Memories Hidden, Moments Unspoken

Maliyha cannot focus.  The late August humidity is fogging up her thoughts.  The only things she can think about are how her aircon doesn’t work in her dodgy car and how hard her breaths are coming out, her tank-top sweat-soaked and sticking to her chest uncomfortably.  She wishes that she had not called Addie in the dead of night. She wishes she could be sweat-soaking her bed sheets rather than the worn, cracked faux leather of her car seat, but here she is. The quiet is unnerving, yet she feels like she can hear the heat moving around, inserting itself in the beats of silence between the chirps of crickets, the buzzing and whirring of cicadas, the croaks of frogs.  

She unlocks her phone, and the sight of no new messages makes her want to cry.  She clenches her teeth against the imposing tears that bring even more unnecessary heat to her already aching eyes.  Addie said that she would be down in ten minutes-- that was twenty minutes ago. She knows that she should not be cross, that it takes proper time and technique to sneak out of Addie’s house; her father is strict, and the stairs and hallways creak.  She is about to ring Addie, consequences be damned, when she hears the delicate tap of a single knuckle on her passenger-side door. It opens instantly after that, shuts loud enough that it has her speeding out of the provincial village. All old, run-down little tudors, identical, side-by-side, unchanging.  All sporting the same weathered and fading shackles. Even with the windows down and the car flying on the road, all it does is push more hot air onto her face, through her unkempt curly hair. There are no stop lights or signs around the area. She has to drive almost twenty minutes out to come across a single stop light.  

It is clear that Addie is not going to start the conversation.  After a few more minutes of aimlessly mucking about, Maliyha turns onto a stretch of road filled with sheep and goat herders along its sides.  It’s windy, but she knows it like the back of her hand. She needs to do something simple to channel her anxiety into, so she can focus on the words she needs to form.

Her eyes slide to Addie: pale, almost translucent skin that burns when it’s partly cloudy, freckles and moles dusting her skin like a painter flicked their brush haphazardly over an immaculate canvas, but made it perfectly imperfect.  Dark auburn hair that reminds her of Karen Gillan, hair that she travels over an hour for to get dyed. Thin eyelashes, sparse eyebrows that she draws over with pencils and thickens with pomade. Hazel eyes. Small breasts, a strong stomach, even stronger arms and legs.  Somehow soft and smooth hands, clean nails, even after all of the intense farm work she does. Crooked front teeth. Small but full, enticing lips.

She looks away quickly.

“What?” Addie mumbles.  She moved here from the Berkshire-London area when Maliyha was twelve and she was ten.  It’s been six years, so her Southern accent has watered down some, but when she says certain words like “what” and “grass” Maliyha still hears the distinct “wot” and “gr-AHS.”  Every time, it makes her laugh; right now is no exception.  “What? Wot‽”  Addie shrieks incredulously.  “Mate. Wot you goin’ on abou’?”  Okay, now she is just being ridiculous.  

Maliyha wipes at her eyes.  “Nothing, nothing. You’re just being stupid.”  Stupidly pretty, she thinks.  Like that, the tension melts away, and all that is left is serenity.  A calm night shared between two close people. “Do you remember our holiday to the Isle of Man to visit your grandparents?”  Maliyha blurts. Addie’s smile falls off her face like melted butter on a slice of bread. The tension snaps back at them, recoils and smacks Maliyha in the face harder than the heat has been all night.  Tense seconds tick by and string together to form rigid, taut minutes. The silence becomes overwhelming. Maliyha opens her mouth to say another stupid thing when Addie saves her again.  

“Of course I remember.”  The and I’ll never forget it goes unsaid.

❈ ❈ ❈

In the village, no one has much money to go around.  You work to earn your pay, and when your pay is not enough, you live off the land.  So when Addie casually asked Maliyha one bleak, freezing January evening in the fields if she would like to spend a few weeks on holiday with her on the Isle of Man, Maliyha had been gobsmacked, to say the least.  The only trip Maliyha had taken unrelated to farming was when her parents took her and her brothers and sisters to India for a month during the summer holiday Maliyha was going into Year 6.  

In the months that followed up to Easter break, the girls’ planned day and night all of the things they were going to do once they arrived.  Addie also told her about the small village her grandma lived in. You can walk the port top to bottom in twenty minutes. There’s Chinese takeaway, a pharmacy, post office, a card store, a small library.  There is an elderly piano teacher a few houses down from Addie’s grandma, and the two are great friends. No matter where you are on the island, there is almost always a rocky beach within walking distance.  The only Starbucks on the island is located in the capital, Douglas, thirty minutes away. One Dominoes two cinemas, all still in the capital. A little co-op grocery is a three-minute walk away.

The air on the April morning they left their little farm village was grouchy.  When Maliyha and Addie were in the fields, the sun never touched the cool ground.  The sky stayed a dismal and bleak grey, the very stereotype of English weather. The chill that stayed, though, was a bit uncommon for early April.  Usually, by noon, they could change out of their rugged and worn jeans, trade their coats and hoodies for lighter shirts. However, that morning they found themselves wrapping scarves around their necks and pulling on wool hats and mittens.  The only time Maliyha glimpsed the ocean was on the flight to and from India, so when she found out that they were taking the ferry to the Isle, she was ecstatic.

It rained on and off on the four hour ferry ride there, but eventually the skies cleared up and the sun warmed their faces.  Maliyha was bouncing in her seat by the time everyone was allowed to go out on the deck. The site was beautiful. Muted, but beautiful.  Sunrays were peaking through gaps in the large, puffy clouds, making certain parts of the sea look a calm blue rather than a stormy grey. Maliyha looked to her right to see Addie’s teeth chattering away.  She laughed loudly and snorted. That made Addie’s huff turn into a smile as well. She looked away, but a small smile still graced her lips. Maliyha desperately wanted to kiss her. It’d taste like honey.  

As Maliyha pushed herself off of the railing, she lost her balance and fell onto Addie.  She heard Addie gasp from the impact and then they both lost it. Maliyha tried to right herself, but Addie grabbed onto her arms.  Unsure of what to do, Maliyha wrapped her arms around Addie’s shoulders. She did not breathe. When she felt Addie lean back into the embrace, lean back into her, she exhaled and buried herself into the space between Addie’s neck and shoulder to hide her blush.  How long they remained like that, watching the sea in the warmth and comfort of each other, they cannot remember.