Best Friend
I have a best friend who I've wanted to be my best friend from the very fi rst time I met him. He moved into the house opposite ours and the fi rst time I saw him doing a lay-up, I almost whistled, coming out of the house. As soon as he saw me, he said, "Hi." I still can't forget the way he said it because it made me say hi back in the exact same tone and then both of us sort of laughed.Boondh, my otherwise grumpy dog, took to him, too. She wasn't less grumpy around him, to tell you the truth, but when I went over, she sometimes came with me and listened to us with an interested air that made us laugh.
We didn't go to the same school, but we played basketball in the evening. I remember everything from the summer holidays, especially shooting three pointers blindfolded for about a half an hour (our version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey) till we got really dizzy. We still argue about which one of us smashed the neighbour's Belgian glass window.
We told each other really weird things we'd done and made each other swear not to tell anybody else. Every time, saying, "You swear?" would make us feel better, but this time, when I said it, it didn't work.
"Kunal! I swear, I swear, I swear!" I said, begging him. Even Boondh was looking at him beseechingly.
"Don't. I would tell you if I could. I just don't feel like it now. So don't." I knew he had to be upset to take that tone with me, but I was pretty angry, too, so I said, "Fine, you want to make a big deal of it, I am GOING!" I walked off.
But the next day, he came home.
"Sorry," he said awkwardly and though I was glad to hear the apology, I just cut him short and said, "OK, OK. Leave it." "My parents are separating." He said it like he'd been practising in front of the mirror and this wasn't one of the times it came out right. What do you say to something like that? How do you know what the right sort of reaction is?
I finally said, "Oh." And had to try really hard not to kick myself in the horrible pause that followed.
I guess he realised I didn't know what to say, so he said, "I wish they'd picked a better time. The exams are coming up."
I could tell he was trying to be brave. His voice didn't shake or anything. But I felt it. "I just hate it, you know. Now every time Ma comes up to the room with pakoras or something, I feel like she's just doing it because…well, I don't know who I am going to be with…but whatever."
This is the sort of thing that happens to other people and you ask yourself - what if it happened to me? But you never actually go through with it. He got up and left because there wasn't anything to say.
