I nod, and she leans over to kiss my cheek. ‘Hi, Steffi!’ She drops her bag on the floor and bounces away from me – ‘Bye, Steffi!’ – and takes off.
I make myself comfortable on the grass beside the track and watch her run, her movements smooth and agile. Tem was made for running, I think. Like aeroplanes never look as comfortable on the ground as they do in the air, she comes to life when she runs. She’ll run for Team GB in the Olympics one day. I know it.
I let her run several laps before I get bored and flag her down. ‘Can we talk now?’
Tem holds up two fingers and carries on. Two minutes? Two laps? Peace? I sigh-groan and pull out my phone. I open jackbytes but Rhys is offline, so I turn it off again and play vegetable Tetris until Tem finally comes panting over.
‘Something wrong?’ I ask, watching her unscrew the cap from her bottle of water and take a long, slow swallow.
She shakes her head. ‘No, why?’
I don’t push, even though I know her well enough to be able to determine her emotional state by how many laps she runs on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. ‘Tell me about college, then.’
‘It’s good,’ she says vaguely. She begins to run through her cool-down stretches, electricity fizzing from her joints and fingertips.
‘Just good?’ I prompt.
Tem twists her lip, then shrugs. ‘It’s very different from Windham. Louder. You’d hate it.’ She takes another sip from her water bottle. ‘There are so many people, which is kind of weird. Like, I used to think Windham was a pretty big school, but it turns out it’s not. And because everyone’s new it’s like this big battle to make friends.’
‘You won’t have any trouble making friends,’ I say. Everyone loves Tem.
‘Maybe not, but it feels kind of fake. Maybe it’s just because it’s new . . . I don’t know. I miss you a lot more than I thought I would.’ Her eyes widen. ‘That came out completely wrong. I just meant, I’m always –’
‘I know what you meant,’ I say, half smiling. Tem is always the one who takes the lead, who makes the friends. The needed one. I am the one who needs, the one who misses. ‘How are the classes?’ Tem is studying sports therapy, which she’s been excited about ever since she found out it existed.
‘Well, that’s the other thing.’ Tem’s brow has crinkled. ‘The work seems really hard. I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘Too hard?’
Tem pauses, the water bottle to her lips, her eyes looking away from me. ‘I hope not.’ She takes a breath and then smiles at me. ‘But!’ she says brightly. ‘I did meet a boy of my own.’
‘Ooh,’ I say. ‘Tell.’
Tem pulls out her phone and opens Facebook. ‘Look,’ she begins, and I laugh.
‘You got him on Facebook already?’
‘Of course, that’s what Facebook is for,’ she says, which is true. She hands her phone over to me and I look obediently.
Karam Homsi, the name reads. He looks like a model. Longish wild, dark hair. Brown eyes. A jokey half-smile on his face.
‘He’s amazing,’ Tem says, looking with pure adoration at her phone. ‘He’s taking two extra A levels at the college because his school – St Sebastian’s – will only let him do four. He wants to be a doctor.’
‘Wow,’ I say, because there’s really no other response to that kind of information, particularly when it goes with that kind of face.
‘And he’s so nice, Stef. And not fake nice, or trying-too-hard nice. Just, like, friendly, you know? He came here from Syria when he was nine, and now his life goal is to become a doctor so he can go back and help people.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I ask.
She startles. ‘Huh?’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I repeat. I smile to let her know I’m teasing. ‘No one is that perfect.’
‘Oh.’ She lets out a laugh of relief. ‘Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s just perfect. Honestly, Steffi. I’ve never met anyone like him.’
Tem is my best friend, and I won’t hear a word against her, but this is not the first time I’ve heard these kinds of words come out of her mouth. Tem has what my mother calls ‘an open heart’, which means she falls in love quickly and easily with pretty much anyone, and not just in a romantic way. When she loves, she loves completely – that’s what I’m saying.