‘This feels like payback, to be honest.’ I swipe away a rogue tear of laughter. ‘At least now we’re even.’
Salman shakes his head but his face still breaks out into a grin and just like that, I feel it. A flicker of ease. For the first time since he got here, I feel .?.?. comfortable. For a moment, all the anger I feel towards him is forgotten.
Especially when he covers his face with his hands, a mixture between a groan and a laugh escaping him. ‘I really should stop trying to fix things, shouldn’t I?’
Immediately, I’m transported to summer two years ago. We were still friends at that point, with absolutely nothing romantic between us, but that was the day it all changed.
It had been just over a year since Baba passed away and we were in the garden hanging out, just the two of us, our other friends spending the summer in Bangladesh. We were sitting on the lawn, the grass freshly cut and slightly dewy with the evening mist. Salman was deep in focus, squinting at a piece of wood as he held it down against another piece of wood, hoping he’d put on enough glue this time and that they would stick together, that the wall wouldn’t suddenly collapse.
‘Are you done yet? She needs a safe space now,’ I’d said, looking down at the shoebox that held an injured bird. I’d found it on the front step that morning, and with Ma at work, I didn’t know who else to call for help but Salman. When he came over, he suggested building a little birdhouse for it until it had recovered and could fly away, so that’s exactly what we did. Wefound some bits of wood in the shed. They were uneven and lopsided, but they would have to do.
‘I’m trying, I’m trying,’ he had said. ‘Didn’t realise the bird had a move-in date set.’
I had tried to shoot him a stern look, but the corner of my mouth twitched with a smile instead. It was never easy to be mad at Salman. His charm and genuine warmth were impossible to ignore.
He worked away quietly at the house and I watched in awe as he assembled it. He had never built one before and was using his phone to search up various things as he went along. His fingers were sticky with glue and every once in a while, when he could tell I was worrying about the bird and its health, he’d press his fingers against my arm, the feel of the glue against my skin making me squeal, which in turn made him smile.
‘Do you think there’s anything else we can do? Other than building it a house and keeping it warm?’ I had asked, unable to look away from the bird for more than a minute, afraid of what might happen if I dared to.
‘I think that’s all we can do, Pops,’ Salman had said gently.
But I didn’t feel as comforted as I had hoped. ‘Do you really think it will be OK?’
He nodded and then softly said, ‘Yes.’
In that moment, although it did little to ease my anxieties, I let myself believe him. He kept working away, building this little house that I had asked of him, knowing it wasn’t really about the bird at all.
When he finally finished the birdhouse, placing the roof on top of the walls, I felt like I could breathe again. It didn’t magically heal the bird but when Salman beamed at me, proud of what he’d built, something was different between us.
For the first time, I felt safe. I felt seen by somebody I could see as a boyfriend.
Even when the birdhouse fell apart only seconds later, Salman groaning at the sight after all the hours he’d put in, I felt warm inside.
‘Maybe becoming Bob the Builder isn’t in my DNA,’ he’d joked.
It was at that moment I fell for him. He suddenly became more than just my best friend Salman. While Ma and my other friends had been trying to fix me, making me feel better by asking me to talk about Baba’s sudden death, Salman never had. He just let me be me and instead he showed up when I asked him to. He didn’t question my attachment to the bird I’d randomly found on my doorstep.
With Salman, I felt no pressure to have it all figured out.
And here he was again, fixing something I can’t, jumping in without a second thought and making a mess of himself in the process.
‘You OK?’ he asks, trying and failing to wipe away the stains on his top with a wet tea towel.
‘Fine,’ I say too quickly.
‘Well, good news: seems like the machine is working again.’ He points at the display screen that’s flashing with all the drinks again. ‘Bad news: looks like I might need to borrow Sadia’s jumper. You think it will suit me as well as it did you?’
I smile faintly as an easy grin appears on his lips.
‘I should get back,’ I say and leave the kitchen at the same time as he says, ‘What about your coffee?’
At my desk, my heart is racing with a million thoughts. How could the boy who built the birdhouse be the same person who broke my heart six months ago? And how could he be the same person who is now pretending that that never happened?
I’m snapped out of my thoughts by my phone buzzing on my desk.
Lipi
Wanna play some pickleball tonight?
