Suffering

At the beginning of the evening she had thought exactly the same thing. But as it turned out, for the most part it had been nice to chat with her old companions.

"W-do we want to sit down at one of the pools over there?", Suggested Sanjay as a substitute and pointed to one of the paddling pools a little further on the edge of the area, where a small group of guests was in the mood for optimism.

"Gladly," agreed Sabine and made her way through the crowd on Sanjay's back.

In doing so, she suddenly realized how surreal this situation was that she was in right now.

She and Sanjay had been neighbors and thus more or less sandpit friends. Zoe and Elvira had had a very good relationship with the Patel family from the start. Nothing was more obvious than sharing the burdens of being a parent and always having breakfast together for the expenses of the children of the same age. Because suffering shared was still suffering half. So it happened that Sanjay and Sabine not only shared the same school classes, but also spent time in each other's house for supervision purposes.

However, by the time they were fourteen and in eighth grade, the Patels had left Germany and moved to England. Sanjay's father, Rajneesh Patel, had worked diligently for years in the Indian embassy in Germany until one day he was finally offered the position of ambassador to England. Unfortunately, he didn't think twice about it and spontaneously grabbed his wife Ankita, Sanjay and his sister Sita and started a new life in England. She had never heard from Sanjay or the Patels since then. He had been swallowed up by the earth. At that time, social media was not yet widespread and Sanjay did not use it in the following years, as Sabine had checked in the meantime. And calls abroad without today's flat rates were damn expensive.

When she thought back to the farewell, a nervous feeling awoke in her stomach even today.

It had been a sunny Friday afternoon during the summer vacation. Sabine had sat in the tree house in her garden and devoured the first volume of the Twilight saga - thanks to the film adaptation of the novel, it was later absolutely hyped . Vampire Edward had missed Erik's optics in her mind's eye, of course, and so it was all the easier for her to understand Bella's feelings for this boy, who at first had not treated him flatteringly. All in an attempt to get rid of his burgeoning feelings. Sabine dreamed that Erik might have felt the same with her. That he only tormented her with his words because he did not want to admit that he loved her in the depths of his black, putrid heart as much as she loved him.

As she was daydreaming, the Patels' move was in full swing. Zoe and Elvira had been busy packing and helping to move the furniture into the moving van.

"Bine? Dd-may I r-up kk-come? ", Suddenly Sanjay's voice rang out and pulled Sabine right out of the story.

She stuck her head out the entrance and saw Sanjay standing at the foot of the ladder, looking up at her.

"Sure," she replied moderately enthusiastic, fished in the pillow for her bookmark and put the book aside. She sighed softly. Why was he bothering now of all times? Edward was just about to rescue Bella from the clutches of the shady guys who had been waiting for her in front of the library. Sanjay really couldn't have chosen a more inopportune time.

His head appeared in the doorway and he crawled next to her some distance away. He wore a frog green T-shirt and shorts.

"You are la-la-loading the last, the last things", he informed her, "W-we are a-so we-we-gone."

Sabine took a quick look at her wristwatch, which was pressing a little into her flesh thanks to the bloated skin from the summer heat. She had sat up here reading a lot longer than she had thought. The big farewell was imminent.

She didn't think that she would miss Sanjay and his sister, who was two years younger than him, terribly once they were gone. Although both had been an integral part of her life for over a decade and she had liked them both, they had never been the very best of friends. Especially not from the point in time when they had first reached the age at which the opposite sex was found absolutely stupid. And now that they were the age at which you developed confusing feelings about the opposite sex, it hadn't gotten any easier. The childlike light-heartedness in dealing with each other had simply been lost over the years.

“Then it will be time to say goodbye”, Sabine assessed the situation logically and fiddled with her self-made Scoubidou friendship bracelet. Actually, the straps were better suited as key rings, but with a little skill you could make a small bracelet with them.

"Yes," Sanjay agreed and smiled tightly.

“It'll be weird for sure when you're gone. Who knows what kind of people will move in there after you? "

Because not all residents in the immediate vicinity got along as well with a lesbian couple as the extremely good-humored, tolerant Patels. Far too often Sabine felt the crooked looks directed at herself and the others when Zoe and Elvira walked hand in hand across the street or even exchanged tenderness in public. Of course, Sabine didn't want to see the latter either, but that went without saying.

"We w-will-definitely miss you too."

They exchanged a longer look. Only then did Sabine realize that Sanjay had really beautiful eyes. Brown, deep, warm and fringed with thick eyelashes.

"I have a-what-f-for you," he then announced, rummaged in his pocket and held out a blue and white striped yo-yo.

Sabine took it in her hand and examined it briefly before she wanted to give it back to him.

“That's your favorite yo-yo. I can not accept that."

Sanjay raised his hands in defense.

"I don't-need it anymore", he clarified, "Besides, I h-have-enough of-others."

Sabine thought for a moment. As much as he played with the things for years, he probably really had a lot of wear and tear and accordingly enough spare yo-yos in stock.

"Okay. Then thank you very much. I will keep it in honor. Even if you know that I cannot operate the part. "

To give her words even more expression, she let the yo-yo run down the ribbon. It ran up and down again, but then only came back halfway and then finally stopped curling up. Sanjay smiled at this pathetic attempt. He could keep the yo-yo running for hours if he wanted and also perform little tricks with the part.

"You c-can n-practice a little," he said encouragingly.

Sabine made a mocking sound before she nodded and unrolled the yo-yo manually and stowed it in her own pocket.

"Bine ?! Is Jay with you? ", Elvira called from the patio door," Please send him down. Ankita and Raj want to go. "

"Yes-ha!", Sabine called back and looked at Sanjay a little sadly. "Well, so ... what do you say best in a moment like this?", She thought and scratched her ear, "I guess, goodbye."

She raised her hand in greeting, twisted her mouth indecisively, and shrugged her shoulders.

Suddenly Sanjay seemed somehow sad to her. As if at that moment it really became clear to him that they would probably never meet again.

"Ddd-may I-I ..." he began with a heavy stutter, closed his eyelids for a second and took a deeper breath before trying again. "W-would it-be okay if I-u-hug you?"

Sanjay looked at her both shyly and hopefully. Sabine hesitated for a moment, but then nodded in agreement. After all, there was nothing against it from her side.

A smile so warm and loving that it was unparalleled shone on his face and automatically conjured up a small smile on Sabine's lips.

Encouraged, Sanjay moved closer to her, put his arms around her shoulders and hugged her. Sabine was hugging the middle of his slim body and briefly wondered if it felt strange for him to have to hug her much stronger body in return, for which she was once more ashamed in moments like this. Already after the first three seconds she realized that this wasn't a normal hug. Sanjay didn't seem to want to move away from her too soon. Since she didn't want to offend him, she just kept on holding him.

“You're a nice M-girl, bi-bine. II-I-always-liked-you very much, "he said and added a little more quietly," Vi-much m-more than you-you suspect. "

Sabine's heart got out of step with his words. Sanjay broke the hug, but stayed close to her and looked deep into her eyes. A few seconds passed without anyone moving. Then finally Sanjay leaned over to her, closed his eyes and put his lips on hers in an innocent kiss. At that moment Sabine's head was as if swept empty.

"L-Farewell, Sa-Sabine," he said quietly after the kiss was over, got up and went down the ladder.

Sabine sat there, perplexed, while she tried to realize what was happening. Sanjay had just kissed her like that. That was her first real fucking kiss with a boy! Actually, she had wanted to give Erik this honor, but if she had waited for it, she would probably have entered the school anals as an unkissed high school graduate.

Her heart was still beating to her throat. It had passed too quickly. But it had also felt new and exciting and good. That was definitely something she wanted to do more than once. But the only boy who was ready to kiss her would be gone forever in a few minutes. It couldn't be true!

Sabine awoke from her shock and slipped to the exit.

"Jay! She called after him. He was halfway across the garden, but stopped now and turned to face her.

As gracefully and quickly as her unsportsmanlike body allowed, she climbed down the rungs and walked towards him.

"Why did you do that?" She asked a little out of breath.

Sanjay looked confused about her question.

"You didn't-didn't-like it, did you?" He guessed, bent and pressed the toe of his shoe against the lawn.

“I didn't say that,” she said, still standing next to her, “but it came as a very surprise to me. That's all."

His face immediately cleared up a little.

"I can-d-keep you in b-good memory," he confessed, embarrassed.

"Me too," she agreed.

They looked at each other and little by little the typical, every heart-warming beam man smile spread on his face. As if the sun was literally rising in it.

When his mother Ankita called him again from afar, the two nodded to each other with a smile, before Sanjay turned on his heel and pulled away without turning around again. His enchanting and absolutely unique smile was the last thing she should see of him, before he disappeared almost without a trace from her life and over time also from her thoughts.