Rafiya stiffened when he swam under her, and it was that stiffening that promptly caused her to begin to sink. He had resurfaced on the other side when she was straightening in the water, shaking it from her ears and hair and treading water facing him. She considered his next words, head cocked to the side. He had lowered his voice, as though he was confiding in her, and Rafiya felt a little awkward with it.
Their interactions up to this point had been largely superficial. He flirted, she turned him down. He teased, she ignored. They were not friends, not really. Not in the way that she was friends with Rocky, or even with Noah.
Yet here he was, telling her things like she ought to know what to do with the information. It took her a moment to decide how to respond.
"Hope is not a factor," she said, her pronounced accent tripping up slightly on the 'ct' sound. "You want to laugh, laugh. You want to be serious, be serious. It does not matter what it puts on people. Or off of them."
She realized she'd probably mangled the last phrase, and her jaw tightened slightly with the knowledge of it. It was strange that sometimes she wished she spoke perfect, fluent, native English, and sometimes she hated the language and wished to speak nothing but Zulu. English was a hard language to perfect and Rafiya hated not being perfect at something she had no choice but to participate in.