Free What You Become by C. J. Flood

wouldn’t sneeze. Imagine if he thought I’d done it on purpose? As a comment on the cleanliness of his home. I peeked in open doors as we passed – unmade beds, strewn-about clothes, black bags of fabric – each was like the box room that ends up filled with everyone’s junk. I’d assumed it would be like Charlie’s house, modern and airy, with fresh flowers in vases around the house.
    Two flights of stairs and we arrived at an attic room, like Mum and Dad’s except you could fit ten of theirs in here. Joey could have skated around it, playing British Bulldogs. Or turned it into a cinema. The whole roof area of the house had been transformed into one beautiful room with eight skylights. After that, it had been rammed to the rafters with crap.
    Boxes spilled over with fabrics, and dressmaking models perched on top. Balls of wool and rolls of netting. Fishing rods and keepnets and boxes of tackle. A free-standing bath with wooden legs.
    Inside a circle of burnt out tealights stood a gold Buddha statue on a silky sheet, and as Kiaru lit a stick of incense and replaced the candles, I wondered if I was about to become his first human sacrifice.
    It wouldn’t be the worst place to die. Sunlight shot through the swirling dust in thick lasers, and as Kiaru sat down in a glowing spot I sat with him. It was warm there, the sun dazzling. Lighting the final candle, he looked at me, expectant, and I squinted back.
    ‘I have something to tell you, but first I want you to relax.’
    That sounded like a recipe for unrelaxation. Like the opposite of what someone would say if you were going for a massage or something.
    ‘Alisha thinks that you’re not a very relaxed person.’
    ‘Okay.’
    Was I
supposed
to feel relaxed?
When?
All the time? I’d had no idea. My nose was itchy, and all I could think was how wonderful it would be to really honk it out into a tissue, but Kiaru’s intense tone prevented me from asking something as ordinary as where the loo was. Also, if he liked me, I didn’t want him thinking about me in relation to the toilet.
    ‘Have you ever tried meditating?’ he asked, and I froze. Was he doing a move?
    His skin looked firm and smooth, and I hoped the light was having the same effect on me.
    ‘It really helps me think, if I’m stuck or . . .
confused
. . . It clears my mind. Helps me concentrate.’
    His expression was endearing as he talked; he seemed really eager to help me.
    Did I seem like I needed help?
    ‘D’you want to try?’
    ‘Okay,’ I said, and his lips curled in the smallest smile. He took a deep breath in, and then out, and automatically I copied him.
    ‘I find it helps if I close my eyes,’ he said, before breathing long and slow again through his nose. The dust was swirling in and out, and I regretted not asking for a tissue before we got started, because the toilet wasn’t sexy but neither was blowing mucus across the room at forty miles per hour.
    ‘Pay attention to your breath. Feel it come into your body, the first moment that it hits. Maybe it’s the edge of your nostrils or maybe it’s higher up. And then out again.’
    His voice was deeper than mine, but softer, like he was driving it with his foot only gently on the pedal. I matched my breath to his, trying to ignore the tickle stretching from the deepest darkest part of my nostril to the back of my throat.
    ‘Try not to think about anything: just focus on the feeling of your breath, the way it fills up your lungs. In and out.’
    The backs of my eyes tingled. The air coming into my body was thick with fibres and skin flakes and ancient crumbs of crumbs and there was nothing I could do. Kiaru’s eyes flew open as I full-body sneezed into the golden air around us.
    ‘Sorry!’ I jumped up, face blazing. What must I have looked like just then? Had he seen the mercury filling in my molar? The lumpy back of my tongue? Was he covered in my spit and phlegm and germs?
    ‘It’s all right. It’s natural. Just a sneeze. Do