Too Much Time (LGBTQ Fiction) ✓

the mind knows best.

Everyday was a devoir of a logical sequel of the preceding day. I'd start my day where I had left off. The void in me grew greater in size.

College would resume in two months and I was hauling the anxiety of it.

Summer had ended, the monsoons had begun. Gazing outside the window wasn't really feasible because the rain would depart from the window's lineation and fall upon me.

Satvik came over less frequently. I went to his house on a clear day asking his mother about him. She had told me that he had caught a cold. I had asked her, if I could see him. She had reluctantly agreed. I made my way upstairs and in to a solitary bedroom, harboring a plain white door for entrance.

"Mom?" Satvik enquired, his eyes were closed.

"No. It's me." I curtly replied. I was awkward, in a manner that was so apparent. As though, I just didn't know what to do with my existence.

Satvik sniffed, pulling his hand out from the quilt that was wrapped upon him, all the way up his neck. He reached out for the tissues box on his bedside table. Sitting up, Satvik brought crammed tissues to his nostrils and squeezed the gunk out. 

"Hi." He said. I tentatively neared him and sat on the edge of his bed. I didn't know my way around here. This was the first time that I'd ever come to his room. I'd been to his house often but never his bedroom. I was worried that I might be intruding into his private space.

"Are you okay?" I asked and I immediately regretted it. Why would I ask him that? He wasn't okay. Obviously.

Satvik stared off at the roof vent on the corner in the ceiling. I followed his eyes. He was dazed and probably in a state of confusion as well. His unfocused eyes were dilatory.

"Why are you sick?" I asked him. I just never really knew what to say.

"I got wet."

"In the rain?" I wanted to hit my head against something. Why did I ask him that.

The air had turned dark. It felt like something ominous was dawdling above me.

"Mmhm".

I looked down, not really sure about what to say or where to look. I could feel his hot body belching on me. He was also running a fever.

"You don't go out much. How come you got wet in the rain?"

Satvik's eyes finally turned to look at me. Sheathing silence filled spaces between us.

My back was hunched and my fingers intertwined. I stared at the roof vent that he had been staring at before. I'd never known roof vents to be this wide. I wondered if that was how Satvik climbed atop his roof every night.

"Nibaal?"

"Yes."

"Remember how you asked if I was happy?"

I hummed in response.

"It's boring, isn't it?"

"What is?" I asked him, I knew exactly what he meant. But I let him talk, because he barely ever did. And his voice deserved all the monopoly in my mind.

"All this free time. When college starts, something else will replace time and cause boredom. Aren't you tired of living the same day?"

"Did you climb up the roof again, even in the rain?" I hadn't answered him. I was just waiting for a more overpowering realization to break open my denial. I continued, in an accusatory tone, "You can't climb roofs in the rains! It's dangerous! What if you fell?"

Satvik closed his eyes. My own eyes had begun to water, I was afraid that loud sobs would dodge outside my caged heart.

"I'd rather have the rain push me."

It broke my heart. I'd seen him up on the roof so many times, and it took this one moment to confirm my cerebrations. I didn't want Satvik to loom dangerously over a tiny spaced ridge on a high rooftop and wait for something to force him out in to a falling and a ceaseless oblivion. Because, I liked him so much. I wanted him to stay.

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