7. First Name Basis

you're the Neville

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The remnants of summer in Edelweiss were nearly gone now, but some traces still lingered. As I sat cross-legged by myself on the slope leading from the road to the gorgeous poppy fields in full bloom, warm rays from the setting sun cast a mysterious honey glow on the flowers, as if they were sharing an elaborate secret. I smiled.

I eyed the pair of birds swooping around playfully in the sky with acute jealousy. Not trapped at all by their own emotions. So free.

Hearing rhythmic footsteps approaching, I glanced to the road. Spotting a young man sporting a black tee and black shorts was jogging on with earphones in, I looked back to the fields.

When the footsteps stopped right beside me, I cautiously looked up. "Okay, why are you spying on me, West?" I raised my brows and dramatically pursed my lips, making him roll his eyes. He climbed down to sit on the grass beside me.

"I'm not spying on you. I live here," he breathed, still a smidgen out of breath. A bead of sweat trickled down his cheek to his collar bone, catching me off-guard.

"Here, as in?" I hoped that my voice didn't seem as raspy to him as it was. He pointed to the left, where the road cut through the woods for a few miles. I hesitated. "But— nobody lives out there."

"I do. Get over it, Rashid." West offered me half a smirk, making my stomach twist with guilt.

"Wait, wait. Are you telling me that you're living in the Kreep house?"

"The creep house? What?" his eyebrows knotted up as he produced a flask and took several swigs from it.

"No, like, Kreep with a 'k'. An old man used to live in there, his name was Kreep. He died a few months ago," I explained. Letting out an 'oh', he fell silent.

Drawing random patterns on the grass with my index, I sighed and muttered, "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday, okay? I shouldn't have reacted like that. Also, thanks for not telling Ever anything. The guys and him already have a lot on their plates."

I cautiously looked up at him. His expression was infuriatingly neutral as he gazed down at the fields in full bloom, making more guilt surge up.

"It's okay."

As I tore a blade of grass into little pieces, we shared a thoughtful silence. West broke it with a voice gentler than I was accustomed to, like that day at the lake, "I've never really had friends who're not family. I'm sorry if I crossed a line."

"It was actually pretty sweet of you, but call it even?" I sheepishly scratched the back of my ear, and he nodded. West opened his mouth and, hesitating, let it fall back to a thin line. "Is there something you wanna say?" I nudged.

"I know I'm not great company, but," he cleared his throat, "if you need someone to listen, without judging you, you can, you know, count on me."

Pleasantly surprised, I turned to him. "Who are you and what've you done to just West?"

He glared at me annoyedly with an edge of warning, "I'm being nice. Don't push it."

I smiled sadly to myself. "I couldn't possibly burden you with all that shit, West."

"Consider it a favour returned for bearing all my jerk moves. Not that you had a choice, but still," he smirked playfully, making me roll my eyes.

After a while, I softly said, "You know, whenever I'm miserable, I come visit Dr. Amiruddin. He's a cool guy, lives near here. And every time, my problems somehow melt away. Not today, though."

West stretched out his limbs and placed his head on his entwined palms, lying down on the grass. Despite my tumultuous state of mind, my train of thoughts halted for a moment to appreciate how handsome he was, until he motioned for me to carry on. It's not superficial unless you fall in love, I consoled myself. I lay down beside him, laughing a hollow laugh.

"Where do I even start? Seriously, West, you don't wanna be burdened with this." West rolled his eyes and cocked his head to meet my gaze.

"Okay, if you tell me your problems, I'll tell you mine, hmm?" Tapping my lip with my finger, I mentally measured the pros and cons of telling him. I decided that I had nothing to lose.

"I'll take that bait, but you have to promise." As solemnly as possible, I held out my pinky.

"If I break it, will a unicorn come get me?" he mused, rolling his eyes and wrapping his tiniest finger around mine. However chaste, the touch was electric.

"No. I will."

"Oo, I'm so scared. Go on already," he said, fishing out a box of Tic Tacs from his pocket and handing me two. "By the way, your breath stinks."

"Your brain stinks worse," I retorted annoyedly, popping the Tic Tacs into my mouth.

"Have you ever been to deshi weddings, West?" Without letting him answer, I continued, the minty flavour spreading across my tongue, "there's all sorts of people at deshi weddings. Remember the guy you saw on Friday? I met him at my cousin's wedding."

As I narrated on to him, my mind fled back to that night at Casa del Poppy.

'Ooh,' my cousins cooed as Zayan let go of my hand when the upbeat Bollywood song came to an end, leaving us both out of breath. Fiona Api, Khammi's elder daughter, laughed joyfully in her corner as the girl painting her hands with henna smeared some on the tip of her nose.

Zayan Elahi, Fiona Api's to be brother-in-law, had just whispered into my ear to meet him after dinner. Although I was unsure, because he'd already applied for college while I was going to start my senior year at EAI, he was undeniably handsome and funny, and had many of my cousins swooning for his charm. I decided to skip the dessert of luxurious shahi tukra and jorda and surreptitiously venture out after him, careful to avoid Ma as she sat miserably with a table of aunties boasting about their expensive Bali vacations.

The whole estate had been decorated with scintillating fairy lights, and I crept out with a frantic heartbeat under their warmth to the swimming pool where Zayan was supposed to be.

A sudden sob, seemingly belonging to a child, made me halt as I stepped through the doors to the indoor pool. Curious, I lifted my salmon lehenga with pinched fingers and moved closer, hurriedly but quietly.

I wanna go Mummum,' the little girl cried a few metres away, and I discovered to my horror that it was my cousin of five, Keisha. I froze.

Zayan was straddling her.

'Shh...' he purred like a predator. When she only wailed more loudly, he clamped his hand down over her mouth as she struggled under him, eyes glinting with a nauseating hunger. My head spun. Is this really happening?

Eyed widened with horror, I screamed, only to be smothered by a plump hand jingling with golden bangles.

Khammi glared as she noiselessly pulled me out through the doors, a ring-clad finger on her fat ruby lips telling me to remain silent. Reckless tears started to cloud my vision.

"Go back to the dining hall, let me take care of this," she whispered, leaving me to nod helplessly. "And Aditi." I turned back to face her. "For your sake, don't dare to tell anyone. We wouldn't want to upset Fiona's in-laws, isn't it?"

They had to call an ambulance that night for the little girl that almost drowned in the pool.

I hastily wiped a tear on its path down my cheek, averting West's gaze. "I'm so naive, West. The guilt, it's so raw. It just won't quit. It's the worst fucking feeling in the world. It's eating me up from inside, but there's nothing I have the guts to do."

West looked pretty shaken as he eyed me intently. "You're ugly. You're a dumb midget. But you are not naive, Rashid. Can I say something though?" I motioned for him to go on with a grimace. "Your aunt's a Class A bitch." I pursed my lips, nodding in agreement. "How, the fuck, can she hide this from everyone? The kid almost died!" he cried.

"I know, right? Apparently, this world's way more twisted than I thought. It...broke my heart. And Khammi?" I laughed sardonically. "She only cares about what people think and what people say! She's never going to realise that- that all people do is talk shit about others every chance they get! I am so not going to another wedding at that godforsaken place. Not when that psycho is gonna be there," I spat, a fresh set of tears rising up.

After a momentary pause, West softly continued, "You do know, right, that it's not your fault what happened?" His words made me realise how desperately I needed to hear them. "But right now, what you need to be is brave."

I closed my eyes to stop tears from rolling out. "I'm not brave, West. Never been."

"What makes you a wimp, then?" he asked, tearing up a blade of grass like me.

I thought for a moment. "I'm afraid of a lot of things. Dude, I don't know what to tell you. I'm, like, the soft couch potato who's occasionally a bitch."

He chuckled lightly, melodiously. "I read this off P*******t, but, there's great courage in being soft." I weighed the depth of the words. "You're gonna go to that wedding, and you're gonna face your fears and teach him a lesson, because life is just too short to be busy feeling guilty. Okay?"

"I can't," my voice broke in half.

Adamant, he continued, "Yes, you can. You know when the Sorting Hat placed Neville in Gryffindor?" I nodded weakly, slightly amused at how regular he seemed when dropping Harry Potter reference. "That same fat kid slayed a snake seven years later. You're the Neville, Rashid. You can slay your snake, and you will."

"It's slew." I sniffed.

"Huh?"

"Slew a snake, not slayed."

"You're fucking hopeless."

We lay still for five more minutes until tinges of indigo were beginning to appear on the sky, which had until then looked like a child's scribbles in purple and pink crayons on her mom's bedroom wall. I got up. "It's getting dark, I should head home. And don't think that I forgot. You're gonna tell me shit too."

Getting to his feet, West smiled lazily. "Wish you forgot."

Beginning to walk towards home, I paused after a few steps to turn around to find him gazing after me. "Noche, West."

"West. Call me West." At my puzzled look, he elaborated, "If I had a first name, we'd be on a first name basis by now. Let's pretend that I do."

I came to the conclusion that you can hate a person and like him at the same time. Either that, or high school finally has me going nuts.

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