She paused for three excruciating seconds.
‘I’ll get my hoodie.’
The crack in the wall was plastered over two weeks later, and the music no longer leaked through gaps, conversations no longer travelling without permission. They aggregated their favourite songs from that period into an ever-growing playlist that went from being untitled to, eventually, months later, being christened ‘Love Your Neighbour’ by Pyramus. Thisbe had laughed at the name. ‘Funny.’
‘What’s funny?’ Pyramus said. ‘It’s accurate. We’re neighbours. And . . . I’m in love with you.’
It was the first time either of them had said it. She said it back.
The playlist was a haphazard harmonious mash-up of who they were; ‘I Wanna Be Down’， ‘Can U Handle It?’ Conversations happened with nothing between them, no walls, no pretence, punctuated with laughter, melodies swirling and smoothing over them, perfuming their words with extra sweetness. Pyramus’s hands were a conduit of affection and desire, and when they were outside, he would reach out for her hand to curl confidently around his. Her body unfurled around him, she felt at ease, loved on. He massaged her belly, kissed the dimples in her thighs.
The first time they had an argument, Pyramus had walked out. He’d snapped at her while they were discussing his father, agitated by how suddenly he felt able to open up to her, by his own vulnerability. Thisbe had been sure it was the end; she knew what he was like with commitment, knew he ran scared when things got deep. She knew he locked himself into himself so securely that girls had to bang against his door. She refused to be that girl. Maybe he was more comfortable with a wall between him and love. Thisbe was not. So this was it. Thisbe had logged on to her music streaming account to cry to a soundtrack. She saw that a new addition had been made to their playlist: Jodeci, ‘My Heart Belongs To U’。
A few minutes later, Pyramus knocked on her door.
‘I am an idiot.’
‘You are.’
They talked it out, kissed it out. She smirked against his lips and asked him to do a sing-along serenade if he was really about it. She said: ‘I’m talking old school R&B, fists clenched, begging on your knees in the rain, babe. I want a performance.’ Pyramus grumbled into her neck and pretended to be embarrassed for three seconds before he leapt off the bed, shirtless, using a bottle of deodorant as a mic. Their playlist filled their room, filled their ears, filled their hearts.
Thisbe laughed, curved her hands around her mouth, cheering from her front-row seat on the bed.
‘Turn it up!’ she yelled.
New Tales
Tiara
Tiara’s Top Tips
When you bump into an ex-boyfriend in public, perform the ‘Say Hello and Go’。 Make it cute and graceful. That way you’re the bigger person. Shake their hand, maybe give them a kiss on the cheek and a trite, flat ‘How you been! Long time!’ and leave.
While I am on the subject, unfollow and mute all ex-boyfriends, and if they just so happen to be a famous heart-throb, definitely do not Google their name at 10 p.m. on a Friday night out of morbid curiosity because you might learn that they are currently in your city after being away in LA for nineteen months （not that anybody is counting） for an award ceremony.
I squinted at my laptop screen. I wasn’t sure this was precisely what the magazine meant when they asked for some quick bullet-point tips for publicity for my memoirs （Tiara’s Top Tips, based on an advice Twitter account that unceremoniously blew up）。 My agent had dubbed it an ‘Eat Slay Love’-type memoir, encapsulating both the zeitgeist and the young millennial black girl. The idea of having to be all that kind of exhausted me.
I wound my finger around the elastic hanging from my ￡2 lacy knickers and tore it off.
I was sat cross-legged in bed in an over-sized shirt, phone open on Instagram, laptop open on Word. A spaced out, two-inch-long chunk of writing blinked at me from the blank screen. I had been shovelling dry granola into my mouth – my stress comfort food of choice – the evidence of which was present on my keyboard. I tried to blow it off. This was pathetic. Why was I so stressed out? Yes, the man I thought I was going to marry was back in the country after nearly two years, but why was I letting that small, inconsequential fact distract me from my work? I couldn’t believe I was letting my ex-boyfriend risk the security of my bag. Money before honeys. No. Men weren’t honeys. Scratch that. Fees before The D. Contracts before Phone Contacts. Those were all terrible and I cannot believe someone is paying me to write. I opened up Instagram to distract myself.