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No, please please don’t go with Koyal.
‘Oh no, don’t worry about me. Go on and have fun!’ Kimberly said with a warm smile.
Atharv nodded and went back to his desk.
Atharv laughed as he walked into the deserted kitchen to pour himself another drink. He sat down at the table, the noise from his birthday party reaching him through closed doors. The cake had been cut and food was being served.
‘Thirty-nine!’ he exclaimed to himself. ‘Forty next year.’
A hurried knock on the window. Atharv turned. Koyal’s face was pressed against the window.
‘Koyal!’ he exclaimed, surprised, his face brightening as he rushed to open the window. ‘How come you are here? You said you could not make it!’
‘I cannot make it.’
‘What? You are here now,’ he said, bewildered.
‘I excused myself from the meeting. I have to go back.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
Atharv shook his head, this girl was making no sense.
‘Here. Happy birthday. I can’t stay,’ Koyal said, grinning as she pressed a small gift into Atharv’s hands.
Atharv grinned back as Koyal vanished from the window.
Here. Happy birthday. I cannot stay.
Slowly and still smiling, he unwrapped his gift and then stilled. It was the same Walkman he had gifted to Koyal on her twelfth birthday. ‘For old times’ sake,’ a little post-it said.
Here. Happy birthday. I cannot stay
Atharv grinned his widest. This was the best gift he could have ever got.
Koyal wondered why Surya Aunty had asked her to come. Something about Surya Aunty’s tone on the phone had made her feel weird. There was a tightness, a tension, in her voice that Koyal couldn’t fathom, she thought, as she hurried to Atharv’s house after work.
‘Aunty,’ Koyal exclaimed the moment Surya Aunty opened the door, ‘is everything okay?’
‘Koyal,’ said Surya Aunty, her expression a tad worried, ‘there is something I have that belongs to you.’
‘I don’t understand, Aunty,’ she said.
‘Something I probably should have given to you some time ago, but I was, well, to be honest, not sure at all.’
‘Don’t worry, Aunty,’ said Koyal, surprised to see the usually unruffled woman looking so worried.
‘Okay,’ said Surya Aunty, ‘here we go. This is for you.’ And with that she handed a package to Koyal. ‘From Nili.’
And the earth stopped moving.
‘From…?’ Koyal stammered.
‘Nili.’
‘Wh … what do you mean?’
