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Oh god, no. No.
‘Where?’ she asked, her body tensing immediately.
‘The email … the one I sent to you just before we were leaving for college,’ he said casually.
Koyal’s heart was thumping.
‘[email protected]?’ He grinned. ‘Remember the email ID I created for you? Your first?’
‘Yes.’
‘Those were the days’ said Atharv, a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Internet was new and email was a fad. Can you imagine that now?’ And then he paused as it all begant to sink in. ‘You read that email, right?’ he asked, trying hard to keep his voice casual.
‘No…’ she whispered, the horror in her voice apparent, her face white now. ‘I never read that email.’
Atharv’s face lost colour in one second. He stared at her as if he had seen a ghost.
‘I … I … need to…’ and now tears were hindering speech, ‘I … really … need to see that email…’
‘You still use the ID?’
‘No, I haven’t touched it … since…’ Koyal stared blankly at Atharv.
‘Since I created the email ID,’ Atharv finished, his face white. ‘Mansha,’ he said, turning to his daughter, ‘run and get my Mac, please?’
In a matter of seconds the laptop appeared and Atharv quickly opened his email.
‘You can see it in my outbox … I know it’s there. God knows how many times I have read it.’
And with that he turned the laptop so that she was looking at the screen.
‘Now read,’ he said slowly as Koyal stared at the screen, unblinking.
Dear Koyal,
I know that ‘forever’ means different things. We leave for Delhi tomorrow and I think this is the right time to finally say what I have forever wanted to say – should have said years ago.
Koyal, you are my best friend, and while I am not too sure about what love is, if it includes things like wanting to spend every minute with that person, caring more for that person than for anyone else, thinking of that person every waking second then, well, I think I am in love with you.
I wish I could be all cool about it, but the truth is, I am just very soppy about it, you, and us.
However, between my love for you and our friendship, I value our friendship a lot more and would not, for the world, want anything to change.
And hence this letter.
We are meeting tomorrow under the imli tree for one last dinner before Delhi and if you feel that you love me too, say something, just mention this email and I will know … If you don’t, then please just forget this email. Pretend you never got it. And I promise I will behave like I never wrote it.
Our friendship is the most important thing to me and I promise if you don’t have similar feelings for me, I will do all that is in my power to keep things between us the way they have been forever.
Atharv
I felt Atharv loved me because he did, thought Koyal to herself and she felt an unimaginable weight lift off her shoulder.
‘So you never read this?’ he asked slowly, the meaning sinking in.
Koyal shook her head.
‘When you never said anything that night under the imli tree … I … I…’ Atharv left the sentence incomplete. ‘And then in Delhi I met Nili…’
