Birds || Fuenciado

Chapter 29: 'Till the Sun Burns Out

Rolly pads across the grass, meowing softly as he comes to us in search of attention, and at the sound the sparrows that had been feasting on the bird seed not too far away from us take off in a flurry of feathers, heading for the tree at the bottom of the garden, and Jaime scoffs.

"Rolly!" He scolds as the cat waddles over, head-butting his hand in search of attention. Jaime scoffs, shaking his head, and scratches the cat behind his ears and then runs his hand from head to tail a few times. "You frightened them away, you silly cat."

"Daft sod," I chuckle, reaching for the pack of bird seed in his lap and renewing the pile the sparrows had previously been attacking before sitting back down on the picnic blanket. It's closing in on the end of February, and the Sun is starting to get a little bit warmer and brighter, bathing us in some of the light and warmth that always seems to emerge on the other side of a nasty winter storm.

"Go on, Rolly," Jaime says after a while, stopping petting him and waving him away. "Go on, shoo! I'll give you hugs later. If you stay here those birds are never coming back. Not that you're at all agile enough to catch any of them. You know how cats have that habit of bringing dead mice and birds to your doorstep as some kind of morbid present?"

"Yeah."

"Rolly's never done that because he's too unfit to catch them."

I laugh, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun as I look over at where a sparrow has returned, safe now that Rolly has padded away. "I've never related to a cat more."

"Ha! You run, don't you?"

"Yeah," I shrug. "But I haven't been running in a while. There's been too much going on. But maybe I'll go on Saturday."

"Are you going back to work on Sunday or not?"

"Not. I'm going back to the doctor to get some more time signed off. Just so I can be sure, let everything settle down completely. But I think we're going to get through this."

"I knew you all would," he nods.

Three sparrows have come down to eat now, and Jaime slowly, carefully reaches out and pours out a second pile of seeds a little closer to us before sprinkling a line from it onto the picnic blanket, leaving a third pile just a few centimetres away from where we sit.

One of the sparrows breaks away from the group, hopping along the line of seeds, hoovering some up but aiming mostly for the second pile of seeds.

"I just want to thank you," I say quietly, keeping my voice down so as not to startle the little brown bird. Across from me, Jaime, who sits cross legged on the blanket, tilts his head.

"What for?"

"Where do I even start?" I chuckle. "Mike is going to Infinity Project twice a week, because you came up with it. He's going to get private tutoring in two subjects from Andrew, because you mentioned it to him. I was able to work whilst he was still silent because your family offered to look after him. You've helped me learn about love the way you say I've helped you. Your best friend is dating my brother. You took me to New York. You stayed with me over Christmas and every time after when I felt alone and confused. None of these problems would be getting fixed now, if it wasn't for you. Thank you."

The sparrow tentatively hops forwards a fraction, starting to peck at the line of seeds, little feet buried in the unruly grass of Jaime's back garden. For a moment, he says nothing, and I think he's probably trying to find a way to say it was nothing, but eventually he seems to recognise that truly, this means a lot to me. So he just says; "you're welcome."

A beam of sunlight falls from behind a cloud and lands on the dazzling emerald ring on his finger, which reminds me of my own sapphire one. We will always return to each other, I say to myself as I look at them. The rings, connected by a thin, invisible thread, linking us together. If I put a hand on my heart, if I was very gentle I could probably feel the exact point where the string has tied onto me, and I could tug it a little, feel how it makes my insides go funny. It's neat, being in love, I have to say. And I'd wager, although Mike still isn't the most talkative and gets nervy about being touched, he would say the same. Since, of course, he and Tony said they loved each other this morning.