But then Maya bumps right into me, almost sending me stumbling off my chair. Her phone falls to the ground with a loud clatter.
‘Oh my God, I am so,sosorry,’ Maya starts, even as she follows up her apology with a string of curses under her breath as she ducks for her phone on the ground. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going and—’
It’s only then that her eyes seem to land on me and there’s a flicker of recognition in her dark brown eyes.
‘Dina.’ Her voice is barely a whisper as she says my name. It should fill me with rage, how casually she says it. Instead, it sends a jolt of electricity through me. Because nobody else says my name quite likethat.
Thankfully, before I lose all my sense of self, Jen comes to my rescue.
‘Maya!’ she exclaims, a smile breaking out on her face.
I look down at my coffee, trying to get my heartbeat under control.
‘Jen … hi.’ Maya sounds strained, and when I glance up, I notice that Jen has leapt up from her chair to wrap Maya in a hug.
‘I’d heard that you were back. How have you been?’
‘Yeah, good,’ Maya says. She glances at me, and I look away once more. At the walls of the cafe, at my coffee mug, at the blue-and-white tiled floor. Anywhere but at Maya. ‘How are you? What have you been up to?’
‘I’m doing good, I’ve been bouncing around between a few things,’ Jen says. ‘Now I’m actually running a youth football club for the council.’ Jen turns to me, and I can sense her next line coming. The assistant coach position that we’re discussing. With Maya here now, maybe I’m not Jen’s only option anymore. Unlike me, Maya was a professional football player. And even if coaching a council team is probably beneath her after all the flash and pomp of her career, what if Jen offered it to her? The thought makes my stomach sink.
‘Dina and I were actually just—’ Jen begins, but I cut in before she can finish.
‘Talking about the team. I’m the assistant coach. Just started.’ I can’t really avoid looking at Maya anymore. My eyes flicker up, meeting hers. I try to keep my expressionunchanged, but the sight of her makes my stomach lurch and my mouth dry up. I can’t figure out what emotion I’m even feeling – anger, guilt, or the resurfacing of old feelings that definitely shouldnotbe resurfacing? I’m not sure which one would be the worst.
It’s been nine years since I saw Maya in the flesh, but that doesn’t mean I haven’tseenher. As much as I’ve tried to avoid any news about her since she left, I’ve stumbled across photos of her in newspapers and magazines, glanced at her interviews, and even caught glimpses of her matches. She always looks different in them. Kind of fake, filtered and airbrushed. Here, she looks more like the Maya that I used to know, the one that I have missed all these years. Her black hair has only grown longer over the years, and now it looks slightly dishevelled. She’s wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans, like she’s just thrown it together, but the clothes cling to her in just the right way.
‘Oh, cool,’ Maya says. Her eyes snap back to Jen.
Jen looks between the two of us and I don’t know if she can read something in the air between us. I don’t know how she would when I don’t even know what it is. I want to be angry at Maya, want to hate her with every fibre of my being, but the sight of her has made me thaw a little. Made all our memories of the past come rushing back.
‘I know you’ve just returned from your whirlwind football career. The football clubs here must be going crazy for you,’ Jen says.
Maya smiles, but even I can tell that it feels a bit forced. There’s something different about her – there’s less of that haughty fierceness that she used to have when we were younger. It’s been replaced by a strange kind of coldness.I wonder if this is what Erica and Karl were talking about inThe Warm Up.
‘Yeah. Um …’ Maya’s eyes flicker down to her phone screen, the one that she seems to be holding in a death grip. ‘I should actually get going, leave you guys to it,’ Maya says. ‘It was … nice to see you, Jen.’ She glances at me again – only for a moment – before she’s turning around and walking out the door.
Jen turns back to me, smile still in place. ‘So, you’re taking the job?’ She raises an eyebrow as if asking what exactly that was all about. It’s not like she doesn’t have some idea about what things were like with me and Maya back in the day, but she doesn’t know how it all ended. That we haven’t spoken in almost a decade, even if I’ve thought about her more often than I want to admit.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m taking the job.’
Chapter 4
Maya
Outside the coffee shop, it takes me a minute to catch my breath. I close my eyes, and gulp in lungfuls of air. It’s only the feel of plastic against my skin that reminds me that I’m still holding onto my phone tightly, like a lifeline.
It’s ridiculous that someone I haven’t seen in nearly a decade can have that kind of an effect on me – should beallowedto have that kind of an effect on me. I feel angry at myself, angry at Dina, angry at the fact that of all the coffee shops in the world, it’s this one that I decided to stumble into.
I stand up straight, trying to shake the emotions out of me. Through the windowed door of the cafe, I can still make out Dina, though she’s almost turned away from me. She and Jen are in an animated conversation. Unlike a few minutes ago, when she refused to speak to or even look at me, she looks happy as she speaks to Jen. She waves her arms around to punctuate her words, a smile lights up her brown eyes, and there’s just a hint of pink dusting her sandy brown skin. Seeing her like this makes my stomach do familiar somersaults.
I turn away, forcing myself to stop studying her. I definitely can’t be having those thoughts. I can’t be doing this again. Especially not now.
I have been trying to get myself back on track ever since I started texting with Isabel again a few days ago. But it’s easier said than done. Between finally unpacking my suitcase and trying to venture out to old haunts once more, I’ve also been glued to my phone, reading through any and all articles about me that pop up. I know it’s a bad idea, but I also feel like I can’t look away. Like, somehow, knowing about the things people are saying is better than not knowing, even if sometimes the comments feel like a knife to the heart.
When I’d walked into the coffee shop, I’d been reading through an article titled ‘The REAL Reason for Maya Alam’s Hasty Retirement’.
Now I close out of the article quickly. There’s an irrational part of me that feels like Dina can still see me through the cafe doors, that she can somehow read the article on my phone and sense my insecurities emanating off me in waves.
