He caught her staring: at the fall of his dark hair, at the dimpled line in his chin where her little finger fitted, at his dark eyes and the flame dancing inside them from her mum’s new Autumn Spice candle. His eyes were always bright somehow, dazzling, like they were lit from within. Ravi Singh was the opposite of dead-eyed. The antidote. Pip needed to remind herself of that sometimes. So she watched him, took him all in, left none of him behind.
‘Oi, perve,’ Ravi grinned across the sofa. ‘What are you staring at?’
‘Nothing.’ She shrugged, not looking away.
‘What does perve actually mean?’ Josh’s small voice chirped up from the rug, where he was assembling some unidentifiable shape out of Lego. ‘Someone called me that on Fortnite. Is it worse than, you know, the F–word?’
Pip snorted, watching Ravi’s face unroll into panic, his lips pursed, eyebrows disappearing beneath his hair. He checked over his shoulder towards the kitchen door, where Pip’s parents were clattering about, clearing up the dinner she and Ravi had made.
‘Um, no, it’s not that bad,’ he said as casually as he could. ‘Maybe don’t say it though, yeah? Especially not in front of your mum.’
‘But what do perves do?’ Josh stared up at Ravi, and for a fleeting moment, Pip wondered whether Josh knew exactly what he was doing, enjoying watching Ravi squirm on the spot.
‘They, um…’ Ravi broke off. ‘They watch people, in a creepy way.’
‘Oh.’ Josh nodded, seeming to accept the explanation. ‘Like the guy that’s been watching our house?’
‘Yes, wait… no,’ said Ravi. ‘There isn’t a perve watching your house.’ He glanced to Pip for help.
‘Can’t help you,’ Pip whispered back with a smirk. ‘Dug your own grave.’
‘Thanks, Pippus Maximus.’
‘Yeah, can we actually retire that new nickname?’ she said, launching a cushion at him. ‘Not a fan. Can we go back to just Sarge? I like Sarge.’
‘I call her Hippo Pippo.’ Josh again. ‘She also hates that one.’
‘But it suits you so well,’ Ravi said, prodding her in the ribs with his toes. ‘You are the maximum amount of Pipness that any Pip could be. The Ultra-Pip. I’m going to introduce you to my family this weekend as Pippus Maximus.’
She rolled her eyes and jabbed him back with her toe, in a place that made him squeal.
‘Pip’s already met your family loads of times.’ Josh looked up, confused. He seemed to be going through a new pre-eleven stage, where he had to insert himself into every single conversation going on in the house. Even had an opinion on tampons yesterday.
‘Ah, this is the extended family, Josh. Much more scary. Cousins and even, dare I say it, the aunties,’ he said dramatically, haunting the word with his waggling fingers.
‘That’s OK,’ Pip said. ‘I’m well prepared. Just got to read over my spreadsheet a couple more times and I’ll be fine.’
‘And also it’s… wait,’ Ravi stalled, eyebrows eclipsing his eyes. ‘What did you just say? Did you just say spreadsheet?’
‘Y-yeah,’ she shifted, cheeks growing warm. She hadn’t intended to tell him about that. Ravi’s favourite hobby in the whole world was winding her up, she didn’t need to give him any more ammunition. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘No, it’s not. What spreadsheet?’ He sat up straight. If his smile were any wider it might actually split his face.
‘Nothing.’ She crossed her arms.
He darted forward before she could defend herself, got her right in the place she was most ticklish: where her neck met her shoulder.
‘Ow, stop,’ Pip laughed; she couldn’t help it. ‘Ravi, stop. I have a headache.’
‘Tell me about the spreadsheet, then,’ he said, refusing to relent.
‘Fine,’ she choked breathlessly, and finally Ravi stopped. ‘It’s… I’ve just been making a spreadsheet, to keep a record of the things you’ve told me about your family. Just little details, so I remember. And so when I meet them, they might, you know, like me.’ She refused to look at his face, knowing what expression would await her there.
‘Details like what?’ he said, voice brimming with hardly contained amusement.
‘Things like, um… oh, your auntie Priya – who is your mum’s younger sister – she also really likes true crime documentaries, so it would be good to talk to her about those. And your cousin Deeva, she’s really into running and fitness, if I’m remembering right.’ She hugged her knees. ‘Oh, and your auntie Zara won’t like me no matter what I try, so not to get too disappointed by that.’
‘It’s true,’ Ravi laughed. ‘She hates everybody.’
‘I know, you said.’
He studied her for a lingering moment, the laugh playing silently across his face. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been secretly taking notes.’ And in one fluid movement, Ravi stood up, scooped his arms under her and lifted her up. He swung her about while she protested, saying, ‘Under that big, tough exterior we’ve got ourselves a cute little weirdo over here.’
‘Pip’s not cute.’ Josh’s necessary input.
Ravi let her go, delivering her back to the sofa. ‘Right,’ he said with an upward stretch. ‘I should head off. Not everyone has to get up at disgusting o’clock tomorrow morning for their legal apprenticeship. But my girlfriend’s probably going to need a good lawyer one day, so…’ He winked at her. The very same thing he’d said after she told him how the mediation meeting went.
It was still his first week at the apprenticeship, and Pip could already tell he loved it, despite his protestations about the early wake-up. For his first day, she’d given him a T-shirt that said: Lawyer Loading...
‘Right, goodbye, Joshua,’ he said, nudging him with his foot. ‘My favourite human being.’
‘Really?’ Josh beamed up at him. ‘What’s Pip, then?’
‘Ah, she’s a close second,’ Ravi said, returning to her. He kissed her on the forehead, his breath in her hair, and – when Josh wasn’t looking – moved down to press his lips against hers.
‘I heard that,’ Josh said anyway.
‘I’ll just go say bye to your mum and dad,’ Ravi said. But then he paused and pivoted, came back to whisper in Pip’s ear, ‘And let your mother know that, unfortunately, you are the reason your ten-year-old brother now mistakenly thinks a pervert is watching your house, nothing to do with me.’
Pip squeezed Ravi’s elbow, one of their secret I love yous, laughing to herself as he walked away.
The smile stayed a little longer this time, after Ravi was gone. It did. But when Pip walked upstairs, standing alone in her bedroom, she realized it had already left her without saying its goodbyes. She never knew how to bring it back.
The headache was starting to pinch at her temples now, as her eyes focused beyond the window at the thickening darkness outside. The clouds amassing into one dark, lurking shape. Night-time. Pip checked the time on her phone; it had just gone nine. Wouldn’t be long now until everyone was in bed, lost to sleep. Everyone but her. The lone pair of eyes in a sleeping town, begging the night to pass on by.
She’d promised herself no more. Last time was the last time. She’d repeated it in her head like a mantra. But even as she tried to tell herself that now, even as she balled her fists against her temples to out-hurt the pain, she knew it was hopeless, that she would lose. She always lost. And she was tired, so tired, of fighting it.
Pip crossed to her door and gently closed it, in case anyone walked by. Her family could never know. And not Ravi. Especially not Ravi.
At her desk, she placed her iPhone on top, between her notebook and her bulky black headphones. She opened the drawer, the second one down on the right, and began to pull out the contents: the pot of pins, her rewound red string, an old pair of white earphones, a glue stick.
She removed the pad of A4 paper and reached the bottom of the drawer – the false bottom she’d made out of white cardboard. She dug her fingertips in at one side and prised it up.
There, hidden below, were the burner phones. All six of them, arranged in a neat line. Six pre-paid phones bought with cash, each from a different shop, a cap pulled low over Pip’s face as she’d handed over the money.
The phones stared blankly up at her.
Just one more time, and then she was done. She promised.
Pip reached in and took out the one on the left, an old grey Nokia. She held the power button down to turn it on, her fingers shaking with the pressure. There was a familiar sound hiding in the beat of her heart. The phone lit up with a greenish backlight, welcoming her back. In the simple menu, Pip clicked on to her messages, to the only contact saved in this phone. In any of them.
Her thumbs worked against the buttons, clicking number 1 three times to get to C.
Can I come over now? she wrote. She pressed send with one last promise to herself: this was the very last time.
She waited, watching the empty screen below her message. She willed the response to appear, concentrated only on that, not on the growing sound inside her chest. But now that she’d thought about it, she couldn’t unthink it, couldn’t unhear it. She held her breath and willed even harder.
It worked.
Yes, he replied.
