A strange compliment
357 Words
Our friendship grew quietly. We met at the stationery shop. Then the library. Then the tea stall where he drank tea without sugar and complained about it every single time. Sometimes he walked me home. He always stopped before our lane.
“Why don’t you come further?”
“My mother will see me.”
“And?”
“And mothers have eyes.”
“So?”
“So your face will become a family discussion.”
He laughed. “Fair.”
He never crossed the invisible line. Not once. That was one of the reasons I trusted him. He didn’t rush me. He didn’t demand. He waited.
When I was quiet, he let me be quiet. When I talked, he listened. When I was angry, he found a way to make me laugh without making me feel foolish for being angry.
Once, I told him about my dream of becoming a teacher. He looked at me seriously. “You’ll be good at it.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“You explain things without making people feel stupid.”
I looked at him. “That’s a strange compliment.”
“It’s the best kind.”
And I remember thinking: Maybe this is what love is. Someone seeing the person you are trying to become before you have become her yourself.
The first time Aarav came to our house, Ma liked him immediately. That should have frightened me. Instead, it made me happy.
He arrived with a box of sweets because, according to him, arriving empty-handed was a crime.
Ma took the box. “You didn’t have to bring this.”
“My mother said I must.”
“Good boy.”
He looked at me. I rolled my eyes. Ma noticed and smiled.
“You two are friends?”
“Yes,” I said.
At the same time, Aarav said, “Yes, aunty.”
Ma laughed. “Then why do you both look guilty?”
Neither of us answered.
That evening, Baba came home late. When he came, he looked at Aarav. Then at me. Then at the sweets.
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