by Namita Singh
and how much ireful he is of him. I feel a pang of disappointment. Neal and I may converse with each other in a very comfortable stance but if I suddenly expect him to tell me how the wheels of his brain work then I have sorely mistaken. Obviously, Neal feels no predisposition to explain in detail to me. We don’t share that level of connection.
I seriously don’t know how to go about this anymore. I can’t simply hold a casual conversation with him, meet him twice, maybe thrice a week and be okay about it. As much as I hate to admit, I do want to be close to him, not just in the vicinity but at an emotional level too. That’s probably because I know that no one will be as harmonious with my being as Neal will be. At this particular stage I am not certain if Rufina aunt is lucky or not to not have a partner. She is lucky because she isn’t in the helpless state of having found a partner but failing to develop the expected bond. If she has never sensed her partner, she probably doesn’t know what she is missing. That’s a good thing, right?On the other hand, I can’t imagine spending my whole life alone, knowing there is someone with whom I can form a perfect companionship. I have learnt in the past week alone that I do not and will never desire to seek a bond with anybody else except for my partner. Even if I change my mind, I am assured that I won’t be able to. You just can’t attain the impeccable level of congeniality with anybody, save for with your partner. In that sense I find Rufina aunt unfortunate. I cannot at all imagine spending my life, knowing that there is no one out there with whom I can accomplish a satisfaction filled bond.
I realize that we have become silent once again and this time it’s stretching. Surprisingly, Neal doesn’t make a move to end our encounter as he abruptly always does. He is simply sitting, picking aimlessly at the edges of his papers, adorning an indiscernible expression.
“Would you like to, maybe, hang out sometime? Just like that?” I ask him.
Yes, I know I told Aakir that I will not ask Neal out. But this is not the date-type asking out. It’s a simple two-bros-hanging-out type ask out.
Ugh.
Okay, fine, yes, I am doing what Aakir asked me to. I really don’t see any other way to go about this.
Neal grins, “I don’t play soccer.” He says.
I frown, “You think playing soccer is all I do in my free time?” my tone comes out more incredulous than accusing.
“I believe…it’d be a good way to pass time.” He says in a careful tone.
I roll my eyes, “I didn’t know you liked soccer.”
“I don’t.” he says quickly, “I have a thing for basketball, actually.” He confesses, grinning sheepishly.
“You’re kidding.” I deadpan.
“Nope.”
“You don’t look like a sports kind of guy at all.” I blurt.
“…Thanks.” He says, his tone sarcastic.
“I mean,” I say, trying to remedy my impulsive reaction, “I have never seen you involved in any of the sports in school.” After uttering that I quickly try to recall the past so to be sure that Neal has actually, really never participated in anything athletic. He is a nerd kind of a guy after all, however sad that may be.
“Maybe we can have a game.” He smiles tightly, “But I’ll prefer basketball.”
I don’t really like basketball. I don’t even know the rules. “Sure.” I say to him with a smile. Yes, I am desperate.
“You know the court in the park next to town-square?” he asks.
I know of the park and can vaguely recall a basketball court in it. I nod.
“Cool. I’ll get a friend of mine. You can ask…Aakir.” He doesn’t seem very enthusiastic while saying Aakir’s name.
“Tomorrow evening?” I confirm.
“Early evening.” He nods. “I’ll let you know the time.”
“Alright. Give me your number.” I say, standing up to leave.
“I’ll contact you myself.” He says.
I falter, “Uh…then should I give you mi-”
“You really think that I don’t have your number?” he gives me a patronizing look, while opening the lid of his laptop, “I have everybody’s numbers.” He boasts, grinning.
I roll my eyes, “See you then.” I say and as abruptly as he always does, I turn around to depart. I hear a faint ‘see you’. I continue to head out, feeling Neal’s aura slowly fade away from my senses.
It didn’t exactly go as I had planned. But it’s a start nonetheless.
6.Midnight On New Year’s Eve
Neal and his friend, the one who enormously dislikes me, Alek, are already present in the town-square park when I reach there. Neal is dribbling the orange basketball nonchalantly. Alek is moving back and forth around him but not lookinginterested in snatching the ball from Neal. Alek is the usual Russian brunette with a lanky form, his dark hair slicked back with tremendous amounts of hair gel. Unlike Neal, Alek is wearing a normal t-shirt which is primed for his size. Neal on the other hand is again adorned in an oversized hoodie. His loose-fitting clothes make it difficult to ascertain his built, just like always.The court is at the end of the exceedingly large park, twined with a badminton court next to it. The park is not overtly crowded but enough occupied by kids, the gossiping ladies and the joggers so to make it look lively.
Neal and Alek spot us soon enough. Neal immediately stops dribbling. We are still a good twenty feet away from the court where Neal and Alek are. I wave at him in a gesture of acknowledgement and he instantly replies with his own wave.
“I really don’t like that guy.” Alek mutters next to Neal.
I wonder if he’ll still be saying that if he knew that I can hear him clearly even with the vast distance. He has more than made his hostility familiar to me when I had approached their table in the cafeteria. The problem is that I don’t know what the source of his hatred is.
“He is alright.” Neal mumbles back, shrugging infinitesimally.
“I still can’t believe you invited these guys to play with us.” Alek mutters again through gritted teeth. “Look at them,” he sneers, “Came to show off their girls.”
Neal chuckles and he jestingly punches Alek’s arm, “One of them is their sister.” He says quietly.
I get momentarily shocked. Silvia and Faith are the girls accompanying Aakir and I as we move towards the basketball court. Technically, Silvia is not Aakir’s girl, not yet at least. Only Aakir knows the hurdles he has to go through to grasp one friendly date with Silvia. Even today she is here because Faith decided to tag along as well. On the other hand, for the life of me I can’t figure out how Neal is knowledgeable about Faith, much less that she is our sister. Faith hadn’t studied in the same school that we are in. It’s nearly impossible for Neal to know of her existence and exceedingly unimaginable to know that she is our sister. It makes me wonder just how much and to what extent Neal keeps information of the people around him.
I feel a stare on the left side of my face and I know that Faith is eyeing me incredulously. If she is expecting me to be best friends with my partner and to be getting along extremely well with his friends then Faith is in for a roll. She is already enough surprised to learn the gender of my partner and after throwing a fit for not informing her earlier, she threw another fit regarding desiring to be introduced to my partner. I explained to her in the best way possible why she shouldn’t be expecting me to be suddenly gay. She isn’t convinced about my hypothesis of being just close friends with Neal but gives me the benefit of doubt. She is also in favor of listening to my father’s view on the bizarre occurrencebut he hasn’t returned yet and already half of the weekend is about to come to an end.
“His aura…” Faith says in a very low voice. So low that even Silvia, who is busy interacting with Aakir doesn’t hear her, despite walking right next to us. Faith is frowning as she looks at the two boys in the distance. I sigh. I didn’t inform her about the oddity that my partner’s aura exhibits. I gesture to her that I’ll explain later. We reach the boys who have stopped talking amongst themselves since we have neared, most probabl
y in fear that we’ll hear Alek expressing his detestation. If only they know.
Rounds of awkward introductions follow, making most of us look inept. Only Silvia and Neal manage to look relatively casual and at ease. Neal is always laid back but I do not expect that from Silvia. I anticipate her to be feeling extremely out of place to be spending the day with a bunch of juvenile guys. Faith, bless her heart, decided to come along. Since she and Silvia are of nearly same age, I don’t expect her to feel inapposite anymore but still not at this much ease as I am witnessing. Least I was expecting to see Faith at unease. She may be Gwen aunt’s daughter but Faith is a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, being one of the most amiable persons in our family. I believe she is tremendously taken aback by my partner’s sudden overwhelming aura.
Alek, Aleksander being his full name, gives cordial greetings to the girls, but noncommittal grunts to me and Aakir. A few words and a lot of awkward silences later, we are divided into two teams for a casual, lame game. I also notice that Neal takes great care to not get paired with Aakir. Maybe Neal is not as laid back as I give him credit for. He always seems on edge with Aakir around. In the end, it’s Neal, I and Faith against Aakir, Alek and Silvia. Aakir and I, both are soccer players with little knowledge about basketball. Neal explains the rules of the game vaguely since he is not expecting a much serious game.
Neal is
