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‘I … I … shouted at his mum. I was very rude … I…’ she trailed off.
For the next few moments, he did not speak a word, but she could feel his eyes boring into her scar.
‘Atharv…’ she said, her voice breaking slightly, pleading, ‘stop putting yourself through this misery.’
‘Should I help you button up?’ he asked after a few seconds.
‘I will … I … no…’ She fumbled, trying to do up her blouse, but unable to, thanks to her hands that would not stop shaking. She then felt Atharv’s fingers and let her hands fall away. He did up the blouse and then turned her around so that they were facing each other again.
He stared at her wet eyes and flushed cheeks and shook his head.
‘I am sorry, Koyal,’ he said softly. ‘From the day I first saw the scar, I haven’t been able to take my mind off it. I had to see to check if it was as bad as I remembered it to be.’
‘And was it?’
‘It is worse,’ he said softly, his expression pained.
‘It’s okay, it’s all over now,’ she said, putting her hands on his cheek. ‘This one will fade away too … it’s okay.’
‘It’s not okay, it will never be okay,’ he said, putting a hand at the back of her head. ‘I wish … I … we were not … I should have been there, Koyal. I will never forgive myself for this,’ he said.
‘Atharv…’ Koyal said helplessly.
‘Anyone,’ said Atharv, bending low, eyes boring into hers, ‘who as much as looks at you in a way you don’t like, I will kill.’
‘Drama queen,’ she chided, grinning.
Atharv grinned. ‘Come here,’ he said and pulled her into a tight hug.
Instead of squirming, Koyal let herself melt into his arms.
‘Don’t ever let anyone, anyone, do anything to you that you don’t want,’ he said in the darkness and she nodded.
A few moments later, she said, ‘I am sorry too, Atharv. I wasn’t there as well when you needed me…’
Atharv now pulled away just a bit so that he was looking at her, straining to read her expression in the darkness.
‘No matter what had happened between us, I have always had this piece of heart which has smiled every time I thought of you. And I thought of you quite a lot,’ he said, smiling.
‘Oh, Atharv.’
Atharv pulled her back into a hug and then kissed her lightly on her forehead.
Kimberly, standing at a dark doorway, could do little more than stare when she saw Atharv and Koyal come out of his room together. But when she saw that Koyal was fidgeting with her blouse, she gasped.
‘Are you okay?’ Kimberly heard Atharv ask Koyal. ‘Do you need help?’
‘Is the blouse fully buttoned up?’ Koyal asked and Kimberly felt as though breath had been sucked out of her.
‘Yes, all okay,’ he said after a pause. The two didn’t even notice Kimberly as they walked past her, talking to each other in whispers now, their heads touching.
Nothing, Kimberly wanted to scream, was okay. She hurried back into the gala hall, unsure what to do with her hands and where to look.
What she had feared ever since she had seen Koyal for the first time was coming true.
40
On a tiny bench overlooking the Thames, just outside the hospital, the two of them sat in complete silence. The clouds, the almost permanent fixtures in the grey London skies, had given way to gorgeous stars which twinkled merrily.
