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.

All it means to share my joys is that we sit around the same steel patio table of chipping white paint to drink our respective beverages in a union of time and space. The insight comes with a yearning to offer him a sip of mine and taste his in exchange.

I want to know which scene is his favourite, if he leans more toward Jesse's cynicism or Celine's desire for hope, what his opinion is on the palm reader, the poem, love, on life? Does he think he'd step off the train or be sentenced to a life of what-ifs?

If he's watched it several times, does that mean he's as capable of reciting the dialogue from memory as I am? What it does mean without any doubt is that he's more of a daydreamer than I thought. I'm a little more enamoured with him than I realised.

I speak to our knees, still touching. 'It's my favourite movie... I didn't think you'd know it.'

'Aye, I like football so I can't have seen a single film.'

Laughter tickles my belly only to be lost in the spume of tsunami waves at the centre of my chest. Once again, he sees right through to the wiry skeleton that keeps me upright and identifies each idiosyncrasy with such ease I refuse to believe he hasn't known me all my life, that he doesn't know me better than I do.

The odd part is I don't mind. I don't mind you discovering all my hiding places. I don't mind being a fool to my own habits until you point them out.

How could I ever have been afraid of it? I crave to come to know myself through you. And, if you'll let me, I vow to devote myself as a vessel for your own self-discoveries.

I toy with my cross until I have to let go to press the stop button. As if he's the one who has never known any other corner of the world than this one, Miles leads me over the tracks and into the trees.

He strides down the slope with no care about the universe and its riddles.

His anxieties over Lysander and Tristan have eased for the most part. If they really know he's gay, they have yet to make a spectacle of it... Maybe they realise that being friends with him for nearly a year without knowing would infect them with shame too.

Either way, he doesn't sink into fears at the frequency he did in the immediate days following the altercation.

Miles doesn't look back when he speaks and his voice threatens to be buried under the breeze that combs through the woods. 'I've decided that even if I get a B in maths, I'm not going t'uni yet. I can't be fucked to move again when I've just got used to this place.'

I stare at the back of his head. 'So tutorin you was a complete waste of time.'

He whips around to face me with an uneven grin so abruptly that I almost walk into him. 'I paid you.'

'Yeah, and then my parents refused to take the money anyway.'

Thanks to the steep downhill, we're at the perfect height difference for me to drape my arms around his neck, fall into him, and slot his lips with mine, then still feign it all an accident. "Sorry, didn't mean to do that, I tripped, these frickin roots all over the place".

Then only if he was disappointed by the cover, would I kiss him properly.

'I can give it back.'

He shakes his head and turns back around. 'I'd've failed if it weren't for you. Even if the point was to force you to talk to me.'

The words are spoken in the opposite direction but still strike me like a hunting spear right through the chest. I lose balance, stumble, then root to the spot. 'What?'

Miles stops again, now two metres away so that my sight of him is spotted by the young birches that stretch their leaves out to be as tall as us, and watches me with such amused impatience that my face burns within seconds.

'Are you honestly that oblivious? I dead fancied you the first moment I saw you. But you hated me so...'

I find an elastic branch and tug a leaf off it so that it springs back and hits my forearm. I roll it between the pads of my fingers until the chlorophyll seeps into my skin like the ink used to record fingerprints.

'And I know I fucked it myself. I'm sorry.'

'You don't need to keep apologisin, I've already forgiven you.' Dropping the mushed birch leave, I stumble closer. 'Besides, I'm not exactly innocent here. I'm sorry for disappearin. And thinkin so harshly of you for no proper reason. And for all the hurtful things I've said, calling you stupid and stuff.'

'I forgive you. Though — erm... if you want me to leave you alone, I'd really appreciate it next time you could just tell me instead of...' Miles straightens the creases from his tee and adjusts his stance so that his trainers are parallel. 'I were proper messed up when you stopped answering out of nowhere. My ex did that a lot... I dunno.'

Tears well in my eyes and I blink them away so they don't dilute my sincerity. 'I will. I'm sorry.'

'You don't need to keep apologising, I've already forgiven ya.' A cheeky grin splits his face.

Why do I love it when you mock me?

To pretend otherwise, I suck my teeth and shove him, then urge him to get a move on. He does, laughing as he ambles down the hill, and I have to hide tears again before I follow, my heart barely holding on in the storm I've thrown it into.

My feelings for him have swelled twice in size every day since our kiss but I don't know if he harbours them anymore. Is my love growing because he's sneaking me his, hiding his affections over time in my pockets and in my juice so that I won't notice until he's free of every fibre, at liberty to return to "just friends"?

And what will I be? Devoted for eternity.

Am I always going to be lost potential to him? Like something ordered online that turns out to be less than promised. You might still use it but not without remembering what it could've been: "if only you suited me like the description said you would, you don't look like your picture, Ziri. Friends will do."

Even if his tenderness is still held in his hands, he might choose not to pursue it. We don't choose our feelings but, as Dal put it, we do choose our burdens, and the presence of affection doesn't mean he'll choose me. He might prefer a casual friendship.

I trail behind him and force a smile when he glances back at me. The sunlight sieved through the foliage dapples his face like lipstick marks from God's kisses. Subhanallah.

You're killing me, Kilometres. If you won't accept my love, I'll return to hating you for self-preservation.

No, that's not true...

Notes

Squash: Juice you make by blending concentrate into water

Subhanallah: (Arabic) Glory be to God