Page 42 of Spring Awakening

“Nah,” she replies. “That’s just your voice. Besides, everyone is a dick sometimes.”

He smiles. “You’ve never been one.” He moves the trolley, and she follows after him as she tries to think of a time she was a dick, and for whatever was on her list on the fridge.

“I have,” she says. “You should see the review I left for that jumper I bought that fell apart in the wash. Sometimes it’srequired. It doesn’t make you a terrible person for slipping up when it’s not.”

Zach hums. “Did you get Marmite?”

“Marmite!” she almost yells. “That was on my list!”

Zach laughs. “Yeah, and like eight other things, Mal.”

She groans. “I can’t remember them.” It’s not a big deal. She’ll pop out tomorrow if she needs to.

“I have them,” he replies, pulling out his paper list. So efficient. “Strawberries, tampons—and you put in brackets purple—milkshake powder, bananas, rocket, toothpaste, something sweet.” He looks at her triumphantly, and she thinks friendship like this is what she wants. Someone who notes down her scrawled list on the fridge. Someone who would ask a member of staff for tampons (purple). Someone who thinks about her when she’s not around. Someone who asks her if she wants anything from the shop even though he had her list written down. Someone that notices she gets headaches because she’s a child who can’t drink bad tea. Someone that notices her.

“I’ve never seen you drink a milkshake.”

“I don’t. I’m going to make smoothies this week for breakfast because I always hear you making them and I want them, but I don’t think I’d like it with water.”

“I don’t put water in mine,” he replies. “Why didn’t you say? I can make double; I’ll leave the supplements out for you. I didn’t know the blender woke you up.”

“I’m usually awake anyway.”

He frowns. “Then why don’t I see you until you get home from work?”

Mali chews on her lip as they walk to get all the things she forgot right at the front of the store. “Yeah, well, I… I like to lie in.”

“Liar.”

Mali looks up at him with a frown, and he’s smirking at her like she got a quiz question wrong, even though she did not. “Why am I a liar?”

“At the weekend, you’re up at the crack of dawn. Why don’t you get up during the week?”

She sighs. If she tells him the truth, will he feel awkward? If she lies, will he know?

“I’m just getting used to the turn of the season,” she says. It’s half-true, but she thinks Zach might have had enough things to worry about for one day, let alone his roommate who doesn’t leave her room in the mornings because she thinks he’ll avoid her.

Zach hums. “Okay. Well, mornings are boring without you. So, get used to it quick.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mali checks the cutleryis sparkling before placing it on the dining table, as if she’s expecting the king or something. The low murmur of the speaker does nothing to ease the nerves in her stomach. She’s never met a friend’s parent like this before, and she’s never had a friend like Zach. She wants it to go well. Zach is also nervous, and Mali can’t tell if it’s because he’s cooking, because he’s not going to pick his mum up, or that she’s coming here at all. So, it’s sort of more important than the king coming.

The dining table has rarely been used. It’s usually a place to store laundry baskets and things she should take upstairs but can’t be bothered to. Now, she’s glad she bought it from a charity shop. Her dad helped her sand and stain it, and she never wants to do either of those jobs again, but it’s signed underneath by her and him. That’s all that counts.

Zach took his jumper off to fan the smoke alarm—A good sear requires smoke, Mali—and now he’s just in a white vest, so obviously, Mali can’t look at him. She should scoff because vests are for toddlers and old men, but she can’t look in his directionlest she licks him, so he wouldn’t be able to hear it anyway. Earlier, Zach kept letting her taste the sauce, but the last time some got on her cheek, and he brushed it off with the pad of his finger, then Mali realised she couldn’t be near him anymore.

Mali has always been so sure that she’s not a sexual person. She’s had sex before (with one guy and one girl, at different times) and it was a fun, but she was in relationships with them. She’s not used to feeling raw sexual desire without the relationship. But every time she sees Zach, she’s three seconds away from asking him to bend her over. In fact, the only reason she hasn’t is because he would hate it. Zach’s taken enough girls home that she’d know if he wanted to take her upstairs.

Mali’s never been sure of what she feels for Zach. Friendship, she thinks, is something she wants with him. That and she finds him outrageously attractive. If she was a causal sex kind of girl, she would have asked him to fuck her ages ago. She’s not. She knows it would be a mistake to ask her new roommate to be not-quite-friends with benefits. She knows that, but the thought plagues her mind anyway.

She’s trying not to push it. The friendship part. So, she doesn’t ask him if he wants to watch a film with her, or if he wants to eat lunch at the same time. One: she might actually try to kiss him, and two: she knows if she asks, he’ll say no. Even with the smiles at the shop, it’s not subtle. The way he doesn’t want to sit with her in the evenings. The way he didn’t hug her back. The way he avoids looking at her now. So, she’ll be his sort-of friend, and she’ll ignore the way she wants him to fuck her through her mattress.

“I’m going to swap the washing over,” she says, when the table is laid. “Do you want a drink?” It feels weird to ask him questions when she has her back to him, but she knows she’ll get lost in the tightness of his abs if she turns around.

“Lemonade and orange juice, please, Mal. Mum will have the same.”

Mali switches the washing over and wonders if she could stay in here, in the dark, and fold it while she waits for his mum to turn up. Devon is bringing her, apparently. She hopes he does, because Zach has been looking at his phone every few minutes to check where she is. She also hopes Devon doesn’t come in. What if he tries to stay? Ugh. At least if she’s only acquaintances with Zach, she doesn’t need to know his entire family. She’s not even mad at Devon for being in her house anymore, but he actively makes Zach’s life harder, andthatshe’s allowed to not like him for.

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