Page 34 of People Change

‘I like Salma.’

‘She said you were giving her bitchy looks at Millie’s,’ Kian says, though he is smiling, while she is aghast.

‘I definitely wasn’t. It’s just my face.’ He does not look convinced. ‘I have resting bitch face. You know this.’

‘I mean, I did tell her that.’

‘Good. And why aren’t you annoyed about Rob? You’re so chill about it all the time. I don’t get it.’

‘I love how you said we can’t talk about school any more, and yet here we are again.’

‘I created the rule, I can break it,’ she retorts.

He sighs. ‘Well, I’mnotchill about it, Shirin. I fucking hate him.’ He lets out a short, sombre laugh. ‘You know, a few years ago after a night out in Manchester I saw his face on a poster. Then I turned the corner and there were at least twenty of them, all in a row, advertising one of his shite shows. I ripped them off, one by one. I’m pissed off too, but sadly terrible people will continue to be successful and we have to make our peace with it.’

Shirin’s phone buzzes and she sees it is her dad. She rejects the call. He rings again, this time requesting to FaceTime. He only calls when he wants something. When he wants a chat about his mental health. Or how he misses her mum. Or when he wants her to order something for him online. There is something building within her. It happens often, like she is a glass and each issue in her life fills her up, and now she is at risk of overflowing. Though she’s not sure why she feels this way. She knows she needs to get over seeing Rob everywhere. But it’s not just that – it’s that nothing about life in her twenties is how she imagined it would be. She is unhappy and does not know how to make herself happy. All she does is make herself feel worse.

‘It’s my dad,’ she explains.

‘He’s still being useless?’ Kian says, even though she hasn’t told him about her dad recently. He remembers from whenthey were younger and she would complain about her parents. Though Shirin and Kian’s dynamic has changed now. When she was younger she had so much energy, would give him advice with such confidence, and now it is like the life in her has gone.

‘Nothing new,’ she says, though she feels her eyes tearing up; even as she tries to laugh it off, it comes out shaky and strange.

Kian is looking down at her intently, trying to catch her eye. ‘Do you speak to your mum much?’

She doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to cry. She doesn’t want to be tipped over the edge, though she hasn’t realised until now that the topic of her family has the ability to do so. Instead of replying she looks up at him, pushes her lips downwards in awhat do you think?expression.

Her dad tries to call her again, and she mutters something likefuck off, before throwing her phone across the room. The outburst is unexpected, but she is shaking and has the urge to scream and break something.

Kian’s arms are around her now, tight and warm. Her face is pressed against his chest and she is paralysed, stock-still. His jumper is scratchy against her face, but she does not move. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispers, and her face is wet. She is crying and she isn’t sure when or how that happened. ‘You don’t need to be strong all the time,’ he says, still holding her. ‘Let it out.’

But Shirin’s thinking, That’s the whole problem. She is not strong enough. She is not enough.

MSN

Then

It began with an MSN message.

Shirin had been skiving off the occasional class with Kian for a month now. Sometimes they would talk about deep things, like their family, and sometimes they wouldn’t say much at all. They listened to songs on their phones, with the volume as high as they could get it, and they would sit either in the fields near school or in the woods by Kian’s house. One time Kian had brought a joint with him, which after much deliberation they’d smoked. They hadn’t felt any effects for ages and Kian had told her to wait, that it was meant to take time to kick in. After an hour Shirin had asked him where he’d got it from, and he’d said he’d found it in his brother’s drawer, underneath some textbooks. It was probably years old, off by now, she’d told him, half scolding, half laughing. He’d been embarrassed, his cheeks pink at the top, and that had made it harder not to properly belly-laugh.

It was a drizzly autumn evening when Rob Grayson messaged her. She did a double-take when his name popped up on her screen, convinced it must be a mistake. While Rob was not overt in his harassing of Shirin, unlike Jordan, hewas not a measly bystander like Tom. He laughed at Jordan’s insults and egged him on. He was known around the school for being a joker, so while Jordan wasn’t particularly well liked, Rob was.

At the start of the year, in German, Jordan and Rob had both sniggered loudly, over at the table next to her. She’d thought she was being irrational, big-headed even, to think whatever they were laughing at was related to her. That was until she’d heard them say ‘hairy’ and had seen they were pointing to her fingers. They were slight, fine hairs, though dark. It grew quickly, the hair dark and thick against her light skin – perhaps the worst combination for a self-conscious hairy person. Following the incident she’d shaved the hair off using one of her dad’s multipack razors. It had grown back days later into stubborn stubble, much worse than before.

Rob_93: hey – do you know if we have any german homework?

She replied that they did and told him they needed to revise for a test next week, expecting the conversation to end swiftly there.

Rob_93: what you doing?

Shirin_x_x: nothing

Shirin_x_x: why?

Rob_93: I feel bad about what Jordan said to you today. It was out of order.

Jordan had shouted ‘paki’ at her when she’d walked past him to go to her class. There had been crowds of students in the corridor, so she hadn’t seen him say it, but she knew his voice. It obviously hadn’t been the first time, though she’d still had a little cry on the walk home from school when she was alone. She had almost forgotten about it, though there had been an emptiness inside her for the rest of the evening, like she was now hollow. It was often like that after someone had called her a name. She wanted to brush it off, so she pretended to do so, but when she was alone, inadequacy engulfed her. She felt so painfully like she wasn’t worth anything, unlike her friends; unlike Phoebe, whom everyone liked and who didn’t have hairy fingers that people laughed at.