The next week and a half passes with a strange sort of ease. Underneath it all, I am nervous, because with the exception of Saturday and Sunday, I spend each day with Aidan. We sit on the garden swing by the pond, and talk, comfortable silences descending upon us and being punctuated by kisses. The middle seat, usually left between us out of modesty, is soon encroached, and by the end of the week, forgotten.

This is usually when the lights are off, which is just about every other afternoon. When the power is on, we lounge in the living room; fanned by the cool draughts of air expelled by the air conditioner.

I both prefer this and don’t, because the light kisses of the garden become rather venturous in the privacy of the living room. All the same, we manage to keep our clothes on, although there is a fair bit of action going on above them.

The best of these easy days is on Monday afternoon, when we sit outside on the swing, reading books; although there is a weird moment. I have slipped my feet out of my sandals and into the grass. Aidan, lounging on his back, takes up the swing’s two other seats, his legs hanging over the arm rest and his head resting on my lap.

Subconsciously, I start running my fingers through his hair. When I look down, he’s looking back up at me thoughtfully, so I stop.

“Sorry,” I say, bringing my hand to my side. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like a cat.”

“No,” he smiles. “I liked it.”

Tentatively, I replace my fingers. He’s looking back up at me, and his eyes; reflecting the tree branches overhead, seem as clear and infinite as the sky. That’s the first time I feel something. It’s just a little flutter in my stomach, but it enough to know that I’m letting myself like him.

“I think we should go on a date,” he says. It’s not the first time he’s spoken in response to something I was only thinking about. He seems to always know what I’m thinking or feeling, even when I’m just staring off into space. It’s a little unsettling, especially given the fact that I’m still learning all his little nuances and facial expressions. I don’t think I’m all that easy to read, but I dismiss it as him just getting me, like the young-adult books discuss.

“Where would we go?” I ask.

“The Botanical gardens in Zomba?” he suggests. “You said you’ve always wanted to go there.”

I frown, not because it isn’t true, but because I couldn’t remember telling him this. “When did I say that?” I ask. His smile fades a little and something passes over his face. It’s almost like fear, I realise. Or like he’s made a mistake or something.

“Last… time…” he falters. “Last week.” He says suddenly, turning away. Before I can even open my mouth to say I’ve forgotten, he says “You’ve forgotten, Grace.”

“You’re like Edward Cullen or something,” I jest, after a moment’s pause. “It’s like you can read my mind or always know what I’m about to say.”

“Yeah.” He laughs, but it sounds a bit forced.

I watch him read for a few minutes. He turns the page, and his eyebrows meet. It’s probably at some encumbrance encountered by Professor Robert Langdon; since he’s reading Dan Brown’s Inferno.

“Aidan?” I prompt. He looks up at me. “The date? Zomba seems a little far.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he murmurs, mysteriously.

I don’t know if he’s heard my comment about Zomba, but he buries his face back between the pages of his book, and I am soon pulled back into the plot of my selected reading material.

*

On Wednesday, just before five, as is usual, I make the short journey home. This is to avoid encountering mum or dad on their way home from work, but today doesn’t seem to be my day.

There are three main entrances to the house. Two of them are around the front of the house, but are usually kept locked. One of each pair of keys went to mum and dad’s key rings respectively. Around the right side of the house is the kitchen entrance, which is usually open and so serves the second-class citizens (or those of us unlucky enough to not have keys to the front doors). Outside the kitchen courtyard is the car park, but until you walk around to that side of the house, you’ve no way of knowing who is home.

It’s only when I reach the end of the driveway and am walking up the short stone path to the courtyard entrance that I spot mum’s Nissan X-Trail.

She’s just climbing out of the car herself, so I wait.

Straightening her black peplum, she sighs. One proper glance at her face and I can tell it’s going to be one of those evenings where she yells at everybody for no particular reason. She clicks the key fob to lock the car and walks towards me, but her face breaks into a smile.

“Hello,” she sings.

“Hi,” I take her laptop bag from her.

“Where are you coming from?” she asks.

“Just taking a walk around the house.” I say, quickly. The very concept of telling my mother about Aidan seems ludicrously foolish (I’d probably be spirited away to live the rest of the days in the remotest village in Malawi, far from the reaches of the male species) so I don’ even consider it. I could’ve lied and said I was at Salome’s, but I’ve used her as a cover too many times. I could anticipate that mum would ask when Salome would repay the favour and come visit me for a change.

“Yes. You should be exercising more,” mum observes. Hearing these words, I steel myself for one of her infamous speeches on one of her favourite topics; Grace should lose weight.

“Wake up in the morning and run around the house. Run up the hill and lose weight,” she continue, stopping shy of the white gate that closes off the kitchen courtyard. I wait for more but it appears she’s only giving the condensed version today.

She blinks at me. And I worry for a moment there’s something on my person giving me up… A used condom on my head perhaps? It’s silly because I haven’t even gotten close to having sex with Aidan, but all the same, I touch my braids self-consciously.

“Hm?” mum prompts. “Are you listening?”

I feel myself visibly relaxing. “Yes.”

“You need to be responding,” she says, in Chichewa. Switching back to English she says, “Don’t just sit around this holiday and get fatter.”

She gives me a long look at this and finally walks into the kitchen courtyard, her heels knocking against the tiled floor. It’s a mismatched, neat mosaic of tiles leftover from the ones used inside the house.

I lift my eyes to the sky; golden coloured with the last of the afternoon sun. Even though it wasn’t one of the days she’d come home in a mood to yell at everyone that so much as breathed in her direction, it was clearly a night for challenging people.

“Have you been studying?” she asks.

I pause at this.

It’s an innocent question, but it brings forth a crescendo of voices in my head. Successfully repressed and ignored for the last few days, I now hear them speaking louder than ever, listing the things have to do, and the decisions I have to make.

My chest tightens.

“Have you been studying for your supplementary exams?” she repeats. She’s now almost at the kitchen door. “You need to pass those exams. Do you want to repeat?”

I don’t answer this. I picture myself saying no and walking in the house and going on with my life. But I don’t. I just stand there, staving off whatever it is that’s now pressing the air in over my head.

Having talked me down, Mum continues into the house, now firing questions at the maids, her next opponents. I know she doesn’t mean to, but she has a knack for prodding people right in their weak spots.

I hadn’t forgotten about my supplementary exams. But I also hadn’t studied. I hadn’t touched anything to do with school, or looked at it.

Deferred and supplementary examinations were held just before the new semester started. It was an awful system, because you wrote the exams, waited until the next semester to get the results, and then lived with the threat of exams hanging over your head for the rest of that semester and the holiday after it.

Just about two semesters later, you’d write papers on modules you learned about six months ago.

I don’t know why this was the procedure; but I could guess that it was because of the speed at which things were done. The lecturers could mark the papers and then they had to be handed to the Government for extra-marking or something… at its best, Malawi never seemed to be able to do things with efficiency. In some instances, things didn’t get done at all I suspected.

Either way, if you had “supps” (as they were un-affectionately known) the obvious thing to do was to study.

I had no trouble with this… until recently. Something had happened when I’d gotten home at the close of the second semester.

The break seemed to stretch before me like a train disappearing into the horizon. I’d sort of just... put it out of my mind completely. I’d get around to dealing with it eventually... but for now it was simply referred to as the thing that must not be thought about until absolutely necessary. “The Thing” for short.

Studying social science was something my mum had said I would do and I was doing it. It was a path that lead eventually to a law career. But it didn’t seem to be working out for me. And if I wasn’t doing what my parents wanted me to do, I didn’t know what I’d do. I could think for myself, but this seemed above me somehow.

(Perhaps it had gone to the ancestors?)

I carried these thoughts around all day, drowning them with thoughts of Aidan. Or Will or literally anything that was loud and distracting enough. I didn’t study because I didn’t feel I was ready to. I’d study (eventually) and write the exams and do what was expected of me.

*

That night, “The Thing” seemed particularly intent on being thought about. It felt like a giant lump in my shoe. Or a boulder under my mattress that I was intent on ignoring, despite my back being forced into an umbrella shape.

The constricting feeling in my chest returns, and trying to ease it, I think about Aidan instead. Briefly, the weird behaviour following my Edward Cullen remark comes to mind, but I don’t quite know what to make of it if anything, so I push it away.

It’s stiflingly hot, even with my fan whirring away heroically on full power. I kick the lilac bed sheet away like it’s to blame for the heat wave and pick up my phone.

It’s almost two A.M now.

There’s a notification about a goodnight text from Will. With a stab of guilt (not as much as I should feel though I think) I swipe right on the notification screen to ignore it. I open WhatsApp from my home screen instead and click on Aidan’s chat. I type something daring.

I think I want to sleep over tomorrow.

The cursor blinks at me expectantly, but I don’t hit send just yet.

I count to three.

I think it over.

I count to ten.

I hit send.