Part I
Chapter - 3

I had suggested the first thought on my mind, but I realized later that I have not even the money to pay for myself, if he planned to go visit some chain store. I did, but I kept it at home. Though, Nova led the way through some crowded lanes, not stopping anywhere.

We were in front of a little toy shop, between the shop and an abandoned garage to be peculiar; when he stopped, and inquired me with a single gaze. He was asking me to explain everything I had done in the past few days.

Or perhaps he questioned himself as to why I wished to get sucked into his ceaseless whirlpool of torment.

“You were good, but now you don’t talk to anyone. I wondered what happened. Yeah, that is it. That is what I wished to ask.”

He was indifferent to the question. He spoke, still using his courteous tone. “Angsty teenage stuff. My turn. Why me?”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked why me,” he repeated. “Why are you only observing me? Why do you wish to concern yourself at all?”

“Because.” I did not need to think to respond to that. “You are not alright, are you? Is there something going on at home?”

I broke him a little. “No. Do you really think anyone would respond to the question you put up?” It was the second time. He looked, all the same, he did while talking to Nina that day. Like some ignorant breeze blowing through a crisis, trying to ease it down, surging it’s ashes higher all the while.

“Will you?”

“Perhaps, no.” His eyes had gone rheumy. Just enough to make me doubt it.

He left afterwards. I watched him, internally debating whether I should stop him or not. But it was too late till I had come up with a decision. Then in my way, I remembered what mom had told me. Don’t be too persistent, she had said.

I could not focus on anything that day. I was the most numb I had been in a long while. Why me, he had asked. I was not so pure-hearted to do it out of sheer goodwill myself. Then why did I even bother myself?

My reasoning was misted. But I knew it had something to do with my own internal ego. He said he had parents. Everyone knew he came from a good family. He had people to talk to. He had no possible reason to shame him when he was amongst a crowd. He did not feast on cheap meat and broth. He was happy. I was the one far worse than he could ever imagine being. Yet, why did he make my heart pity his circumstances? Was it not an unspoken norm to shade your woe under the drapes of arrogance? Why display it so frankly? Everything he did seemed to cackle at the ways I have been trying to expend my life, and I detested it.

I decided that I would not reach out to him, not look at him, and not speak to him. If he was not willing to reach out a hand, even when I was hanging from the thinnest chords of bets to help him, I could not do much for him.

I had not expected him to not make a move. Resentment rolled in me, uncaging in my chest. I had wasted my time, indulging in business I was not meant to. I made the mistake mom did. It was infuriating, but the acknowledgment that it was my fault, weighed heavier.

Then one day we were set in teams again, only he was against me. I left the baskets that I had to snatch from him directly, and soon was benched. He asked to be substituted in the following half too.

He sat beside me.

“Are you angry? Mad at me?” he asked.

“Why? Why would I be mad at you?” I was beating around the bush. “Do you think that there will be a reason to?”

“Yes.” He was weak. Fragile like dried twigs.

“Do you think if you will have some time today?” he asked.

“I don’t guess so.” Now I was being petty. I knew that apart from pushing stone out of my way home, I had no better work.

He sighed. A low, deep one. The one he did not want me to realize. “I’ll wait for you,” he said then.  

It made the curling rage crushing my bones slip down to my gut, then it rippled to my throat. If I could, I would have punched him.

“Take that back,” I demanded. I looked at him for the first time. “And I might find some time.”

“Please do not bother if it is not—”

“Shut it.”

He walked me to a different place then. I knew this part of the town, and in fact, there was no place I did not know. He strolled near the railing that guarded the sides of a stray lake. I did not like how he looked up at everything, as if he were living in a distant dream. I did not like how he lead the way every time.

He stopped. He breathed. He glared.

His hand clasped the railing to keep him in place.

Give them their time and space.

So I added another two feet of distance to separate us.

“Hey. May I say something?”

“Yes.” I responded.

He stopped. “What if I regret saying it?”

“Then don’t.”

He was silent. I could not let him make his mind up about it. “Will you remember this day  in the next five years?”

He studied the ground. No. Perhaps he was searching inside him. “I will live wishing to forget this day.”

“Then get it out of yourself. Dump it in me.”

He looked up at the corrupted sky. And the grimy lake. “I like the lake. The water is so stagnant. I don’t know why I feel it was not the same way always. As if it used to run or flow before.”

“I had seen it before,” I remarked. “It was used for recreation purposes earlier. That is why the water always seemed ‘stirred'. It is not paid  much attention to these days. That is why it’s stagnant.”

He watched the lake, with disregard as if he did not want to hear it. He wanted me to say something else. “Wanna grab a drink?”

He tipped his head and smiled. I straightened up from leaning over the railing. “No. And neither are you. Not on my watch. Do it someday you have not told me.”

I never figured that the picture-perfect Nova pleasured drinking too. It was not my business to judge, anyway. He was displeased again and turned.

“I meant coffee or something.” He was looking away into a distance.

My conscience poked at my gut as I felt guilty of making conclusions about him. I tried to cover it up. “That's fine. And you know that you are wasting time, right?”

He had started to walk away from me. When I reminded him that we were not over with the evening; not until he told me what I was meant to hear, we were not done. He stopped. Possibly, he had already changed his mind about it. But something about his voice that carried his next words startled me. It was so emotionless, so plain, so monotonous.

“People are made of secrets,” he said, “and desires. And dreams. It is one way to crumble their everything. And the other is to show them hope and then to snatch it.”

I attended school the next day. I was kept companied. But my mind kept wandering to those desolate words. So hollow, yet desperate, it made me wonder of his heart.

Hopes?

Secrets?

Desires?