Unraveling and Entangling

chapter 8

Pat was lost in his thoughts and hadn’t noticed when Pa came and sat beside him on the bed. “What are you thinking about, Hia?”
“Huh” He was so lost in his own mind that he didn’t even hear what Pa said or when she came in?
“I asked what are you thinking about?” She looked up at him through her huge glasses, looking concerned.
He smiled at her reassuringly and ruffled her hair. “Nothing serious, just about school and stuff.”
It was evident from her face that she didn’t believe him in the slightest. “Hia, can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead. You know you can talk to me about anything.”
“How do you know if you like someone?”
“Oohhhh looks like my little sister is not so little anymore. Have you fallen for someone?” he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“Hiiiaaaaa! Don’t tease me. Leave it. I’ll ask my friends then.” she said as she made to leave.
“Okay, okay, I'll be serious now. But why are you asking how to know if you like someone? Shouldn’t you be asking how to know if the other person likes you?” Pat asked, making Pa sit back down.
“That is for later. Right now I’m confused about my own feelings. Do you even know anything about this topic?” She looked at him with narrowed eyes.
“Of course I know. I’m older than you and I know everything.” Pa doubled over laughing at that and Pat couldn’t see what was so funny about it.
“Do you want my help or not?” Pat asked grumpily.

She apologised and asked him to continue. Pat had to take a minute to think about it. He had never considered this before. It was simple for him when it came to liking someone. He just knew.
“When you like someone, you start looking for them everywhere.” he started slowly. “You want to make them smile every chance you get, want to make them happy. You start looking for ways to stay close to them. You want to take care of them, protect them from harm. It hurts you too if they are hurting.” Pat looked forlorn as he said the last part.

“Hia are you sure we feel this way only for the person we like and not for someone who we want to be just friends with?” Pa looked at him with an expression he couldn’t categorise properly. Was she intrigued or was she trying to tell him something?

Pat took another minute to think about it and that’s when it hit him. He had never felt this way for any of the girls that he thought he liked in the past. Huh. He tried to think about Ink and whether he felt any of the things he said for her. He sure wanted to see her happy and smiling and looked for ways to stay close to her but he didn’t think he felt protective over her. He cared for her but did he want to take care of her? He wasn’t so sure of his feelings for her anymore. Did he like her as a friend all this while?

He was still deep in his thoughts when Pa mentioned Pran’s name. He diverted his attention back to his sister and what she was saying. “Looks like P’Pran is playing his guitar.” Pa said looking out of the window. Pat looked over and sure enough Pran was sitting at his desk with the guitar in his lap. He looked lost in the music, stopping sometimes to write something down in his notebook. It must be the same notebook that he used to write their song in. The notebook that has Pat’s name in it with a heart next to it.

It felt like ages ago when they both sat on that picnic bench and wrote a song together. Pran was different back then, more open to Pat and his friendship. He wasn’t sure what happened the night of the christmas concert when he found Pran crying in his room. His heart had ached seeing Pran like that. He hadn’t been able to keep himself from holding Pran close while he calmed down. He wanted to take away whatever was hurting Pran as it hurt him too. But as soon as Pran got ahold of himself, he had thrown Pat out of his room and that had hurt too. But that was just the beginning of the hurt for Pat as Pran pretended he didn’t even know him after that night. He had spent weeks trying to get a word out of him by any means but ended up unsuccessful every time. He tried to cross over into his room almost every other day just to find his window tightly shut and locked. It wasn’t until Pran had gotten injured that Pat could finally go over to his room and then again he had ruined his chance to talk to Pran by thinking the unthinkable thoughts.

Were the thoughts that unthinkable? Was it so wrong to look at Pran’s lips? Maybe it was now, when Pran was thinking about dating someone else. Pat felt like he was going to miss a huge chance here as he was looking across the house at the other boy. He needed to figure out what exactly that chance was before he lost it.

Why was everything so complex when it came to Pran? He couldn’t talk to anyone about what was going through his mind and he didn’t want to wallow in sadness all day so when Pa asked him to accompany her to the mall the next Saturday, he agreed. He needed to have something to entertain him and keep his mind sane.

What he didn’t know was that Ink was accompanying them too. He didn’t mind though. He felt much more comfortable with her now that he figured out that he liked her only as a friend. They went through store after store looking for girl’s clothes and he tried giving his opinion when asked but was mostly keeping to himself.

Pa and Ink decided to go to one last store before they got food but Pat was getting tired so Ink suggested he went ahead to the pancake shop and both of them would join him there in a while. With that, she grabbed Pa’s hand and dragged her to the last store on their list leaving Pat alone to carry on.

As he reached outside the pancake shop, he saw Pran inside seemingly on a date with the guy that Pat recognised from the pictures he saw on Ink’s phone. He stood frozen on the spot. The guy was really handsome with dark brown hair that matched Pran’s beautiful eyes. He seemed charming too by the smile on Pran’s face. He was making Pran laugh? Maybe he was the right person for Pran. Pat felt his heart break. Apparently everyone could make Pran laugh except Pat.

This was exactly the wallowing he wanted to avoid so he decided to just go on with his day as if he hadn’t seen anything. But instead of choosing somewhere else to eat, his legs took him inside without his conscious command. Since he was already inside and Pran hadn't noticed him yet, maybe he could just sit in a corner and eat his pancakes and be done with the day.

While standing in line at the counter, he looked back at their table and saw the other guy touching Pran’s hand. Pran’s smile faltered. He was clearly uncomfortable. How could this guy not see it? Pran didn’t like it when people he barely knew touched him. Pat decided not to intervene. Pran could handle this himself. He ordered his pancakes and took an empty table towards the back so he was out of Pran’s direct view. But made sure that he was sitting facing Pran so he could have a look at Pran’s face at all times in case he needed help.

The conversation seemed to flow seamlessly between them so they must have gotten to know each other well through texts, maybe even calls. Pat tried remembering his name but even a thorough search of his brain came up empty. Now the date was trying to feed Pran a bite of his pancake. Didn’t this guy know how to read people’s body language because Pran was clearly uncomfortable again as he awkwardly declined the offered bite. Was it too difficult to see that Pran didn’t want to eat from the same fork that the other was eating with? He liked his utensils clean and would never share someone else’s saliva coated fork.

Pran took a bite of his own pancake and he looked so cute while eating. Pat couldn’t take his eyes off of him. He had a little whipped cream on the corner of his mouth and the guy moved his hand to wipe it off. That was it for Pat. Nobody touched Pran’s lips. Pran might be too nice to say anything but Pat could sense it from a mile away that the guy was making his Pran really uncomfortable. He got up immediately and walked up to their table. Pran’s eyes landed on him and widened as soon as he realized where Pat was headed. His hands froze mid movement where he was trying to deflect his date’s hand away from his face. Finally sensing something from Pran’s reaction, the guy turned around to see where he was looking.