CHAPTER -5 THE HANG OUT

Veer started coming over without cricket as an excuse.

Not often. Once, maybe twice a week. He would show up at the gate with Ayan, or Ayan would bring him home after the ground. "To hang out," they said. "To do nothing." Summer allowed that. Summer gave permission to waste time.

Amma liked him. I could tell. She gave him extra snacks. Asked about his mother. Saved the good samosas for when he came.

"Your friend is polite," she told Ayan.

"He's not my friend," Ayan said, mouth full. "He's Veer."

As if that explained everything.

The afternoon I remember most was ordinary. Hot, lazy, the kind of day where even the fan seemed tired. Veer came around four, cricket bat left at home for once. Ayan opened the door, shouted something about the TV remote, and they collapsed on the sofa.

I was in the chair, reading. Or pretending to read. The same novel, still unfinished. I had started to think I would never finish it. Some stories are like that. You keep them close, but you don't complete them.

They talked about cricket, then about some movie, then about nothing. I turned pages without reading. Listened without looking.

Ayan's phone rang. He pulled it out, frowned, stood up.

"I have to take this," he said.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Ram. From the village. Something about Maya." He walked into his room, closing the door behind him. Genuine. Not planned. I heard his voice through the door, low and curious.

Veer and I sat in the quiet. The TV played some song, volume low. The fan clicked. Outside, a crow argued with a squirrel in the neem tree.

"You're not reading," Veer said.

I looked up. "What?"

"You've been on the same page for ten minutes."

I closed the book. "It's a boring page."

"Or you're a slow reader."

"I'm a careful reader."

He smiled. That small smile. "What's it about?"

"Love," I said. Then wished I hadn't. "I mean, a girl. A boy. They meet, they don't talk, they miss each other, they meet again. The usual."

"Do they end up together?"

"I don't know. I haven't finished."

He nodded. Spun an imaginary ball in his fingers. Even without the real one, his hands needed movement.

"My sister read love stories," he said. "Stacks of them. She would finish one in a day, cry, then start another. I never understood."

"Why not?"

"Too much feeling. Too fast. People don't fall in love like that. In real life, it's slower. Messier."

"How do they fall in love, then?" I asked. The question came out before I could catch it. Too direct. Too interested.

Veer thought about it. The spinning stopped.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I haven't either. But I think it's like... getting used to someone. Like how you get used to a chair, or a road, or a person who sits beside you without talking. Then one day, they're not there, and the room feels wrong."

I looked at him. Really looked. The mole on his cheek. The way his hair fell into his eyes. The hands that needed to move.

"That's... not in any novel I read," I said.

"No," he said. "That's life."

The door opened. Ayan walked out, phone in hand, grinning.

"Maya says hi," he told me. "Ram's coming back end of summer. She'll come too."

"Good," I said. My voice sounded normal. I was proud of that.

Veer stood up, stretched. "I should go. Before Amma sends a search party."

"Stay for dinner," Ayan said.

"Can't. Next time."

He walked to the door. I followed, not knowing why. Just... followed.

At the gate, he turned. "Zara."

"Yes?"

"You're still on that page. The boring one."

I looked down. The book was still in my hand, closed, page folded.

"I'll finish it," I said.

"Or find a better story," he said.

Then he left. I stood at the gate, watching him walk away. The road was empty. The sun was going down. The neem tree shadow stretched long and thin across the ground.

I felt something. Small. Warm. Like a seed that had been planted weeks ago, in silence, without my knowing. Now it was stirring, pushing against the soil, wanting light.

No , I told myself. He's just a friend. A friend who talks about chairs and roads and rooms feeling wrong.

But I stood there longer than I needed to. And when I went inside, I didn't open my novel. I sat by the window, watching the dark come, thinking about getting used to someone.

Thinking about what it meant when the room felt wrong without them.

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