One Summer I Dreamt | ✓

House No. 120

The first thing I ever noticed about him was his hair. I noticed that it was the prettiest head of hair I had ever seen. I also noticed that there was too much of it, and all of it was messy like he had been running his hand through it repeatedly. It looked soft and thick, and I knew immediately that one day I would run my hands through it, too, hopefully, as repeatedly as he had.

I had just come back home from a party and was dressed in my best; black dress, black heels, hoops, open hair and as I was buying packet after packet of Punjabi Tadka from the doodhwala to binge eat later while studying Accountancy I could feel that his eyes were on me. Confident that I looked pretty but still overcome with nervousness, I took out my phone and texted my friend even though I knew she was asleep just so I would have something to do, other than avoiding his gaze.

As soon as I had my snacks in his hands, and the money had exchanged hands, I began to walk back towards my house, when I heard his voice.

"Uncle, please give a packet of butter and dahi. How much?"

Before I knew it, I was turning back. His voice was extraordinarily deep; so much so that I couldn't believe it could come from anyone's mouth, let alone from someone who looked as young as he did.

It was as if he knew I was going to do that; for he immediately made eye contact and grinned, all thirty-two teeth showing. It was the most beautiful grin I had ever seen, and overwhelmed, nearly taken over by the urge to grin back, I held myself and ran into my house.

I had been here two years and I felt sure that he had just come to visit someone, for I would've noticed someone like him before. I watched through the space in the bars of the gate in my home, and as he entered the house directly to the left of mine, a spiky thrill of fear went through me. This was the fastest I had ever developed a crush on someone, and I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and prayed fiercely for him to be as old as I was, determined to find out.

~*~

Sunday dawned bright and early. I had slept late the night before, telling all my friends about the cute boy in the neighbourhood. My mom woke me up and handed me the container to bring in the milk.

I stuffed my feet into my sister's slippers, a size too small for me, tied my hair into a bun with hair pointing out from all sides, rubbed my eyes which were still stained with last night's eyeliner and walked out in my tattered pyjamas, looking properly homeless, ready to conquer the world for my mom.

With the pateela in hand, I ran out of the house, skipped over a dirty puddle created in the morning when my dad was washing the cars, and then stopped when I looked up.

To my utter surprise and horror, the boy from last night — whose name I still didn't know (I had named him House Number 120 since that was his house number) stood there beside the milk truck with the same kind of pateela in his hand, gawking at me shamelessly. I looked at him and sighed, then continued walking towards the truck.

I wondered if he knew I was the same girl from last night, but it was darker then and the morning light highlighted all of my flaws like they were the only thing I had.

Left without options, I sighed and moved to stand with him. I stood on my toes to offer up my container to the milkman for milk, watching out of the corner of my eye as 120 did the same, except without standing on his toes because he was taller than I was.

I picked up the container carefully, now full of milk, so that it wouldn't fall down so I wouldn't draw any extra attention to myself. Without looking at him again, as fast as I could in my twenty-sizes-too-small slippers, I ran home to obsess over how badly I had embarrassed myself.