by Nikita Singh
‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘If you are going to be a bully, there is nothing much I can do about it. Have it your way.’
‘My way?’ Shourya looked at her incredulously. ‘Trust me, of all the ways in the world, camping out in front of some brash celebrity’s apartment building is the last thing I would have done had I actually got to do things my way. This is my attempt to salvage whatever’s left of the day.’
‘You are being so impossibly rude right now, I don’t even want to look at you. I mean, seriously, it was just a few hours out . . . in the . . . What is happening?’ Lavanya got distracted by the sudden rush of fans towards the building.
The crowd gathered outside Salman’s apartment building had been growing larger all day. Some of them had started running towards the gate and the others looked confused about what was happening, just like Lavanya. It was a little after five in the evening and the sun was riding low. Lavanya looked at the balcony they had been observing all day and found the canvas enclosure still shut.
Shourya held her hand and crossed the road. They could tell by the excited exclamations around that someone was coming out. Lavanya’s heart raced as she held Shourya’s hand and stood on tiptoes to get a look.
There was a white Range Rover coming out of the building’s parking lot. She had memorized the registration number of Salman’s car and . . . This was it! More and more people were joining them and she was getting squished, but she did not care. She had dreamt of this moment all her life. She was going to see the one man in the world who could make her want to fall in love.
The first time she had seen Maine Pyar Kiya was the first time she had thought about love. She was a teenager, and the movie was relatively old—released two years before she was born—29 December 1989. She could not believe she was there twenty-five years later, on the anniversary of Maine Pyar Kiya’s release, seeing Salman Khan in front of her!
All she saw was his back. He was wearing a black short-sleeved T-shirt with a pair of blue jeans and black high-top sneakers. She could see the veins of his arms bulging, and his T-shirt was stretched over the muscles on his back. Lavanya felt faint. She only saw him for about three seconds before he disappeared into the car. But that was enough.
In a few seconds, the car disappeared out of sight completely. The crowd collected there began to scatter and some policemen tried to restore balance to the havoc they had caused on traffic.
Lavanya fell back. Shourya pulled her away from there. Out of everything she had done to tick off points in her list, this one had proven to be the most fulfilling. It was her childhood dream come true!
Shourya chose not to say it. It was tough, but Lavanya looked so ecstatic to have seen her only hero in person, that he did not want to ruin if for her. He wasn’t sure about it anyway, so there was no reason to put doubt in her head.
When ‘Salman’ had stepped out of the Range Rover for a few seconds to wave at the crowd, he had his back to where they had been standing, and they could not see his face. Shourya had strong suspicions that the man could have been either of Salman’s brothers—Arbaaz or Sohail. They did look wider than he would expect Salman to be, but celebrities always tend to look different on screen than in real lives. There was confusion in the crowd too, but give Indians any celebrity, no matter how big or small, they go crazy. He hailed a taxi to take them to Juhu beach, which was relatively close to the airport.
‘I told you he was in there! My gut is always right. You should always trust me,’ Lavanya said, her first words since they left the area in front of Salman Khan’s apartment half an hour ago.
Shourya looked at her in the darkness of the cab. She was literally glowing, her cheeks were flushed and her ears red. ‘Lesson learned,’ he said.
They spent the rest of their journey to the beach in silence. Once there, she took her shoes off and they decided to walk along the sea. It turned out that walking barefoot on the beach was a big mistake; tar balls from ships and the waste tourists created was scattered across the portion of the beach they were strolling on. But Lavanya refused to put them back on. She said that having wet sand beneath her feet and leaving footprint trails was one of her favourite things in the world.
They watched the sun set and then took a cab back to the airport. Although they weren’t saying much, Shourya was really enjoying her silent company. He could feel the air change between them. It wasn’t how it used to be when they were in school, or how it had been when they met again three weeks ago. It was something he had not experienced before. It confused him, in an exciting kind of way.
When she rested her head against his shoulder as they waited for their flight at the gate, and then again on the plane, it felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to do. Together they sat, Shourya in the middle seat and she at the window, her head resting on his shoulder, and they observed the dark clouds outside, which seemed to be running away from them.
‘What are you going to do?’ she whispered, her eyes closed.
‘About what?’ he asked.
‘Deepti and Avik.’
Ever since Shreela’s wedding, when they had their huge fight, he hadn’t brought up Deepti with Lavanya or called her. In fact, for the first time in months, he hadn’t thought of her at all, not even in passing. He remembered how, no matter where he was and what he was doing, he used to think of her all the freaking time—that wasn’t happening to him any more.
‘Do you know what I think?’ Lavanya murmured.
Shourya looked down at her. The highlights in her hair appeared a dull red under the dimmed lights, looking almost black. Her eyes were still closed and her lips moved softly as she spoke. Her bare face, stripped of make-up, looked as innocent and vulnerable as a child’s. She looked like the seventeen-year-old girl he had fallen in love with all those years ago—the thought came to his mind unbidden.
‘Not really,’ he said.
‘I think you still live with them because you cannot deal with her not being in your life any more. You need her to be a part of your life, in any way possible, so you live with them in the same apartment, even though it means dealing with their bullshit regularly.’
She continued, ‘And also because you want them to remember you. No . . . you want her to remember you. You want to keep being a part of her life, and occupy her mind. You want her to feel pain because she made you feel pain. You think the guilt of what she did to you will bring her back to you one day.’
Shourya had no words. He had never thought of such an explanation to his behaviour. He did not think that she was right about everything, but he could not entirely dismiss what she was saying either. There was truth there. He just didn’t know how much.
Maybe prompted by his silence, Lavanya removed her head from his shoulder and studied his face. She reached for his hands and held both of them with one of hers. She sighed before saying, ‘You’re going back to her, aren’t you? If you haven’t already.’
‘Nothing of that sort. In fact, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about her. I’ve not been thinking too much—’
‘Look, it’s okay. I get it. I don’t know anything about her, nothing more than what you’ve told me, anyway. But from what I know, you are very much in love with her. She’s your one true love . . . meant for each other and all that. I just want you to be careful. I want you to be happy, and if being with her makes you happy, that is what you should do. I can tell by the way you still defend her, after everything, that you will never stop caring for her, so why fight it?’
It hurt Shourya. It physically hurt him, the way she said it so casually. Lavanya had no idea how he felt about her, and here she was . . . telling him to go back to Deepti, who felt like a distant memory now. He could not believe how messed up he had been because of her just a month ago, and how hollow he had felt. But that void was no longer there. He had found the one he truly wanted, had always wanted, the one that got away . . . He’d got a second chance—
‘Go back to her. Don’t waste t
ime, you’ve already lost so much of it because of all the drama with Avik and all that. Put an end to it.’
‘I fired you, remember? You no longer get to make my decisions for me.’
She did not say anything else for the rest of the flight. They landed after some time and as soon as they reached their hotel, they said goodnight in the living area of their suite and went to their separate rooms. Shourya was grateful for the heat he had roasted himself in the whole day and the resulting exhaustion—it made him fall asleep as soon as he got into bed.
16
Lavanya could not sleep that night. After the Salman Khan incident, her excitement had slowly faded away. The evening had turned into a very calm and lazy affair. Spending time with Shourya without having to talk, walking along the beach in silence had been wonderful—the only thought that scared her was the thought of him going away in a few days.
In that moment, she realized just how much she loved him. He was strong, caring and sensitive. Whenever he was around her, he automatically took care of her and watched her back. She felt safe with him. He was someone she could depend on, more than herself. Someone she had blind faith in. Someone who would never break her heart, the way she’d broken his so many years ago. But the fact was that whether he chose to take Deepti back or not, and whether she was in New Delhi or New York, he would be thousands of miles away, in California. Having him back, depending on him once again, had felt so good, and now it was almost at an end.
In her panic of losing him, she had tried to ask him about his plans, and had somehow ended up asking him to go back to Deepti. She wondered all night what that was about, and came to the conclusion that she was letting him go before he went away anyway. She did not know if Shourya would ever again feel what he had once felt for her. Even if by some miracle he did, she did not have a chance at a normal life and it wouldn’t be fair to him to involve him in her problems.
Lying in her bed, she contemplated going to his room and talking to him. They had taken up a suite with two bedrooms separated by a bathroom. For a minute, she even thought of telling him about her disease. That would probably make him stay, at least for a little while longer. He would pity her and give her a few more days of his company. She wasn’t going to deny she wanted that.
She padded to his room and pushed the door open, only to find him fast asleep on the bed. She walked in and sat next to him for some time. She could barely see him in the darkness, but enough to feel a sharp pain in her chest. How would she live without him, again? The first time had almost killed her; she was not sure she could survive being away from him again.
In that dark moment, she resolved to tell him about her medical condition. But once she did that, she could not tell him that she loved him, because that would put him in the impossible position of choosing between staying with a dying person or abandoning her.
Lavanya wanted to touch his face. She wasn’t sure if she would get a chance to do that ever again. But she stopped herself. She had come to realize that there were a lot of things in the world she could not have, and she had no choice but to make peace with that. She got up from the bed and walked away, without looking at him. The longer she stayed, the more hurt she would be. Back in her room, she sank down to the floor at the foot of the bed in a crumpled heap. She could feel herself breaking—her willpower to fight, her desire to live, her heart.
Lavanya heard a knock at her door. She slipped soundlessly from under the sheets and reached for a wet wipe to clean her face. She could not risk going to the bathroom they were sharing. After a night spent crying on the floor, she had barely slept for two hours before waking up again, preparing herself mentally to come clean to Shourya. Her face looked warped—eyes and lips swollen, dark shadows under her eyes—and she suspected her migraine was somehow visible too.
She was creeping back under the comforter when Shourya knocked a second time. She leaned back against the head rest and said, ‘Yes, come.’
‘Good morning!’ Shourya greeted cheerfully as he entered, a grin on his face. He was wearing a white T-shirt with UC Berkeley printed across the front in black, bold letters.
Lavanya had a sudden vision of him preparing a breakfast tray for her while she slept peacefully—in a parallel world where they were in love and she wasn’t sick. But he was not carrying breakfast with him that morning. The thought made her want to hide her face under the comforter and cry. ‘Morning,’ she said.
‘What’s with you?’ Shourya asked. She saw the expression on his face change from concern to alarm as he looked at her. ‘Are you okay?’
She had been foolish to think a face wipe was going to rid her of all signs of distress. This was Shourya. He could figure out she was sad from even the slightest downward curve of her lips. Lavanya was surprised that she had been able to keep something as enormous as this hidden from him in the first place. It had been easier when they hadn’t been sharing a hotel suite. Now she had nowhere to run.
Nor did she want to.
Shourya sat down on the bed, facing her. It took all of her willpower to stop herself from reaching out and touching his face.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
She could not say it. She could not say anything. She could not tear her gaze away from his.
‘Tell me. Lavanya, talk to me.’ His voice was gruff, and there was desperation in it.
They had something in common then. She felt the same sense of anxiety inside her too.
She sniffed. Her lower lip started to quiver.
Shourya held her by her shoulders, the same way he had that night in the parking lot. Lavanya broke eye contact. She could not bear to look at him, knowing he wouldn’t be a part of her life . . . She looked down at her lap, and lifted her hand to her throbbing temple.
Shourya pushed it away. He held her chin and tilted it upwards. ‘Speak.’
Lavanya saw him grind his jaw. She was confused; she didn’t know whether he was angry or annoyed or concerned. ‘I can’t . . .’ her eyes pleaded with his.
‘Yes, you can. Be honest with me for once! I know something is going on in that head of yours. What is it?’ he demanded, clearly angry with her, but she couldn’t fathom why.
She collected herself and began to speak. ‘Shourya, I cannot do this to you. You . . . you have a life, and you are going back to it in four days. I cannot expect you to disrupt your life for me. You have to leave . . . you have to go back to Deepti.’
‘You don’t get to decide that,’ he responded, pulling his hands away from her.
‘But you will. It is the decision that you will make.’
‘How do you know that? Just because you want me to go, you’re telling me to get back together with her. I never said that was what I wanted.’
‘But you love her. You told me you do.’
‘That was before.’
‘Before what?’
Shourya was not looking at her. This time Lavanya put her hand under his chin and turned his face towards her, the same way he had done to her many times.
‘Before what?’ she repeated.
‘Don’t make me say it, damn it! I tried to say it once and you asked me not to. Now I’m asking you not to force me to,’ Shourya huffed. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked up at the ceiling. His nostrils were flaring with every breath he took.
Lavanya could not look away from him; it was as if she had lost all control of herself. Her hand dropped from his chin when she realized what he had just said. Her heart stopped beating for a moment. And started beating again at twice the pace. ‘Shourya?’ she murmured.
‘If you can’t see it yourself, if you’re that blind, I don’t think my explaining it to you will do any good.’
Every moment Lavanya had spent with Shourya flashed in front of her eyes. From the time they first met, till the time he had come to the airport to see her off when she was leaving for Harvard. He was crying unabashedly. He had managed to get an airport pass for the night, so once Lavanya said her goodbyes to her
parents, he came with her all the way to the departure gates. After they collected her boarding pass and checked in her luggage, they got a cup of instant noodles from one of the stalls and sat down in a relatively isolated corner. She refused to meet his eyes. Her own filled with tears over and over again, but she did not let a single drop flow out. She kept blinking to hold them back. He concentrated on the cup of noodles they were sharing and she did the same. They pretended to be okay, and they succeeded . . . just as long as they didn’t have to look at each other.
But then their time was up. Her flight was called to board. She looked down at her watch, and without a word to each other, they got up. That’s when she had seen Shourya’s eyes. They were red and haunted. His lips were tightly sealed into a thin sad line. Lavanya had never seen him that miserable before. He had always been the strong one. That was the moment she realized the extent of what she was doing to him. That was the first time she had wondered if she was making a huge mistake.
Shourya had been asking her not to go for months. She had begged and pleaded with him to stop saying that because her decision was final and as her friend, he should have been happy for her and supported her. And that’s what he had done, minus the few bouts of weakness when he would ask her if this was what she really wanted, if she had thought it through and if there was no other way. She had known he did not want her to go, but she had thought it was mostly because he was worried about her. But that night at the airport, when he pulled her into his arms and rested his head on hers, leaning on her as if unable to support his own weight, that was when she realized just how much she was hurting him. But it was too late. She could not imagine returning home, to her old life.
She had felt his body heave as he held her that night. Felt his heart race and his breath come in gasps. When she tried to pull out of his embrace, he did not let her. He had kept on holding her. She had seen him break, right in front of her, in her arms. When he finally let her go and she looked up at him, she could tell from his pained expression that he was trying very hard to keep it together. He looked like a little boy, the kid she had met in kindergarten. The kid she had known all her life.