Stumbling Steps

25| seeing through each other

KEVIN:

Maya, Daris and I were sitting on the football bleachers wasting our time by doing nothing. We had a free period and Ly would have too if her art teacher hadn’t been absent for many days. Her art teacher was trying to wrap up their classes.

“Over 960 Million or more girls in the world and you fall in love with Blake?” Maya suddenly spoke, garnering both mine and Daris’s attention.

“Haven't met those 959,999,999 girls,” I quickly calculated in my mind. Maths wasn’t my subject but I got pretty good with the calculation while doing Physics. 

“Make it 958 cause you have met me,” She pointed out.

“Do you have a crush on me Maya?” I simply asked her but received a smack on my head from Daris. He was cursing at me through his eyes.

“Daris is a better person to have a crush on,” Maya unconsciously replied, forgetting for a nano second that the said person was there and when she realised her face was worth watching. For the record I witnessed both Maya and Daris blushing. Mental note to self to tell this to Ly later. “But Kevin, why Blake?”

Maya was quick to regain her composure. “Has anyone ever answered this question?” I asked as I stared in the void. Why would you love a specific person? “Because she feels like home. The place you can be comfortable at, the place where you can cry at hiding from everyone, the place that makes you feel warm, the place where you go to when things are hard. It’s what a home is, right? But home is made by people you adore and love. Without them it’s just a house. And the person I am the most comfortable with, whom I can secretly cry in front of, who makes me feel warm, the person I go to when everything is hard… It’s her,”

“And what if she never reciprocates?” This time the question was thrown at me by Daris. To think about it, this was the one thing Daris was most scared about. Due to this doubt it took Daris too long to confess to Maya. 

I shrugged, focusing over the sky now. “A lot of people's first love stays unrequited,”. Black clouds had started to gather around. Damn! I should have not forgotten the umbrella when I had not even brought my car today. The weather was already quite cold. If me and Ly went home showering in the rain we definitely would fall sick. 

“I can not see any of you in pain. You both are my friends,” I heard Maya’s whisper but I didn’t give any reply. Rest of our free period was wasted by us talking about different things. 

“Did you bring your car?” I asked Daris, noticing the black clouds all over the sky. It would start raining any minute now.

He nodded his head. “My grandmother warned me about the weather,”

“Oh! Mine too,” Maya quickly chided in excitement showing off her umbrella in her bag. The dreamy look they both shared had me stare at them. 

“My grandmother is dead,” I added and they both gave me an incredulous look. “I was just telling since you guys were talking about grandmothers. Though my mom told me to take an umbrella but I totally forgot,”

“Maybe Blake would have an umbrella,” Daris suggested and I shook my head. 

“She doesn’t keep an umbrella,” I told them and all of the sudden the sound of rain hit my ear. The best part of rain is that it always starts suddenly. All three of us adored the rain in front of us. It started off as a drizzle but it took no more than seconds to turn into a heavy downpour.

“Why?” Daris' tone was laced with curiosity and I smiled in response. 

“Because she knows I always keep one,”