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Surya Aunty and Atharv looked up, stunned, when Koyal, drenched from head to toe, appeared in the living room just as they were sitting down to dinner.
‘God, Koyal, are you okay?’ Atharv exclaimed as he rushed towards her.
She looked up at him, and felt something very weird happen to her heart. Slowly but steadily, like the wide wings of a great bird, it unfurled, happy and thankful.
‘You never betrayed me,’ she mumbled, her wide eyes taking in every detail of Atharv’s face.
‘Eh?’ He looked down at her, puzzled. ‘Is everything okay?’
She got on the tips of her toes, leaned forward and planted a gentle, chaste kiss on his cheek.
‘Hey!’ exclaimed Atharv, laughing, but he soon wrapped his arms around her.
‘Friends?’ Koyal asked, leaning back and extending her hand.
Atharv looked first at the hand and then at Koyal, his expression full of questions. Why, he wondered, did Koyal suddenly look like the Koyal from all those years ago? He stared at her face, oddly radiant, younger, happier than he had seen her in the longest time. Her eyes were bright as she peered at him with an expectant smile on her face.
‘Yes, friends,’ chimed in Mansha who now came running to them.
‘I was thinking,’ said Koyal, smiling and picking up Mansha, ‘we seem to have stopped Mummy nights?’ She looked at Atharv. ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘why don’t you finish dinner and then join Mansha and me in her room? We need to talk about Mummy.’
Atharv could only stare quizzically as Koyal marched off, carrying Mansha.
‘Mummy,’ Atharv mumbled, looking at his mother.
‘Yes, dear,’ Surya said as if waking up from a trance. She had watched Koyal from the moment she had torpedoed into the room with immense interest.
‘You need to close your mouth,’ Atharv said with a cheeky grin.
Surya Aunty laughed and then turned to steal another look at the retreating figures of Koyal and Mansha.
Slowly, she shook her head, unable to stop smiling. A weight seemed to have lifted off her shoulders. Whatever she may have thought of of Nili, from what she could now see, she had done right in the end. At least in the end.
39
It was close to two in the morning and Koyal hadn’t slept a wink. She stared at the ceiling, thinking, as the rain hit the tin roof of the patio in a steady rhythm. It was raining – the typical London rain, the half-hearted but incessant rain that insidiously chills your bones.
Koyal was thinking about Nili’s letter. The only thing she could possibly blame Atharv for was for leading her into believing that he loved her. What if he was a different sort of a friend, a more intense friend, but a friend, nevertheless? She had been sure he could kill for her, and she could be right, but maybe he loved her enough to kill for her, but loved her only as a friend?
Evenings spent imagining how it would feel like to kiss Atharv came back to Koyal and she blushed in the darkness of her London flat. How desperately she had wanted Atharv to be her first kiss. She found that a blush was creeping up again and she realized with a start that she still wished for it, even after all that had happened.
The phone rang and Koyal’s heart skipped a beat. For even though she did not, her heart knew who was calling.
She quickly answered it. ‘Atharv? Is everything okay?’
‘Uh … yes, I hope I didn’t wake you up.’
‘I was awake,’ she said, smiling in the dark.
‘I know…’
She did not ask him how he knew. He always knew.
‘So…’ she said awkwardly.
‘Um … I just felt like a chat,’ he said, his voice hesitant.
Koyal looked at the watch and smiled.
