her fingers brushed his

He smiled as her fingers brushed his. Inside, he was happy. Joyful. He felt as if his mind were a haze, his life before this, he had been living in a fog, and now it had been blown away. He had been living life before in black and white, and now there was color. Dull, drab, boring. Now, it was significant, meaningful.

It did not matter that today was a stormy day. It did not matter that the sky above growled like a tiger who had been spurned his prey. It did not matter. Nothing mattered. She had smiled at him. Her fingers had brushed his. She was walking with him. She was the love of his life. He was thirteen. Nothing else mattered.

The playground was still crowded today. His heart thumped with joy, and with some repressed rage. He was going to kill that madarchod who had made her cry. When he had told her, he could not keep the anger out of his voice. He had tried to. Not to make her scared. But she had smiled. Her eyes had twinkled. That had given him further courage. He could smell the fog and the diesel, and hear the cars on the busy road outside, insistent, honking, wanting to drive their masters and mistresses to lunch and shopping. Respectively. He could almost taste the blood of the other boy. Inside him, a small scared voice tried to speak up. He brushed it away.

He walked, each step pounding down on the gravel and sand and mud and dirt, sometimes collapsing hard, sometimes sinking in, depending on the surface of the playground. He walked towards the bully and pushed him in the chest. Saad staggered backwards, blinking a few times. Sudden silence. All around them, everyone had stopped. Stopped swinging, stopped chattering, stopping munching. Stopping bullying others for lunch money. Stopped gossiping about the new drama. There was always drama. He had never been a part of it. Until now.

He had pushed Saad, what now. The voice spoke again, louder, urgently. Telling him to be afraid. He was not one of those people who fought others. He was small, and scrawny. He was not built like that. Was not built like Saad. Saad was big, and bulky. Perfect shape and size for a bully. He pushed that voice further down. But he was still confused. Now what. There was total silence around the playground. All eyes were on Saad. He had recovered from his daze and was now walking towards Altaf, a gleaming menace in his eyes. A leering smile on his ugly fat face. Altaf almost made to turn around and run. He would never come back to school. But then he saw her face. Beautiful sparkling eyes, worried smile. He turned around and steeled himself. The first punch came, it took the breath out of him, but instead of folding over, he returned one in kind, they kept on coming though. At some point, he was on the ground, being kicked in the stomach. Right before he blacked out, he felt them stop. Right before he blacked out, he saw her walk away.