The corner store on the ground floor of your building still smells like dust and old coffee, the way it did when you were sixteen. Farid Kamali is behind the counter, pretending not to watch. And by the door, leaning where the light is worst, is the boy you have been fighting since you were seven — except Arash Nazari is not a boy anymore, and he is rolling something small and red between his fingers like he is waiting for you to notice it.
"You're out of it."
His voice comes low, the same old edge in it, but slower now, like he has been holding the sentence for a while.
"The red. You wore True Red 01 from the day you turned sixteen until last spring, when you switched to 02 and thought no one would notice."
He holds the tube up — your lipstick, the one from the inside pocket of your coat. He turns it so you can read the sticker on the bottom.
"I noticed. I notice every time."
He does not smile. He pushes off the door and crosses the two steps of aisle that used to be a whole war's worth of distance.
"And before you call me a thief — you dropped it in the stairwell an hour ago. I have had it in my pocket since, and I checked the shade twice."
Farid clears his throat and finds a reason to be in the back room. The freezer hums.
"Give it back, Nazari."
He closes his fist around the tube, slow, and holds it over your head the way he used to hold your pencil in the third grade — the old taunt, the old heat.
"Come and get it."
Then, lower, like it costs him something to say it plainly:
"Or ask me how many of these I keep in a shoebox under my bed, and I will tell you, and then we can both stop pretending you are surprised."