CHAPTER -4 THE FRIENDSHIP

The ground became my summer.

Not because anything special happened there. Just because it was where my days found a shape. Morning was lazy — reading, helping Amma, fighting with Ayan about the bathroom. Afternoon was heavier, slower, the kind of heat that made you want to sleep forever. Then evening came, and I walked to the ground with a box of snacks, and the world felt possible again.

Maya was still gone. I knew that. Ram had taken his family to their village for some cousin's wedding, and they wouldn't be back till the end of summer. I told myself I wasn't waiting for her. I told myself I was just going to call Ayan.

I told myself a lot of things.

Veer was always there. Not every day, but most days. We didn't talk at first. Just the same nods, the same half-smiles, the same sitting on the wall in comfortable silence. He would spin his cricket ball in his fingers. I would eat my bajjis. The game would go on around us like we weren't there.

Then one day, he broke the silence.

It was a Tuesday. Amma had made aloo bonda, which she only made on Tuesdays and Fridays. I was sitting on the wall, eating the second one, when Veer walked over. Not during a break. Just walked over while the game was still happening.

"Your brother hits too aggressively," he said.

I looked up, bonda halfway to my mouth. "What?"

"Ayan. He swings too hard. Doesn't watch the ball."

I put the bonda down. "I don't understand cricket."

"I know," he said. "But you watch like you do."

"I watch because I'm waiting."

"For what?"

I didn't have an answer. For Ayan? For time to pass? For something to happen?

"For these to finish," I said, holding up the bonda box.

He smiled. That small smile I had seen before. The one that moved the mole on his cheek.

"Can I have one?" he asked.

I stared at him. "You want my bonda?"

"Your Amma makes good bondas. Everyone knows."

"Everyone?"

"The whole ground knows. Ayan brings them. We smell them."

I laughed. I didn't mean to. It just came out. "Fine. One. But tell Ayan I gave it to you, or he'll think I ate his share."

Veer took one. Ate it in two bites. "Good," he said. "Worth leaving the game for."

Then he walked back. Just like that.

I sat there, holding a box with one less bonda, wondering what had just happened.

The next few days, he didn't approach me. I told myself it didn't matter. One conversation about bondas didn't mean anything.

But on the fourth day, he came again. This time he sat on the wall beside me. Not close. Just nearby.

"Your brother got out first ball today," he said.

"I know. I saw."

"You were watching?"

"I told you. I watch everything. I just don't understand it."

He nodded. Spun the cricket ball in his fingers. I had noticed he did that when he was thinking.

"Why don't you bring a book?" he asked. "If you're bored."

"I do sometimes. But then I look antisocial."

"You're sitting alone on a wall. You're already antisocial."

I turned to look at him. He wasn't smiling. His face was serious, like he had said something obvious.

"I'm waiting for my brother," I said.

"And I'm waiting for my turn to bat. We can wait together. Doesn't mean we have to talk."

So we didn't. We sat there, me eating my bajjis, him spinning his ball. The game went on. Boys shouted. The sun went down. It should have been awkward. It wasn't.

When Ayan finally came, Veer stood up.

"Tomorrow?" he asked.

"Maybe," I said.

"I'll save you a bonda," he said.

"I'll bring extra," I said back.

He almost smiled. Then walked away.

The rain came in the third week. Not heavy. Just a drizzle that turned the ground to mud. I was at home, reading a novel I had started three times and never finished, when Ayan's phone buzzed. He looked at the message, then shouted across the room.

"Veer says ground's closed! Some function going on — Ramlila setup or something. He's coming here instead!"

I looked up from my book. "Here?"

"To hang out. What, I need permission?"

"No," I said. "Just asking."

I went back to my book. But I didn't read. I kept thinking about Veer sitting in our living room, on our sofa, in our house. It felt strange. Not bad. Just... new.

He came half an hour later, wet hair, cricket bat still in hand like he forgot to leave it home.

"Your brother said you have good snacks," he told Amma.

"Your brother says a lot of things," I muttered.

Veer heard. He smiled. "He does."

We sat in the living room — Ayan and Veer on the sofa, me on the chair across. They talked about cricket. I pretended to watch TV. Some movie was playing, loud songs and running around trees. I wasn't watching.

"Your sister still in hostel?" Ayan asked.

"Yeah," Veer said. "Medical college. Barely calls. Last time she called, she told me I eat too many bondas and my cricket is getting worse because of it."

I laughed. "She sounds like Amma."

"She is Amma," Veer said. "Just younger and meaner."

"Does she visit?"

"Next month. Two days. Then back to studying." He spun an imaginary ball in his fingers. "She used to play cricket, you know. Better than most boys. Made me keep wickets for her practice. Said I had good hands."

"Did you?" I asked.

"Have good hands?"

"Enjoy it? Keeping wickets for her?"

He thought about it. "Yeah. I did. It was the only time we really talked. Without fighting."

The movie song changed. Something slower. Ayan got up to get water from the kitchen. Veer and I sat in the quiet that followed.

"You're lucky," I said. "Having a sister."

"I know," he said. "Even when she's mean."

Ayan came back. The conversation moved to other things — some player, some match, some six that was or wasn't. I stopped listening. I was thinking about Veer keeping wickets for his sister. About him having someone to miss. About how he talked about it like it was normal, like friends talk about siblings, nothing special.

I liked that. I liked that he was normal. That we were normal.

That evening, when he left, I walked to the gate with Ayan to see him off. The rain had stopped. The road smelled of wet earth.

"See you tomorrow, Zara," Veer said.

"See you," I said.

I watched him walk away, cricket bat bouncing against his leg. He turned once, waved, kept walking.

I waved back. Then went inside before Ayan could see my face.

He's just a friend , I told myself. A friend who likes bondas and misses his sister and waves when he leaves.

But I stood at the window longer than I needed to, watching the empty road.

The days after that, we had a rhythm. I would come to the ground. He would finish whatever he was doing. He would walk over. We would sit. Sometimes talk. Sometimes not. He told me about his sister's hostel stories — the mess food, the strict warden, the time she fell asleep in anatomy lab. I told him about Ayan stealing my novels to read during class, about Amma's cooking experiments that went wrong, about the time I tried to learn cycling and crashed into a cow.

He laughed. That real laugh. I laughed too.

We were friends. Just friends. The kind who sat on walls and shared bondas and talked about nothing important.

But some evenings, when the sun went down and the ground emptied, I would catch him looking at the sky, spinning his ball, thinking about something far away. And I would wonder what it would be like to be that something. To be important enough to make him stop spinning.

Then I would tell myself to stop being stupid. He was just a friend. I was just a girl with too much free time and too many novels.

Summer was passing. I didn't want it to end.

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