How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
[Irie] got a twinge—as happens with a sensitive tooth, or in a "phantom tooth," when the nerve is exposed—she felt a twinge walking past the garage where she and Millat, aged thirteen, had passed one hundred and fifty pennies over the counter, stolen from an Iqbal jam jar, in a desperate attempt to buy a packet of fags. She felt an ache (like a severe malocclusion, the pressure of one tooth upon another) when she passed the park where they had cycled as children, where they smoked their first joint, where he had kissed her once in the middle of a storm. Irie wished she could give herself over to these past-present fictions: wallow in them, make them sweeter, longer, particularly the kiss. (17.194)
Millat is a complicated subject for Irie because she is in love with him—the whole kiss thing probably tipped you off. But many of her memories are more like friend memories. They grew up together, so they belong to that strange category that we accept without question: family friends.