Page 21 of People Change

‘That work – and by work I mean publishing – is no different from school,’ she muses. She has been thinking about this earlier in the day.

The walls are all glass, and outside the sun has gone down, the sky a hazy pink. She is sure when she opens Twitter there will be numerous pictures of the sky, with the same captions, by different people. She looks at it briefly, uninterested, when she thinks she should be more interested. The problem is, next to Kian, she feels herself on edge – not in an unpleasant way, but like this small moment is so significant, though she doesn’t want it to show in her own body language. She never thought they’d see each other again; never thought they’d speak so casually, like no time has passed. She certainly did not think she would be telling him passing thoughts again, like she is now.

Kian pulls a face. ‘I mean, that is very concerning. What makes you say that?’

‘Well, I went to an author party last week and an author said something questionable—’

‘Questionable?’

‘Racist,’ she amends. ‘And I spoke to my manager about it and she was quite dismissive. I always thought life would be much different. But it’s like that song “High School Never Ends”.’

‘Oh God, I hated that song,’ Kian says, attempting to lighten the mood.

‘It’s a brilliant song,’ Shirin says, taking her phone out of her pocket, as though to put it on.

He puts his hand over hers, lightly, and says, ‘God, no.’ His hand on hers feels particularly intimate – perhaps because it is Kian’s hand on hers. She is unusually excited by it, her face suddenly feeling hot. She looks up to see him looking down at her, smiling, his teeth white and straight, his face decorated with slight laugh-lines now, but it is his eyes that are the same – he is the same Kian from back then, after all.

‘Okay, okay,’ she says, lightly shaking him off because this is all too much and she won’t let herself indulge in it any longer. ‘I won’t put it on.’

‘Thank you. Anyway,’ he says, arms out in exaggeration, ‘this is my space.’

It is a small area of the room, with tall white panel dividers, which give some semblance of privacy from the other artists he shares the room with. Tonight they are the only ones there. His desk looks out the window, and on both sides of it are numerous plants, mainly cactuses of various sizes in mismatched pots.

She wanders around the small space and notices some painted canvases that are stacked against the wall. When she looks up at him, she realises he is staring at her. He quickly looks away and clears his throat.

‘Can I?’ she asks, to which Kian nods.

She flicks through them. They are portraits of people, each one utilising a different colour palette. There are more of the girl she saw in the summerhouse, and something dawns on her then – something illuminating that takes her momentarily out of body.

‘Is this your girlfriend?’ she asks, not looking up at him.

She can hear a laugh; it is distant in her ears, less confident than she’s sure he wants it to be. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Just a friend.’

She turns to him and manages to smile, though she knows it does not look genuine. ‘She’s, like, naked in some of them.’ The key is to keep her tone light, she reminds herself, though that in and of itself is difficult.

He leans against his desk and crosses his arms. His biceps tense and strain against his T-shirt, so she looks down. But then she is faced with his thighs, which are pleasantly thick. So she looks away, out of the window.

‘Why? Does that bother you?’ he asks gently.

‘It doesn’t, obviously.’ When she eventually looks at him, he seems incredibly smug, which is why she says, ‘Truly, it was just a question.’

He nods. ‘Okay. I believe you.’

She continues to look through the canvases, though she doesn’t focus on any of the art. She is thinking about how to bring the conversation back to safer ground. Then she stumbles upon a portrait of Henry and lets out a sound between a tut and a laugh of derision. Henry’s eyes are big, his lopsided face magnified. Kian has given his face likeability somehow, added something extra that gives the piece warmth. If Shirin didn’t dislike her friend’s boyfriend, she might be able to appreciate it.

‘I think this is your best piece yet,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

He pushes her with his shoulder. ‘He asked for a portrait to be done of him. It was quite hard to say no, and I thought it’d be good practice.’ Kian looks like he is resisting smiling.

She continues her perusal of his space, to give herself a break from feeling so stupidly excited. She hasn’t felt this way around a man in a very long time, and it feels in many ways treacherous to have such a reaction now. She is always saying that men are disappointing, but when she says it, she realises, she never means men like Kian.

Atop his desk is a sketchbook that looks familiar. She is thinking:Surely not; and without asking, she reaches for it and flips it open. And there she sees some of his older work from the very beginning; his sketches that were scrappy but beautiful all the same. As she flicks through, she stops when she sees herself reflected on the page. Shirin at fifteen. Her fingertips lightly touch the paper. ‘You kept this?’

The familiar steps of Kian’s Converse can be heard against the linoleum floor, his nervous laugh audible, too. ‘Yeah. I keep all my sketches.’

She turns to face him. His face is pink, embarrassed, but he keeps his head up to attempt to mask this.

‘Really? All of them?’