January arrived quietly.
The snow didn't stop falling for days. By the second morning the streets were white, cars buried under frost, and school was cancelled for a whole week.
Abdullah didn't mind.
He went outside all bundled up with his brother, boots crunching against the frozen ground.
"Here, catch!"
Ali threw a snowball straight at him.
Abdullah turned around quickly, scooping up a handful of snow and squeezing it tight until it packed into a solid ball. Then he chucked it back.
It smacked Ali in the shoulder.
"Oh you're dead now," Ali said, already reaching down for more snow.
The two of them kept going for a while, ducking behind the garden wall and firing snowballs at each other.
At one point Abdullah tried sprinting to dodge one.
His foot hit a patch of ice.
He slipped and landed flat in the snow.
Ali burst out laughing.
Abdullah sat there for a moment, stunned, before he started laughing too.
The next day Tomek came over.
The two of them gathered as much snow as they could from the garden.
"This shit is so heavy, help me," Abdullah said, struggling to roll a massive snowball across the yard.
After nearly two hours of freezing fingers and slipping boots, they finally managed to build a snowman.
It leaned slightly to the side but stood proudly in the middle of the garden.
"We should get John," Tomek said.
"Yeah, let's go."
The two of them walked to John's house. The footpath was so icy that they had to watch every step carefully.
When John came outside they caught up immediately, the three of them talking as they walked back through the cold air.
Abdullah leaned over and threw his arm over John's shoulder.
"Oh my God bro," Abdullah said suddenly. "You have a dent in your collarbone that fits my arm perfectly."
John rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, probably from all the times you did that. I swear you deformed me."
"Those walks back in primary school were hell," Abdullah added.
"Yeah," John laughed. "And I had your big ah on me the whole time."
Eventually they made it back to Abdullah's house, where the three of them continued fighting in the snow like little kids again.
For a while, it almost felt like nothing had changed.
The next couple days went by the same for Abdullah.
Snowball fights. Walking around with John and Tomek. Laughing about random things.
Like the old days.
One afternoon Abdullah walked John back down the road.
"It was fun, John," Abdullah said. "Like the old days again."
"Yeah," John replied. "Back to school now, I suppose."
They said goodbye and went their separate ways.
As Abdullah walked home alone, the silence slowly wrapped around him.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
The snow crunched beneath his feet as he walked.
Left alone with nothing but his thoughts.
He shoved his hands deeper into his jacket.
"I wish I could go back to those days, Mr. Eric," he murmured quietly. "I wonder how you're doing."
When Abdullah stepped into the house, the familiar chaos greeted him.
Ali yelling at someone through his Xbox headset.
One of his sisters crying about something.
His other sister arguing loudly.
And his mom in the kitchen going on about how they all drove her mad.
Abdullah closed the door behind him.
Home again.
Eventually school started again.
During lunch Abdullah walked over to Erop.
"Yo, when are those lessons on? Are they back on yet?"
"Yeah," Erop said. "There's one this Friday."
"Alright. I'll come."
"You should," Erop said with a grin. "It's fun."
When Friday finally came Abdullah arrived early.
He walked into the gym quietly, unsure where to stand.
The coach was a man in his forties named JJ — a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
"Alright everyone, warm up," JJ called.
Abdullah's hands felt clammy.
He watched the others carefully as they moved across the mats.
Shrimping. Rolling. Stretching.
"Don't mess it up," Abdullah muttered to himself.
When it was his turn, he tried copying the movements.
He butchered most of them.
His timing was off.
His balance was worse.
He struggled just to keep up.
JJ eventually walked over and showed him the movement personally.
"Like this," the coach said patiently.
Abdullah nodded, trying again.
Everyone else seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
Abdullah felt like the outsider.
Later he paired up with Erop.
"I actually couldn't stop laughing watching you do the warm up," Erop said.
Abdullah sighed.
"Don't worry," Erop added. "Everyone's shit at it at first. You get better over time."
Throughout the rest of the session Erop helped him figure things out.
Slowly Abdullah started to get the hang of it.
After class Erop spoke again.
"You wanna come work out in the gym with me and my dad?"
"You guys can do that?"
"Yeah, but we need an adult there. That's why my dad comes."
Abdullah shrugged.
"Alright."
Inside the small gym area Erop explained things.
"There's three staple movements," he said. "Deadlift, squat, and bench press. We'll start with learning the form."
Then he looked at Abdullah.
"How much do you think you can bench?"
"Well… I don't know," Abdullah said. "I'm like eighty kilos so maybe forty?"
Erop laughed.
"Trust me. You're not gonna do that starting off. Just do the bar first."
Abdullah lay down on the bench and lifted the empty bar.
It was heavier than he expected, but manageable.
He managed eight clean reps.
"Can we do thirty kilos?" Abdullah asked.
"Alright, if you're sure," Erop said. "The bar's twenty though."
He pointed to the markings.
"Keep your pinky on the little mark on the bar so your grip's even."
Abdullah nodded.
He lifted the bar again.
The first four reps were alright.
Then it got heavy.
By the sixth rep his arms were shaking and his head felt like it might burst.
He barely pushed out the seventh before racking the bar.
"Alright, let's do something else now," Abdullah said, breathing hard.
"Maybe stick to the bar, buddy," Erop replied.
Abdullah sat up.
"How much do you bench?"
"Like sixty kilos for reps."
Abdullah stared at him.
"What the hell? That's crazy."
He hated feeling like the weakest person in the room.
But for once, that feeling didn't make him want to quit.
It made him want to improve.
A few days later Abdullah was at a sleepover at Tomek's house.
They got comfortable on the couch, the PS4 turned on and snacks scattered across the table.
First they watched YouTube.
Try Not To Laugh videos.
"Don't laugh, Abdullah," Tomek warned.
The second the words left his mouth Abdullah burst out laughing.
"Bro just shut up," Tomek said. "The video wasn't even funny. You made me laugh."
Later Tomek opened OmeTV.
Abdullah didn't want to talk to strangers though.
Tomek kept pointing the camera at Abdullah anyway.
The reactions came instantly.
"Ew."
"What the fuck is that thing?"
"Biggie."
"Bro you're fat as fuck."
"There's something called a salad if you've heard of one."
Abdullah tried pushing the camera away.
Eventually he hid under the covers.
"Okay, enough OmeTV," Tomek said. "Let's do something else."
Abdullah sat on a chair and noticed a puppet sitting on the shelf.
He picked it up.
Soon he started moving it around, making random gestures and voices.
Tomek started laughing.
Abdullah began telling a story through the puppet.
The first story was short and dumb.
Then a second one about a boy who was really stupid.
Tomek laughed harder.
Then Abdullah's mind went blank.
He stared at the puppet in his hand.
What's my story?
"Do you wanna hear a third story?" Abdullah asked.
"Sure," Tomek said, still smiling.
Abdullah moved the puppet slowly.
"There was a kid," he began, "who was naive and dumb but had a big heart."
"He didn't know how to make friends or talk to people very well. But he wanted them anyway."
"He was really lonely most of the time."
"Sometimes he even cried."
Tomek stopped laughing.
"But eventually he made two good friends," Abdullah continued quietly.
"And they stayed with him."
"One day though, the boy's grandmother passed away. And it broke him."
"He tried to keep smiling and laughing. He tried to make everyone else laugh too."
"And he realised something."
"When he was happy and goofy, everyone liked him."
"But somewhere along the line he couldn't keep acting like that."
"And when he stopped… he realised something else."
"No one truly liked him."
"They laughed at him. Not with him."
"He spent so long trying to fix everyone else… that he forgot how to fix himself."
Abdullah slowly lowered the puppet.
He looked up at Tomek.
Tomek wasn't smiling anymore.
His expression had gone serious.
Their eyes met.
Abdullah suddenly felt uncomfortable.
Like daggers were being thrown through the silence.
Is he going to say something? Abdullah thought.
But Tomek just kept looking.
"Wanna play something?" Abdullah asked quickly.
"Yeah," Tomek said after a moment. "Sure."
Soon the sleepover ended.
And just like that the month was already coming to an end.
Abdullah felt like time had suddenly started moving faster again.
"If only the school could just burn to the ground," he muttered one evening.
"Or the snow kept going for a few more weeks."
He stared out the window.
"Looks like January's already over."
"That went by"
fast...