Page 10 of Gingers Can Do Maths

As the door swings open, and I peek into the dimly lit room, I'm hit with the scent of leather, sandalwood and... marshmallow?

Hedging around the door that I push shut again with my heel, I'm met with the one face I thought I'd never see again.

Han.

My Han.

He’s standing behind the desk, organising a stack of materials. He's tall, well above the one hundred and fifty-eight centimetres we used to be. Well, that I still am. He’s no less than one hundred and ninety-seven now, and even through his blazer, I can tell his limbs aren’t wiry anymore to the point of being scarily thin and bent at odd angles. His cheeks have hollowed, losing any remainder of baby fat and his jaw’s broader, sharper. His beautiful hair is still the same shade of orange with bits of pale yellow. It’s longer on top now though with a shorter undercut than I remember. And his eyes are still the loveliest shade of teal as he stares at me.

No, through me, as his eyes bore holes into my skull.

I swallow.

Han.

He’d changed his number. And he was never on social media to begin with.

That summer, I'd given him two weeks of space before I'd timidly gone around to his home, which was then vacant. Apparently, his parents had sold it. It was always in their plans to travel once Han was in boarding school at Ennox.

But...

Han isn't at Ennox.

He's at Bradley, dressed in a Bradley uniform.

All this time, he was just under an hour away.

“Hanny?” The nickname slips out before I can stop it. I know I have no right to call him that after so much time has passed.

“Rohan,” he says coldly. “Ready to start?”

Ready to start?Is that it? Is that all I get after three years?

“No,” I say honestly, eyeing the stack of books on the table, then his school crest, then his angelic face. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you go to Ennox? Was it...was it because of me?”

He snorts. “You still think you’re that special to me, Roisin?”

I flinch at my full name and it somehow restarts my brain to a stark reality.

We weren't Sin and Han anymore. We were Rohan and Roisin.

Strangers.

“N-no, no of course not. You’re right, that was stupid of me to ask,” I say, but it comes out as a whisper as my cheeks warm. “It’s none of my business.”

He merely gives me a curt little nod.

“You look so different.” Another piece of word vomit.

“You look exactly the same.”

The pit in my stomach grows tenfold.Is that a bad thing?

He used to like my style, but now that he’s all serious with Bradley's serious backdrop, maybe he finds me just as tacky and gaudy as his old crew.”

Even if he does, we've worked on ourselves,my inner voice chants.

We like ourselves.

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