Page 5 of People Change

She weakly acknowledges what he’s said, murmuring something like, ‘Yeah, it is weird.’

‘I was sorry to hear about your parents, by the way,’ he says. There is a slight frown on his face, and his eyebrows draw together once more, in concern or pity. He is so bold, she thinks, to bypass small talk and reach into her, bringing out all the things she would rather not talk about, things she doesn’t even speak about with Hana, not really.

‘It’s a good thing, you don’t have to say you’re sorry.’ Their separation was a long time coming. Her parents always fought – proper shouting matches and, growing up, she would put her headphones in, crank the volume as loud as it would go and stay in her bedroom until it was over. Often, then, she would wish they had left her with her grandparents in Tehran. She wonders if her life would have been simpler, if they had. Maybe she would have felt what it was like to be loved, rather than feeling like a burden her parents were obliged to love.

She wants to ask Kian about his family, about his brother and how he’s doing now, but she hasn’t the words to broach this subject after so long. She is not as bold as he is.

There is silence, in which they can only hear their breaths. They look at each other and it is like they are speaking without words. She is thinking she wants to kiss him, and she knows he is thinking he would like to kiss her. Like magnets, they move closer unthinkingly and they are soon inches from each other. She can feel his warm breath against her face now. A long-forgotten flutter in her stomach returning. It is so long forgotten that she wants to run away from it, to prevent any buried feelings from the past rising to the surface. Her eyes move from his hazel eyes to his full lips, which are parted.

‘Maybe he’s in here,’ a posh voice outside says.

‘Imagine if he’s in there, painting at his own party,’ another male voice says.

There is laughter.

It is the saving grace she didn’t know she needed until it arrived. She moves away and stands up, smoothing her dress down. ‘I best be going anyway,’ she says quickly, slinging her bag onto her back.

He looks down for a moment, then up again, and there is something in his eyes she cannot quite describe but knows very well. It reminds her of the old Kian, the Kian from 2008 who got into so much trouble for her and who she barely even thanked.

‘Right, of course. It was nice to see you, Shirin. Take care.’

‘Bye, Kian.’

A Sentence

Then

Kian Rahimi was fifteen years old when he learnt how one moment can change a person’s life for ever.

For the longest time he had wanted nothing more than to be like his older brother, Mehdi. He had always looked up to him. Two years his senior, Mehdi was brave in a way Kian never could be. He stood up for what he believed in, had the kind of charisma that is rare – so much so that everyone who knew him wanted to be close to him, so that Mehdi could rub some of his charm onto them and maybe they’d feel lighter, less restricted by their own self-doubt.

It was on the ride home from court, their dad silent in the driver’s seat, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white, their mum crying silent tears as she looked out of the window, that Kian realised he didn’t want to be like Mehdi any more. That much confidence – such an abundance of it, at such a young age, as a brown boy in a white city – meant trouble.

He did not want to go to prison, like his brother.

It started small. Sneaking out of the house in the early hours, taking Mum’s car (never Dad’s) even though he was underage, or smoking weed at the back of school at lunch.It wasn’t any of these things that got him sent away. Comparatively they were minor, though they added up. Soon the police knew Mehdi Rahimi, he was a recognised name, a notorious troublemaker. No one ever askedwhyhe wanted to make trouble though. Whyanyonewould want to make trouble.

People are not born inherently bad or rebellious. It comes from somewhere. Kian still wonders, sometimes, whether he could have had the power to stop what happened to Mehdi all those years ago.

Back then, they lived in Kirk Ella, on the wealthier side of Hull, East Yorkshire. Their driveway could fit four cars if they wanted. Their house was detached, three-storey. They were new-money, that much was clear to everyone. They stood out on their street. His dad’s impractical convertible sat out front, barely used. It was like his dad forgot they lived in England, in the North, and that the good weather only lasted four months of the year if they were lucky. ‘This country,’ his parents would begin, ‘it’s nothing like back home. Always rain, rain, rain.’ Kian often wanted to retort,Well, why did you move us here?But he never did.

Every Sunday when he played footie with his friends it would pour down and they would play anyway, their feet sliding against the mud. He longed for the sun on his face, felt his mood perceptively lift when it did. He wondered if this longing, this need for sun, was in his blood, and whether his body knew he wasn’t from England, not really, not biologically. That Iran, with its scorching summers, was the climate thathis physiology was accustomed to – even though he had only been there a handful of times and was not fluent in his own language.

His dad pulled into their drive that day and they got out of the car. Betty, their opposite neighbour, gave them a sad nod as they returned as a three, and not a four.

His mum, who was often so chatty, always luring her sons into the living room to watch TV and spend quality time with her, said nothing the whole car journey. She went directly to her bedroom and shut the door with a barely audible click.

‘I’m going for a drive,’ his dad said, picking up the key to his convertible from the side table by the door.

‘Now?’ Kian said. ‘Mum’s upset.’

His dad looked at him, sharp-eyed, raising a furry eyebrow. ‘We’re all upset.’

‘Can I come?’ As he said the words he knew they were wrong. But he didn’t want to be alone in this big house, not when Mehdi wasn’t in it and his mum was upset.

His dad shook his head and left. He didn’t even bother to shut the front door properly; it was left ajar.

Two years in prison.