'Are you sure you don't mind me not going t'uni?'

The suction and slap of Ziri's flip-flops halts. His exasperation on my cheek is hotter than the sun and I have to squint to face it. 'I don't give a single f-word. Not one. Not even half– Not even a quarter.'

I smile, adjusting my damp towel as it threatens to slip off my shoulder. His attitude makes me happier than it should — a couple of days ago, he wouldn't've had the energy to wedge each syllable with such sass. A couple of days ago I still had to bribe him out of the house rather than the other way around; it ain't ideal that I have to walk past Má every time we want to swim.

Our hands interlaced, Ziri tugs me along as he continues to walk. 'Don't take this the wrong way but I never thought you'd get in...'

A laugh hums at the back of my throat though fails to scratch the itch. The terror of disappointing people is laced between layers of skin, and finally recognising it's there, don't make it go away. 'You're so far ahead of me. Intellectually, emotionally, in your career. I don't want you to settle.'

He halts again, dropping his head back to groan. 'Kilometres, I'm literally the most spoilt person in this country.' He rethinks. 'Well, the most spoilt child of African immigrant parents anyway.'

Stepping in front of me, Ziri grasps my other hand too. His towel drops onto the baking tarmac though he gives no indication of caring. It's just before noon and the sun is blistering. I know I'll miss it once November swallows the country but this heat is reaching the point that moving to the Arctic don't sound too bad.

'I'm stubborn, I never compromise, I jump to conclusions like I get paid for it,' he lists. 'I never accept responsibility for things, I'm super defensive and double down every time instead of learnin how to apologise, I'm lazy — yes, I have ADHD, but I'm also just lazy.

'I'm not some fully formed adult person with maxed-out LP. There is plenty evolvin left to do. You just can't see that because you're too in love with me — which, like, who wouldn't be, am I right?' Ziri exhales a laugh and inhales tenacity. 'But seriously, I am ahead of you in some things, sure, but I'm far behind in others.'

He drills his stare into mine, challenging me to argue. Eventually, I nod and, softening, Ziri leans his forehead against mine. One of his hands leaves mine to scratch the back of my scalp and my eyes fall shut.

When he leans back, the hand slides to my jaw instead, spreading water from my hair over my skin. He coaxes my gaze to his. 'I choose you.'

A familiar burn spreads from the corners of my eyes, but by this point, I've cried too much to care about it. I let the tears come as I hug him. Ziri's heart beats against my ribs. His pulse resounds mine where our necks press together. Then I laugh down his back — was that a Pokémon reference? Brock were always his first love.

As we continue our way to his parents' home, Mrs Azad walks past us with her grandchild swinging from her arm. I tense. Terror rises from my stomach, but rather than shake Ziri's hand out of mine, I hold it tighter.

She nods at us. 'Assalamu'alaikum.'

'Aleikum salaam,' Ziri responds as I greet her in English.

We leave our towels in the back garden to dry and Ziri stares at me a little too intensely as I drink a glass of water, like he's fighting back the urge to drown me in it — "Allah thinks They're sooo funny sendin a heatwave on Ramadan." Though his dad is at work and his mum is sleeping after her night shift, Ziri shuts his bedroom door once we're inside. It feels safer somehow, like the rest of the world don't exist. He has such a way of making me feel like the rest of the world don't exist.

'Are you sure about this?' he asks as he sits in front of me on the bed. 'You don't have to if it makes you uncomfortable.'

'I'm sure.' Even so, my heart hammers against my chest as he opens the liquid eyeliner. I escape into familiar fears: 'I still feel guilty. I promised you I wouldn't get tired.'

Ziri huffs, knocking over the bottle. 'Of me,' he presses and picks it up before it can spill on the sheets. 'Don't get tired of me. You're allowed to be generally tired as a person.' He rolls his eyes though the corners of his mouth twitch.

I jolt when he reaches the eyeliner wand to my face. My eyes hurt in anticipation of him poking them which he must guess because, laughing, he tells me to stop moving. I try but fail. Every time he reaches, I flinch.

Then his hand is on my jaw. His grip is tight enough to keep me in place though it's redundant: I lose all ability to move the moment he touches me. Ziri shuffles closer. 'Look at me.'

Where else would I possibly look?

Even with his cracked lips and the dark circles under his eyes, he's breathtaking. I'm barely aware of the foreign feeling of the wand in the corners of my eyes. His lips flatten when he concentrates and he goes so quiet he might be holding his breath. Mine leaves my lungs in erratic whisps.

After far too short an eternity, Ziri pulls back, inspects me, and smiles. He closes the eyeliner and opens the mascara, which he combs only once through my lashes before he leans back to study his work.

His eyes stay on me much longer than they need. 'Can I kiss you?'

I can't pretend I'm not surprised. I didn't think he'd bear so much physical contact for a couple more weeks.

'Aye.'

Ziri fidgets with the mascara tube. His eyes caress my face until he builds the courage to lean forward; his breaths tickle my lips. There, he pulls back to find my eyes, heavy with longing, and he shuts his.

His lips are coarse but his touch is gentle. Dropping the mascara somewhere between our legs, his fingers drizzle my jaw until they settle awkwardly to hold it. We kiss like we've been dating for a week and not five years, like we're still uncertain about it: each other's mouths and kissing in general.

I wring my hands into the drawstring of my shorts. My heart palpates. There's a static in my body that ain't exactly uncomfortable but certainly couldn't be described as nice. That is, until I reach for his hips and pull him onto my lap. Ziri pours a laugh into my mouth. I drink it like orange juice. Fuck, I've missed kissing him.

Fuck Dominic. He's never going to take this for me again.

After a slow retreat, easing the end to come with shorter kisses, Ziri rolls off me and gestures at the mirror. I'm already sweaty when I get off the bed and I cross his room as if the floor is a sheet of ice waiting to break. Ziri leaves me to take in my reflection for several minutes before he comes up behind me.

His arms slide around my torso. 'How'd you feel?'

'Pretty,' I whisper. 'It– I look nice.'

Through the reflection, I watch him watch me and a lump forms in my throat. Dominic only ever used me to look at himself, as does Má. But Ziri has never used me as a mirror, not even when I beg him to. My chest aches because I love him too much to bear, like my heart is about to burst. They're growing pains, I think. One day, it'll only be sweet.

Ziri speaks in a whisper too, respecting the tone I've set. 'I can teach you to do it on your own whenever you like.'

'I like it when you do it.'

He smiles.

'I might only wear it at home.' It comes out like an apology but Ziri kisses my shoulder. Into my skin, he mumbles, 'Home is best.'

He lifts his head to finally face the mirror himself. The sadness that floods the earth of his eyes is tangible. 'I think I'll dye my hair. It's not like I need to worry about it bein healthy now. And maybe it'll make me not throw up every time I see myself...'

'Lavender?'

'Naturally.'

'That'll look nice...' I allow my eyes to fall on the scars I absentmindedly trace on Ziri's arm. 'I'm proud of you.' My eyes flick back up to meet his in the mirror. 'For not biting yourself.'

He hugs me tighter, pressing against my back. 'You know, in October I'll be three years self-harm free.'

'I know.'

'I didn't think I'd make it here.'

It took two months of dating for Ziri to show me his bedroom. He fidgeted with the cross around his neck as my eyes sprung from lavender floor to lavender ceiling — Your parents let you paint this? He shrugged. Committing suicide makes it very easy to get whatever you want. Somehow it's here in his teenage bedroom that I finally realise how different we look at twenty-three than we did at eighteen. More tired, that's for sure. But happier too. Five years looks good on us.

His arm retracts from me but before I can mourn the loss of touch, he takes my hand. He pushes me onto the mattress and lies on top of me, placing his head on my chest even if it makes his feet poke over the end of the bed.

Ziri traces the tattooed crane through my shirt, knowing where its lines flow without seeing it. My hand instinctively tries to work through his hair until it learns to massage his scalp. He smells like his mum's shampoo, different but somehow still home.

'I've missed this.'

Ziri hums his acquiescence. It vibrates through my ribs.

'Is it okay if we don't have sex again?' I ask through the clench of my insides. But I remind myself that Ziri wants me to talk openly with him even if I don't yet know what I want, even if it's hypothetical for now.

'Yeah. It was nice with you but loads of things are nice with you. We can do other things together.'

Sleep settles over us; I have to wade through it to keep talking. 'When we get home, we have to finish that fucking puzzle. It's literally been there for half a year.'

'That sky is impossible. How am I supposed to know what blue piece fits with another identically blue piece?'

'We'll do trial and error. Then we can buy a new one and take another six months to finish it.'

Receptive to my bribery, he lifts his head to look at me. The tenderness he offers me is worth never escaping to an attic again.

'I love you.'

'I love you.'

            'Oi, what? You can't write in French!'

Ziri scoffs insolently from the floor where he sits cross-legged, the Scrabble board on the sofa table between us. 'Why not?'

'Because we're playing in English,' I say. 'You can't just write words in whatever language you feel like.'

'That's how we've always played it.'

'That is how we've always played it,' Mariame confirms from the armchair without looking up from the novel she's immersed in. The title is French for summat I don't understand, written in cursive over a stock photo of a beach.

Ziri makes a sound of triumph and adjusts the x in toux to align perfectly with the triple letter square. 'You should've said that at the start of the game then,' he gloats. 'Too late, now. I've already written it.'

'Fine, I'll write in Vietnamese then.' Channelling his dramatics, I smack my letters one by one on the board until my rack is empty.

Ziri's mouth opens wider with each block until I lift my hands to gloat. 'That's not a word!'

'Yes, it is.'

'What's it mean then?' he challenges, eyebrows near his hairline.

'...Pancakes.'

'No, it doesn't.'

'How would you know? You can't speak Vietnamese.'

'I'll google it.' He gets up with such fanfare that he nearly falls over, though manages a semi-convincing act of pretending it were intentional and walks theatrically out of the living room to fetch his phone from upstairs. He disappears from my line of sight until he's a third up the stairs and steps into it again.

But the bell rings. He twists to stare at the door, as do both Mariame and I though there's a wall in the way.

Ziri walks back down the stairs. The lock clicks and the door opens. A second where the world halts. Then: 'Oh, Mrs Hoáng. Hello...'

I leap off the sofa but freeze before I can take a step. Má? What is Má doing here?

'I made you some rice noodle salad. There's no pork,' she adds quickly.

'Um... thanks.' I can practically see Ziri peel skin off his lip through the wall. 'Did you want to see Miles?'

There's silence during which I assume she nods and Ziri gestures for her to come inside. The door shuts and her sandals slap against the floor. Ziri steps into my vision again. His eyes instantly find mine and his expression communicates the same utter bafflement I feel. He waits in the hall to invite Má into the living room in front of him.

Her eyes widen the moment she steps inside. I know she's struggling not to stare too much at everything. The sheer amount of stuff makes her face flush. Unless that's from seeing me.

Ziri walks through to the kitchen to leave Má's salad in the fridge whilst Mariame invites her to sit down in the armchair she were just in. Má does, albeit hesitantly. I stay standing. Mariame pours her a glass of bissap juice from the jug in the fridge.

Ziri returns to his spot where he revolves awkwardly, trying to decide if sitting on the floor or beside me on the sofa will be taken worse by my mother. He decides to stand. Trying to relieve the tension that's quickly vacuuming all oxygen from the house, he points at the Scrabble board. 'Mrs Hoáng, is this a Vietnamese word?'

'No. Those are random letters.' Out of habit, Má goes to spin her wedding ring but it's not there. It's not there? It's not there. I've never seen her without it. 'You can call me Hue...'

Ziri exhales half a sound and glances at me, still shifting his weight from foot to foot like a penguin whilst I stand still as a statue. Má wrings her hands in her lap.

The silence is broken by the wrench of the back door being opened. 'Ziri, aide-moi à plier le linge,' Mariame commands.

'Pourquoi?'

'Parce que tu as vingt-trois ans.'

He flaps his arms with irritation. 'I hate chores.' But he follows his mother outside where the laundry hangs on lines zigzagging the backyard.

I finally sit back down but can't come up with owt to say. The distance between the sofa and the armchair is awkward. My cheeks burn. Now that Ziri and Mariame are outside, Má lets herself inspect the room. She stares at Mariame's ancestral altar, proudly taking up space and covered in relics. I turn to the Scrabble board and restore my letters to my rack.

'You look nice...'

I try to thank her even as my face lights on fire. With my tattoos, septum piercing, and glasses — to say nowt about the eyeliner now smudged from our noon nap — I must look bloody horrific to her. It don't sound like a lie though. Maybe I finally look enough like myself to not look like Ba. Or is it too little like Ba that I finally look like myself?

'I want to apologise.'

The W slips out of my grip. I watch it roll under the table, debate for several seconds whether to pick it up or not, and eventually do, muttering an apology.

'I know I weren't a good mother to you — that I'm not a good mother.' My eyes limp to meet hers. They gloss with tears and I have to look away. 'I know I haven't responded well to your... sexuality. I'm sorry, Thỏ. And I'm so sorry you had to experience what you did. I wish I could've been there for you. Of... of course, I want you to be happy.'

I nod. But my mother in an open wound I can't look at without fainting. My stomach churns. Scratching the back of my neck, I rotate the W in my fingers.

'I deserved to have a childhood.' The words are mumbled, barely audible. Though each syllable snags in my throat, a ball of light illuminates inside my chest. The more I speak, the larger it grows. 'I deserved attention, to be taken care of, to feel safe, to feel loved. I never did. I get that your husband dying don't exactly make life easy but you put an entirely unfair amount of responsibility on a child.'

Má's stare on me tilts. She can tell they ain't my words. For now, it's still Dr Qureshi speaking through me but maybe, with enough practice, they'll come from my own chest.

'I appreciate the apology, but...' The ball of light finally reaches my fingertips.

Má fidgets with the tan line of her wedding ring. 'I understand.' Her hands leave her lap, presumably to dry her tears. 'You're right, I should probably see a doctor. Maybe I can still fix things with Iris.'

'You can still fix things with me. But... it'll take time...'

            Night hugs the street when we pack the car. Má's surprise visit took all evening for me to recover from and our leaving got delayed until after Iftar, but my anxieties about driving in the dark pacify — the moon shines so bright, it casts a silver halo to all the tree tops out of reach for street lamps.

I hop back into the house to unplug my phone from last-second charging as Ridha exits. Ziri, about to close the boot, baulks at him. 'Baba, why are you givin me a pressure cooker?'

'You said you needed one.'

'So we'll buy one.'

'Buy?' he repeats. 'Buy? Why would you buy one when we have one extra that works? No, no. Take it, take it.'

'This is like thirty years old.'

Ridha shoves the appliance into Ziri's arms. 'But this works. Today, you buy something — one year later, it's broken. Wallah, this will not break. Your children will use it. Your children's children will use it. When the earth cracks and floods and the sun rises from the west, Wallah, this will still work.'

Ziri sarcastically celebrates being able to make lemon chicken after the apocalypse and I watch as he shoves the pressure cooker in the boot. Mariame appears at my side with my thermos of coffee. She hands it to me with an expression that leaves none of her disapproval to the imagination. Ziri had no qualms expressing it in words — "If you can't sleep tonight, don't keep me up cause that is not my problem."

My cheeks burn as I take the thermos. With Ziri occupied by Ridha out of earshot, I can't help myself; the question is out of me faster than my mind phrases it. 'How come you never doubted me?' I don't elaborate but I can tell she understands: why did you never doubt that I were good enough? Part of me hopes she'll admit that she hated me for years so I can feel less guilty about my mother's hostility.

'I trust my son,' Mariame states. 'My son chose you.'

Her stare bores into my eyes, so similar to the way Ziri's often does. Then she pulls me into a hug. She hugs me three more times and Ridha four before they let me get in the car. Ziri they keep for ten minutes longer and though they switch to French, their love is a universal language.

'I were thinking,' I say as I click in my seatbelt, 'we could go to see Before Midnight tomorrow if you're feeling up for it.'

Ziri pauses in the middle of unloading all the things in his arms to offer me a smile. 'That'd be nice.' He drops his water bottle in the cup holder next to my thermos, slides his phone into the compartment on his door, throws his just–in–case jumper in the backseat, and finally leaves the bag of fruit Ridha shoved onto him on the dashboard.

Out of habit, I set the GPS onto home though I could drive the way with my eyes shut. Ziri watches the familiar homes of East Trough withdraw into the rearview with faint melancholy. It's only when we're fifteen minutes out of Sufsdale that he turns to me.

'So, um... how do you feel about things with your mum?'

Mariame insisted Má stay for what were an expectedly awkward lunch that Ziri watched us eat, holding my hand under the table all the while. Normally, he goes to another room when I eat while he's fasting but he knew I needed the emotional support. Thankfully Mariame took leadership of the conversation, asking Má about her job and her childhood.

'If you wanna talk about it,' Ziri adds when I stay silent.

'I dunno,' I sigh. 'I love her. Obviously, I want my mum in my life and I know holding a grudge probably ain't productive. But it'll be so easy for me to slip back into that codependent dynamic. I guess I have to... keep my distance... for a bit.'

I focus on making it onto the A27 where I turn on cruise control. Instantly, my leg starts to bounce. 'Iris will be fine,' I say. 'I talked to Chloe's parents and they're okay with her staying there whenever she wants to. I've got their numbers now so if summat happens... Má... I need to see real effort from, like. Dr Qureshi said there has to be action and not empty words.'

Ziri hums in understanding. 'Have you told him that you're gonna take a break yet?'

'No. We've got a session on Friday so I reckoned we'll talk about it then.' I glance at Ziri for as long as I dare to look away from the road. The headlights of the passing car turn his cheekbones gold. 'But I might actually try group therapy. I know you didn't like it–'

'Ya Allah, just have your own opinions.' Ziri turns to the window as if there's another person there to talk to. His reflection suffices for a shared look of incredulity. 'Ce gars est ridicule.'

I scowl until I have to admit that he's right and hollow my cheeks to get rid of it. Trying again, I do my best to sound confident. 'I'm gonna try it. I think it could be nice to have other people to talk to who understand. And it's also free.'

Ziri places a hand on my thigh and my leg stills. 'That's a good idea.' It calms me a little too much and I'm reminded of my coffee.

He turns on the radio and physically recoils when Take Back the Night by Justin Timberlake plays. I exhale a laugh as he switches channels as quickly as he can to catch the outro of one of the same three Avicii songs that've been playing on repeat all summer. The next song is summat more mellow I don't recognise but it settles us into our lone position on the road.

Ziri relaxes against his door and exactly as I think he's fallen asleep, he talks, laughter strumming through his words. 'You had an awful holiday, huh?'

Well, when people at work ask me what I got up to, I probably won't tell them I visited my dad's grave on his death anniversary, gave up on my grandparents ever liking me, and yelled at my mother. My boyfriend were manic and then depressed, and I mostly cried and slept.

'We've still got that week at the end of August,' I say, trying to be optimistic so he don't feel guilty. 'We should do summat.'

'Yeah... We could go to Wales. Have a picnic.'

I raise my eyebrows. 'You wanna go all the way to Wales to have a picnic?'

'Obviously, we'd also do other stuff.' He throws his hands up. 'I've never been to Wales. That's what I assume you do there.'

Casting him another glance, I shake my head though the amusement fades quickly. I adjust my grip on the steering wheel, centre my septum ring, and bounce my leg again. 'Maybe we could go to Leeds.' It comes out as a question. Have your own opinions. 'And not stay at my grandparents'. I didn't really get the chance to show you around last time.'

I nail my eyes onto the monotonous stretch of road, afraid of catching reluctance on his face. But Ziri's response don't sound slightly reluctant. 'Okay.'

The plastic bag rustles on the dash as he digs out an orange. The citrus scent fills the car as soon as his thumbnail breaks the skin.

'I could introduce you to some of my old friends from school. Not the homophobic ones,' I add when I see his expression.

Digging his fingers under the skin, Ziri nods. 'Okay.' The peel is brittle and by the time the fruit is bare, he has a pile of orange confetti on his lap. The whites of his fingernails are dyed yellow. I catch him glance at the time — 22:47. 'It's our anniversary tomorrow.'

My fingernails have never been long enough to peel oranges without a knife.

'I know.'

Ziri feigns scandal: 'You better not expect to have anniversary sex during the holy month of Ramadan.' He breaks the fruit in half, flinching as a drop of juice strikes his eye and blinks rapidly. Then he smiles. 'Five years. That's a long time.'

The radio is playing Avicii again. The night that wraps around us is somehow limitless at the same time that it safeguards us into a world of our own. Ziri separates the first orange segment but rather than bite into it, he reaches to hold it over my lips. I open my mouth.

I tilt my head back to talk without spilling juice. 'I'm so excited.'

'For what?

'To live with you.'

Ziri halts with his own segment hovering in front of his lips. He studies me like he's worried I've had an aneurysm. 'We already live together.'

'Aye, I know that.' I roll my eyes and savour the orange taste that lingers in my mouth. 'I'm just excited to keep living with you.'

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, that's all folks! Thank you so much to everyone who made it this far. My confidence really took a hit this summer so I'm sorry it took longer to write this than I had expected, but hopefully, it was worth the wait (●ˇ∀ˇ●)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the flashbacks in this book because I know people tend not to like those, so if you thought they were good or you thought they were awful, either way, it's useful for me to know.

Also the therapy scenes because those were tough to write since it's just two people sitting and talking.

Also just on how the SA and everything else was handled because I never want my books to feel like trauma porn but that line is a bit different for everyone so it's difficult to manage.

This was originally going to have a few more chapters but when I wrote that last scene, it just felt like a full-circle moment and the perfect ending. I had the best time writing these sweeties <3333 Now that I had I taste of writing characters in a relationship rather than getting into one, I'll definitely have to write more books like this (●'◡'●)

Thanks again for reading!