‘Dude. Did you make these? My god, how long did it take you?’

It had taken Eram a month of fiddling with squirrelly design elements and experimenting with all the coloured paper he could find on Amazon, but he played it cool. ‘Oh, y’know. No biggie. Do you, uh, do you hate it? It’s cool if you do. I mean, you don’t have to say any—’

‘I love it.’ She rested her head on his chest in an awkward half-hug. ‘I love you.’

The clocks froze.

Eram could see the top of Gehna’s head, where her mad brown hair parted down to her scalp. He moved his hand to stroke her hair, but stopped himself. He even held his breath so his stomach wouldn’t move so much. He thought that the longer nothing disturbed the moment, the longer he could soak it in. It was the first time a girl had spoken words of love to him.

For Gehna too, it was a first. Not just the first time saying the words to a boy, but saying them at all. It had felt right in the moment, but Gehna was beginning to feel a horrible vulnerability, as if she suddenly wasn’t wearing any clothes. Through his cotton T-shirt, through the skin and muscle and bone beneath, she could feel the insistent pulse of his heart mirroring her own. The silence between them stretched for so long that she giggled.

‘What?’ Eram said.

‘I thought you’d fallen asleep.’

‘I didn’t. Frankly, I may never sleep again.’

‘Mm,’ Gehna mumbled. She rubbed her ticklish nose vigorously on Eram’s T-shirt sleeve. ‘Aren’t you supposed to say something? In the movies when a person says that to someone, then that someone always says something back.’

‘Right. But I always thought that was kind of lame. It’s like ordering a Coke at a restaurant. You order one, and suddenly everyone else at the table also orders one. I didn’t want you to think that I was saying it just because you said it.’

Gehna didn’t think that telling someone you loved them was anything like ordering a Coke at a restaurant. She raised her head to look at him. ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re weird?’

Her nose was pink and he couldn’t resist poking it with a fingertip. ‘Lots. Anyone ever tell you you’re going on a road trip to Goa?’

Gehna rolled off him and power-pumped her fist in the air. ‘Yes-s-s! Go-a, Go-a, Go . . . wait. What about your dad?’

Eram had made arrangements, alerting the neighbours that he would be away for a few days and asking them to pop in once in a while to say hello to Faizl. He had also hired Elango, a young guy from Kerala who was earning his way through med school by taking in-home care jobs, to stay over from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. every night that Eram was away.

‘It’ll be fine. He just needs someone to remind him to take his pills,’ he said. ‘He’ll be fine.’ Eram sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He had never left his father alone, and if ever he needed Faizl to be fine, it was now.