Chapter 26 Maya
Maya
I pull out of the driveway, entering Dina’s address into the car’s navigation. I still know the address of her old house. I could probably drive there with my eyes closed, considering how often I used to go there when I was younger. It’s strange that I don’t even know where Dina lives now.
As I drive, my mind starts going into overdrive. I don’t know why Dina called me, and I don’t know what it means. Maybe I’m just a last resort, I try to tell myself. That would make sense, and maybe in a way it would be the best-case scenario.
The navigation tells me that the apartment complex on the left is my destination, and I pull up.
I can already see Dina pacing back and forth through the glass front doors.
Her eyes widen when she spots me, and she lets herself out of the door.
I notice then that she’s dressed like she’s going out – or was out.
She’s wearing a black dress that accentuates every curve on her body.
Her hair is loose, and even though it’s a little wind-blown and messy, it frames her face perfectly.
She’s even wearing make-up. There’s slightly smudged eyeliner and mascara on her eyes; her cheeks are tinged a rosy pink, and her lips are ruby red.
The sight of her lights my insides on fire. I have to look away as she climbs onto the passenger seat. I grip the steering wheel, trying not to look at her out of the corner of my eyes.
‘Hey,’ Dina says softly.
‘Hey.’
I turn the car around, pulling onto the road back to my house.
‘I’m sorry for making you come all the way out here.’
I shrug. ‘It’s fine. And you were locked out. Did you lose your keys or something?’
‘No. I didn’t even take them with me. I went out with my flatmates, so I thought they have keys and so it doesn’t matter that I don’t have mine and … well.’ She stops there, though it doesn’t feel like the end of the story.
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, even though I know I shouldn’t. She’s half hidden by the shadows, but that doesn’t stop my heart rate from increasing at the sight of her.
I grip the steering wheel more tightly, until my knuckles are white.
‘How come your friends didn’t come home with you?’ I ask after a beat of silence.
‘I was tired, so I decided to leave. They’re probably still having fun,’ Dina says.
‘You weren’t having fun?’ I ask.
‘I … was just tired,’ Dina says after a moment’s hesitation.
‘Hmm.’ I can tell there’s more to it, but I don’t press it.
I can feel Dina looking at me, and my face warms. I can’t look at her, though.
I won’t look at her. I know that if I do, I won’t be able to stop myself from looking at her, and I need to concentrate on driving, instead of the rising beat of my heart, instead of my mind flooding with thoughts of Dina.
Finally, I pull into our driveway. Dina stumbles out of the passenger’s side as I close my door and lock the car.
She blinks up at the house, like it’s a place of wonder. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve been here,’ she says.
‘Nine years.’ The words slip out of me, though I don’t mean to say it.
Dina casts me a look over the roof of the car, and even though neither of us says it, I know we’re both thinking about the day that she came here to confront me.
‘Let’s get inside,’ I say, turning away from her and towards the door. This definitely doesn’t feel like the right time to think back to the past. And definitely not to that day.
The door unlocks with a click, and I push it open, waving Dina inside as I put Abba’s car keys back in their place.
‘Are your parents home?’ Dina asks in what’s supposed to be a whisper but is still a little too loud.
I crack a smile, though I should really be worried about Abba and Amma waking up and wondering why Dina is here in the middle of the night, and jumping to conclusions that I definitely don’t want them jumping to.
‘Yes, so we have to be quiet,’ I reply in an actual whisper.
Dina nods, and follows my lead as I head up the stairs and to my bedroom.
As Dina looks around, I feel a strange sense of vulnerability overwhelm me.
It’s been a long time since Dina has been in here, and I don’t even want to know her thoughts.
Is she thinking about the fact that I’m back in my teenage bedroom?
That I’m a failure who is stuck back where I started?
Is she thinking about the fact that nothing in this place has changed at all?
Is she wondering if even I have changed at all in the past nine years, or if I’m stuck as the same eighteen-year-old who she broke up with on the doorstep of this house nine years ago?
‘Sit down, I can find you some clothes to get changed into,’ I instruct.
Dina does exactly as I tell her, plopping herself down on my bed and looking around wide-eyed.
‘Thanks … for helping me tonight,’ she whispers slowly. Like it’s a struggle for her to say thank you. I guess it always has been a struggle, considering how Dina prides herself on being so self-sufficient. On not needing anyone but herself.
I smile, sitting down on the bed next to her. ‘How come … you called me tonight?’
‘My brother is too stressed, my mum would murder me if I called her,’ she says, ticking off the apparent list of people she could have called.
‘What about your girlfriend?’
Dina whips her head around to stare at me. ‘My what?’
‘You know, that girl I saw you with at the park the other day.’
‘You thought Thea was my girlfriend?’ Dina knits her eyebrows together in confusion. ‘Did we look like we were dating?’
‘I don’t know.’ Though now that I think about it, they definitely didn’t. If it wasn’t for the bouquet I saw on Dina’s Instagram page, I probably wouldn’t have given them a second thought.
‘Why would you think I was dating Thea?’ Dina asks. She’s grinning now like she finds this whole thing funny. I would too, if it wasn’t embarrassing. If it didn’t reveal that I was thinking about Dina in that way when I definitely shouldn’t be.
‘I saw this photo on your Instagram. It was this bouquet of flowers and I thought …’ I shrug.
‘I must be dating someone.’ Dina chuckles. ‘Maya Alam, were you stalking my Instagram?’
‘I wasn’t.’ My face is hot now from all the blushing and I’m sure Dina can see it. We’re sitting close enough for her to make out the pink tinge on my cheeks, but she doesn’t comment on it.
‘It’s OK. It’s not like I haven’t stalked your online presence,’ Dina admits.
I blink at her, surprised. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Dina says, her voice getting softer with every word. So soft that I have to lean forward to hear her, until the two of us are a little too close to each other. I can feel her breath with every word that she speaks now. ‘I guess I missed you.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that. I’m not sure if I can even say much at all.
My eyes travel down to Dina’s lips, even though that seems like a bad idea. This whole thing seems like a bad idea, especially when I had so thoroughly convinced myself that I was done with Dina. That I was ready to move on.
But now here I am again, sitting in my bedroom, face to face with Dina. Thinking once more about what it would be like to kiss her.
Dina’s eyes seem to glitter when the light catches them.
She leans towards me, agonisingly slowly, tilting her head to one side.
Something draws me forward too; it’s almost like a pull of gravity.
I can’t help but go towards her, studying the honey-brown of her eyes; how they shift and shimmer in the light, how they darken and lighten, as if by some magic.
I reach out a hand, touching the corner of her lips where the red of her lipstick has smudged into a streak of pink. I wipe it away, and I can feel Dina’s sharp breath at the touch more than I hear it.
Then, all at once Dina presses a kiss to my lips.
It’s feather-light, hesitant; almost like she’s asking permission.
I pull her close to me, already losing myself in the heady scent of her, and circle an arm around her waist. As if this was all that Dina needed, she deepens our kiss, and suddenly it feels desperate and hungry.
I kiss her back with this same kind of desperation, like Dina is sand between my fingers and if I don’t kiss her now, I might never get the chance again.
‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you since we first ran into each other. It’s all I’ve been thinking about doing,’ I mumble into her lips.
‘Me too.’ Dina sighs against me. She tugs at the buttons of my blouse, and surprisingly quickly and smoothly, she manages to pull it off me.
I move back on the bed, until I’m against the headboard, pulling Dina with me. She hesitates for only a moment, before she climbs on top of me, her legs straddling me. Her thumb caresses my bottom lip for only a second before she’s kissing me again.
Her kisses are different from how I remember.
Before, it was like neither of us knew exactly what we were doing.
We would fumble and bump noses, and laugh and kiss.
We were each other’s firsts, still learning.
But now, things are different. Nine years have taught both of us a lot, clearly, I think as Dina presses herself flush against me, running her fingers through my hair, skimming my ear, my cheeks, my neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps that seem to be sending pools of desire through me.
All of my thoughts about this being a bad idea, about moving past Dina, melt away. Because how could this be a bad idea? How could Dina ever be a bad idea?
We pull apart, breathless, but Dina doesn’t let go of me and I’m not sure if I want her to.
‘Are you OK? With this?’ Dina asks, her eyes boring into mine.
‘Yes,’ I say, without even thinking about it.
We’re both breathing hard and my whole body is flushed with heat.
Dina brushes a lock of hair behind my ear before her teeth nib at my neck, my jaw; her lips trail kisses down to my collarbone.
I feel like a livewire everywhere Dina touches.
And as much as I know that I should stop her, that we should stop, period, I don’t want to.
Then, a creak pierces the silence of the night.
Dina stops and leans back, and suddenly it feels like the rest of the world rushes back into focus.
I can hear Abba’s soft snoring in the other room, the creak of the bed as Amma tosses and turns, the rush of wind outside, creating a soft hum as it passes through the trees.
Dina and I are still staring at each other, but the moment is gone. Even if the ache of longing in my chest isn’t. Dina swiftly clambers off me and I sidle off the bed, trying to comb my hair into something more than a restless tousle.
Dina sits on edge of the bed now, her hands pressed against the duvet, knuckles a little white from how hard she seems to be pressing down.
She’s staring at the ground, like she can’t look at me now.
I can’t look at her either. I have a million questions.
I want to know why Dina kissed me and why now.
But, mostly, I’m still feeling the ghost of her fingers caressing my neck, her phantom kisses still on my lips.
‘We should get some sleep,’ I say, not looking directly at Dina, and instead ducking past her and opening up my wardrobe.
I can feel her staring at my back, but I don’t turn around.
I busy myself rooting around for a set of pyjamas, like I should have before.
Maybe if I hadn’t sat down next to her on the bed, if I hadn’t told her about that photo I’d found, we wouldn’t have felt emboldened to kiss each other and things wouldn’t feel even more complicated than they were before.
When I finally find the pyjamas, I toss them in Dina’s direction, and she catches them perfectly, like she had been expecting the throw.
‘You can change in the bathroom,’ I say.
She nods, and softly opens the bedroom door to head into the bathroom.
I close my eyes for a minute and take a deep lungful of breath, trying to calm my heartbeat.
The kiss had been just a kiss. A spur-of-the-moment thing.
After all, Dina only called me because she was locked out of her apartment with nobody else to call.
I tell myself all of this, no matter how much I desperately want to hold on to that kiss as the start of something between the two of us again.
Once my heart has stopped racing, I quickly change into my own pyjamas, and make up a bed with pillows and sheets on the floor.
‘You can take my bed,’ I say to Dina once she comes back to the room. She frowns between the bed and the makeshift one on the floor.
‘It’s fine, I can sleep on the floor.’
‘Just take the bed,’ I say firmly.
‘Fine,’ Dina agrees in a disgruntled voice.
She climbs onto the bed, while I turn off the light.
Shuffling to the makeshift bed, I lie down.
I stare up at the ceiling, trying not to think about the fact that Dina is lying down only a few feet away from me.
It’s difficult when I can hear the sound of her soft breathing, when I can hear the rustle of her blanket every time she turns.
I don’t turn on my side, afraid of catching a glimpse of her and it sending my heart into a panic.
‘Does it feel weird being back?’ Dina asks in a whisper after a few minutes.
‘A little,’ I say.
‘What was your room like, over there?’ she asks.
We’re veering into dangerous territory, but in the darkness of my room, it feels easier to talk.
‘I shared an apartment with two of my teammates,’ I say. ‘It was pretty small. My room was, like, half the size of this. But it was fine, because we travelled a lot and I was barely ever home.’
‘Did you miss being home?’ Dina asks. I know which home she’s talking about.
‘Sometimes. I missed …’ You, I want to say, but I can’t. That would be admitting something too vulnerable, revealing too much of myself. ‘My parents.’
The room settles into silence. After a few minutes, I think that Dina must have fallen asleep. But then she breaks the silence again.
‘Things are too complicated.’ She sighs, like she’s been thinking about that for a long time. ‘I mean, for that to happen again.’
A lump forms in my throat when I realise what Dina means. She already regrets kissing me, while I was thinking about how everything finally felt like it was slipping into place.
‘Right. Yeah,’ I agree, my voice throaty and rough.
‘I just mean – I don’t regret kissing you. But there’s so much history and so much we haven’t sorted out. I don’t even know how I feel about … anything,’ Dina says. ‘It would be a bad idea, for us to start something.’
I want to tell her that she’s wrong. That if we wanted to, we could figure it out. But maybe she’s right. I don’t even know who I am now that I’m back home, or what I want out of life. I’ve just been caught up in my messy, unresolved feelings for Dina. Feelings that would only get me into trouble.
‘Yeah, we shouldn’t let that happen again,’ I say.
‘We should sleep,’ Dina whispers. ‘Goodnight, Maya.’
‘Goodnight, Dina.’