Page 32 of The Mismatch

For dark hair, leave on for up to ten minutes.

Soraya had left the bleaching cream on her arms for fifteen and her skin was beginning to tingle. She pushed past it.They’re thinking of white people hair.

‘You’re going all out, aren’t you?’ Oliver said.

She applied the light pink hair removal cream above her lip, her tweezers ready in one hand. She was leaning into the bathroom mirror. ‘It’ll all probably grow back in like an hour,’ Soraya sighed.

She stretched over the sink towards the mirror and plucked the stubborn black hairs from her chin that seemed to return daily.

She could see Oliver looking at her reflection. ‘Our friendship really has reached new lows if I’m now OK with you watching me pluck my chin hair,’ she said.

He sat on the closed toilet seat and crossed his legs. He had on his graduation suit styled down with a turtleneck underneath, and despite the backdrop not being overly glamorous, she still resisted an urge to take a photograph of him. He looked like he belonged in a Kooples advert with thecaption: ‘Oliver has been with himself for the last twenty-one years, and is loving it’.

Their bathroom was minimally decorated, the blue walls matching the navy tiles on the floor. The toilet was also blue. It was not quite the vibe Soraya and Oliver were going for. But overall their flat was decent, despite some of its more quirky features.

‘I’m just strengthening our friendship, you know, we need to see each other at our best and our worst.’ He had his phone in his hand, and a small catlike smile on his face.

‘What?’

On his phone was a picture of three men posing nude with their hands covering their genitals. In the background was a wall full of pictures of women in lingerie and swimwear, presumably taken out of the kind of magazine Soraya hated. She didn’t understand why Oliver was showing her such a crass photo until her gaze fell on one of the men’s faces. Magnus Evans looked back at her. The image was posted last night.

Soraya’s jaw dropped, and in the process a small clump of Veet cream fell into her mouth. She spat it out and quickly rinsed her mouth.

‘Symbolic,’ she said through gritted teeth.

Oliver didn’t seem to notice what had happened. He continued swiping through his phone.

‘You know, he reminds me a bit of Terry.’

‘Terry? As in the guy who once sent me an unsolicited dick pic?ThatTerry?’

Among the boys Soraya had almost kissed was Terry. He was the ‘mature’ twenty-three-year-old student that she’dhad an unsuccessful back and forth with online in third year. He was too forward, and attempted to kiss her randomly in the library, so she eventually blocked his number and avoided him on campus.

‘Yeah, he has similar qualities,’ Oliver mused. ‘Maybe you’re developing a taste for lads? Maybe ladsareyour type?’

‘Magnus isn’t my type,’ she said slowly. ‘Anyway, I’d rather not talk about Terry, I still feel scarred by that picture.’

‘It was so red,’ Oliver said.

Soraya shuddered. ‘Moving on …’

‘So what are your plans for tonight, just hair removal?’ he asked.

‘Pretty much. I might put on a face mask, too.’

‘Well, the offer to come to Bjork’s house with me still stands,’ he said, not meaning it. She got the feeling Oliver didn’t want her to meet his other friends, didn’t want to mix them together. She could never understand why, but from seeing pictures of their escapades (weekends away in Coventry on coke) she didn’t care enough to press the matter. This other friendship group consisted of rich ‘creatives’ who were funded by their parents to go to coffee shops with their MacBooks and focus on their art, which mostly meant scrolling though Tumblr.

‘You know my horoscope says change is going to come this week,’ he said. Oliver had downloaded Astrology Zone to his phone and was persistent in trying to get Soraya into it too.

‘Hmm. Have you spoken to Charlie at all?’

Beyond his infidelity, Charlie was undeserving of Oliver anyway, white in both skin colour and personality, but it washard to say that to Oliver without sounding like a biased best friend.

‘No,’ he said, firmly moving on. ‘Your horoscope says tonight you will understand a lover a bit better.’ He had an amused expression on his face.

She tried to pay little attention to what he was saying because she was lying to him. She never lied to Oliver. She didn’t even know why she had lied. She’d had every intention of telling him Magnus was coming over, but when he said he wasn’t going to be in had reconsidered.

She didn’t want to have to explain why she was seeing Magnus again. Oliver still thought it was a one-off date. She didn’t want to be teased for trying to have ‘kissing practice’ with the biggest player at their university, or be told that going on more than one date was dangerous.