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‘This can’t be true … Atharv would never lie to me … He can’t have been lying to me for months. No, that’s not possible!’ Koyal gasped, her hand to her mouth, ashamed of the tears already streaming down her face. Koyal thought of the many times she had hoped Atharv would kiss her but he had not. The many times she had hoped he would tell her, that he loved her, but he had not. That night under the imli tree when she had been so sure that he would say something, anything, but he had not. They way he held her hand, they way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her – it all had led her to believe that he loved her. And now this?
And Koyal herself? How every waking moment she only thought of Atharv? How she had even rejected a seat at the architecture college just so that she could be close to Atharv? How she loved Atharv with an intensity that could put the Sun to shame? How she breathed, lived and smiled only for him? Did none of that mean anything?
Koyal shook her head, Nili was saying something. Something nasty.
‘You are calling me because your heart knows this to be true. And it scares the shit out of you.’
The harshness of honest words.
‘You know what, 1 p.m., medical college library tomorrow,’ Nili said. ‘Come and see for yourself.’
The one thing that neither Nili nor Koyal would ever know was what Atharv had liked the best about Nili’s proposal in the library. The proposal had a soul to it, he thought to himself, a pious, godly sheen.
That day Nili began her little speech about how much she loved Atharv the moment she saw Koyal at the door of the library. She knew she had just a few minutes to get the reaction from Atharv she needed. She cast her eyes down, knotted her hands and spoke softly, hesitatingly, shyly – exactly the way she knew Atharv would like it. When Atharv didn’t say anything immediately, and Koyal began to come closer to them, panic hit her.
Nili pretended to look deeply embarrassed at what she had just said. She let her eyes tear up, her lips quiver – none of which she knew would be lost on Atharv. Then she got up and pretended to leave, hoping desperately that Atharv, ever the gentleman, would stop her. How her heart rejoiced when she felt his fingers wrap themselves around her wrist in a surprisingly firm grasp. She tried hard not to let the song that had begun to play in her heart show itself on her face as she sat down again.
She made sure she was sitting at such an angle that her lips were tantalizingly close to Atharv’s and that this little scene would be clearly visible to Koyal.
‘I love you too,’ Atharv finally whispered in his low baritone that could send tingles down Nili’s spine.
And then in an almost out of body moment, Nili watched Atharv as he leaned in. She closed her eyes and felt his lips touch the side of her lips. His lips felt soft and warm.
He paused and then leaned in again and this time when his lips found hers, it was a proper kiss. A kiss that she would never forget. A kiss that she knew her life would be built on and Koyal’s be destroyed with.
Nili mentally pumped her fists in the air even as Atharv kissed oblivious of what was happening. Nili one, Koyal zero, a voice in her head said.
Nili One, Koyal Zero.
A red bus stopped by Koyal and the driver looked expectantly at her. Koyal shook her head. No, she did not need to hop on to the bus. She began to read the letter she held in her hands.
Dear Koyal,
I have a feeling that the universe will bring you back into our lives. And if you are reading this, it has. And through this letter, I am going to make a deal with you.
Some numbers, first. I am thirty-two years old. I am thirty weeks pregnant. I have stage four brain cancer. I have been given about five weeks to live.
They can’t tell me why I got this disease. There is no cause and there is no cure. Just as there is no hope. I can’t help but think that probably karma has caught up. For the last five years, Koyal, I have lived my life in your shadow; I know you have vanished into a seeming oblivion, but in our lives you exist. Not a day has gone by, save for these last few since my diagnosis, when Atharv has not mentioned you. Sometimes with a smile, sometimes with sadness in his eyes. Almost always with a longing that I find very difficult to bear.
I have lived in the constant fear that one day he will wake up and tell me that he is going to find you and get you back. I have obsessed over this incessantly, to put it mildly. It was the reason I insisted Atharv and I marry quickly, and then have a baby as soon as possible.
In these last few years, I have tried my best to make him forget you. But I have failed.
Coming to that day in the library.
I can see you now, standing at the door of the library, eyes red, face white, the face of a girl whose world had just shattered into pieces.
It is an image that has never left me. I see you like that often, in dreams, in my mind – exactly like that, standing like a statue at the door. Seeing Atharv and me kiss, you concluded that what I had led you to believe was indeed true. That Atharv and I had been seeing each other for a long time and he had been lying to you. Your Atharv had lied to you.
Your Atharv loved someone else.
Well, I lied, and here is the truth you have waited to hear, neither was true at that point in time.
It had been our first kiss – I orchestrated it. He liked me, fancied me even, I think, but I had to work very hard at making him truly fall in love with me after you left.
Often when guilt has tided over me, I have looked at the face of the man I have loved more than anyone else, and wondered if he would be with me had I not done what I did. And, possibly more importantly, had you not reacted in the way that you did.
Probably not.
