AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘The Fuller scholarship.’
‘Yes, to get into Stanford Med. They offer it to very few students from across the globe each year.’
‘Do you know if Atharv…’
‘Oh yes, Atharv is a Fuller Admit,’ Kim cut in and Koyal smiled.
I knew it, she thought, her smile widening into a grin.
Kimberly tried hard to but she couldn’t take her eyes off Koyal and Atharv the entire evening. They sat next to each other during dinner, wrapped in their own world. Conversation flowed, engaging and seamless. So much so that it was a delight really to just hear them talk. They glided effortlessly from one topic to the other, making each other laugh. However, what surprised Kimberly more was the amount of conversation that seemed to happen without words.
Somewhere in between the meal, Atharv asked the waitress to get some salt for Koyal.
‘That is very presumptuous of you, Atharv,’ mock-reprimanded a senior surgeon sitting at the same table. ‘At least let the lady tell you she needs some salt.’
‘She did,’ said Atharv simply and then looked at Koyal who nodded.
‘No,’ said the senior doctor, ‘you didn’t say a word, my dear.’
‘I…’ fumbled Koyal, looking confused, ‘probably thought about it…’
‘Happens all the time when you grow up with a person,’ Atharv said, smiling widely. ‘So even though she’s not saying it,’ he said and took off his jacket, ‘I know she is very cold.’ He put it around Koyal’s shoulders.
Koyal looked up at him, their eyes met and Kimberly noticed how she never said thank you, yet her eyes said something to his and he nodded.
‘Childhood friends,’ said the senior doctor, looking thoughtfully at Koyal and Atharv and voicing Kimberly’s thoughts, ‘have their own special language.’
Later that night, when the dancing had started and the lights had been dimmed, Koyal was lost in the scenes that Kimberly’s words had painted in her mind. A younger Atharv sobbing in a hospital where his wife had just died. Something about thinking of Atharv crying made her heart knot up. Why, why couldn’t she have been with him, to hold him, to put his head in her lap so that she could comfort him?
And then she felt someone touch her elbow.
She looked up, startled.
Atharv, his face serious, very serious.
Koyal followed his fingers and noted with some alarm that he was tracing the scar on her elbow again, his face getting darker.
‘Leave it, Atharv,’ she pleaded
‘I can’t, Koyal,’ he said.
‘What is the point?’
‘What you went through in the last ten years, when I wasn’t around, bothers me so much, Koyal,’ he said, his honest eyes breathing fire.
‘I can say the same,’ said Koyal softly.
‘I need to see the other scar,’ he said after a while, his voice so low that Koyal thought she had misheard him.
‘What?’
‘The other scar.’
‘What about it?’
‘I need to see it.’
‘Why?’
