leave a comment letting me know what you thought.