Someone to Love

by Ruchita Misra

  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.

  Atharv, in his scrubs, had thrown over a bulky jacket to meet Koyal for a quick few minutes.

  Atharv was in the middle of a pioneering surgery on a ten-year-old boy, Mike, a desperate attempt to save the little life – if the procedure worked it could open doors to life for many others. He had finished the first stage of the surgery and now the plastic surgeons were at work.

  It had been a stressful ten hours. The most stressful professionally for Atharv.

  And things were not exactly looking good. They had almost lost the boy on the table twice.

  ‘Spend some time with Koyal,’ the senior surgeon had said to Atharv as he stepped out of the OT. Koyal was in the hospital, in his office, he knew, waiting for him. Just being there for him. He had been shocked when she’d said that she would stay in the hospital just so that she could be around him if he needed her. He had tried hard to persuade her not to do this, but she hadn’t budged. Now he was glad she had not.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘A few minutes with a good friend,’ said the older man, taking off his gloves, ‘can be the most refreshing thing in the world.’

  Atharv smiled a small smile.

  The bench was huge but they sat close enough for their shoulders to touch.

  His brain was going through everything he had done in the OT. Could something have been done differently? Should they change something in what was planned next?

  She was looking at him, taking in every detail of the handsome surgeon who sat next to her.

  The unshaven face.

  The exhausted eyes.

  The indescribable beauty of a man drained out after ten hours spent trying to save a child’s life.

  ‘Mike will be okay,’ she said softly. ‘I just know it.’

  ‘You have more faith in me than I have in myself,’ he said.

  ‘That is because I know you better than you know yourself,’ she replied, smiling at the memory from all those years back.

  Atharv remembered it too, for he instantly turned around and stared at her. And then he extended his hand. Surprised, she slowly put her hand in his and he clasped his fingers tightly around hers. He went back to staring at the river, flowing noiselessly ahead of them.

  ‘What if,’ he said and Koyal leaned forward immediately to look at his face, ‘we can’t save Mike?’

  Koyal stared at the river too now, thinking, her heart breaking for Mike and for Atharv. He had put his heart and soul into this, she could see.

  ‘You will,’ said Koyal slowly, her soft voice dancing through the silence of the night. ‘I know it because I know when we put our heart and soul into something that is honest and kind, it always works out.’

  He looked at her now and smiled slowly.

  ‘You have become wise,’ he said.

  She grinned, nodded and then stared at his fingers clasped around hers. His fingers, long and elegant. Doctor’s hands. The safest hands in the world holding hers.

  He looked up now, his tired eyes finding hers.

  ‘Thank you, Koyal,’ he said softly, ‘for being there.’

  Thank you for being there.

  ‘I am glad,’ she said, her voice breaking, ‘to finally be able to be there for you.’

  They looked at each other, the poignancy of the words not lost on either of them.

  ‘It is better this way,’ she said, ‘isn’t it? When we are there for each other?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, much much better, Koyal. It makes me breathe easier,’ he said.

  ‘It is the way things are meant to be,’ she replied honestly.

  When he raised his tired eyes to meet hers, Koyal felt an immense rush of emotion sear through her heart.

  I want to be there for you, Atharv, she told him wordlessly, to always be there for you.

  And then, as it had begun to happen often, they held each other’s gaze. Words were now superfluous, simply not needed any more.

  The world stopped spinning. Time paused. The universe melted into nothing. His eyes, black and large. Exhausted, but smiling.

  Her eyes, dark brown and outlined with kajal. Beautiful and expressive. Concerned, but smiling.

  ‘You are so tired, Atharv,’ she whispered, reaching out to touch his hair. ‘Let’s go in and maybe you can sleep for a few minutes before heading back into the OT?’

  He grabbed her hand and clasped it to his chest, as if it belonged to him and him alone. She let him, without a murmur of protest, her heart begining to feel fuzzy.

  He nodded his head and straightened up. He leaned forward, and with his index finger, he traced the side of her cheek.

  ‘Heart-shaped,’ he whispered as if seeing her face for the first time.

  She smiled. A small sweet smile.

  She saw his expression shift.

  ‘Tell me what you are thinking,’ she said.

  He blushed and shook his head.

  ‘Please?’ she insisted, heart melting at the sight of the great life-saving doctor blushing.

  He paused and then exhaled slowly.

  ‘That just looking at you makes everything feel okay,’ he said, shrugging.

  Her turn to blush.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

  No, she shook her head and then involuntarily shivered as a gust of wind hit them.

  Wihtout another word, he pulled her forward, wrapping his jacket around both of them. She looked up at him, her faces a few inches from him.

  The flecks of brown in his black eyes.

  The nicest, kindest and the most beautiful face in the world, she told herself, finally allowing herself the luxury to let her mind think the things it wanted to.

  ‘You are beautiful, Koyal,’ he whispered.

  ‘The wrinkles are beginning to show,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘I love them,’ he said.

  Love.

  Oh, you wonderful, hurtful, powerful thing.

  And he leaned closer.

  She stared at his lips and forgot to breathe.

  When their lips met, gentle like rays of the morning sun on a rose petal, it felt like the rightest thing in the world.

  They kissed for a moment and for an eternity. He kissed softly, as if she were the most delicate, precious thing in the world and she felt every bit of her soul come alive.

  She rested her forehead against his, his breath mint-fresh, brushing against her cheek, and began to feel the tears form.

  This should ha
ve been her first, she thought to herself.

  When she finally looked up, inexplicably shy and hesitant, hurriedly brushing away tears, her eyes fell on his face and she paused, taken aback.

  His eyes were wet too.

  How could this mean as much to him as it did to her, she wondered in surprise and hurried to wipe the lone tear off his cheek.

  ‘Atharv?’

  He said nothing, just gently tucked back a strand of her hair.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked at the same time.

  They burst out laughing.

  ‘Are you okay?’ they asked in unison a few seconds later and again burst out laughing.

  ‘Are you… ’ They both started off again at the same time and now Koyal simply put a hand on his mouth.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, smiling widely. His eyes, from over her hand, were smiling too.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s go in now?’ he asked and she nodded. They got up, hand in hand, and walked in silence towards the hospital and into his room.

  Without saying another word, for with them words were unnecessary most of the time, she helped him get into bed.

  ‘This is a bit pointless, by the way,’ he said. ‘My brain is too awake for me to sleep.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said and pulled her chair close to his bed.

  She put her hand on his forehead. His skin felt more familiar to her than her own.

  ‘You will stay here?’

  ‘I’m not leaving till the operation is done,’ she said. ‘Now sleep. I’ll wake you when they call for you on the intercom.’

  She bent low and planted a soft kiss on his forehead and, eyes closed, Atharv smiled a wide happy smile.

  Mike Reynold’s operation was declared successful forty-eight hours later when he regained consciousness with all his mental abilities intact. Koyal was the first person outside the OT to get the news from a jubilant Atharv Jayakrishna.

  41

  Kimberly stared at her computer and the words refused to make sense any more. Was she really doing this? Had she forgotten how hard she had toiled to get where she was?

  Did that matter?

  For the last five years, she had loved Atharv deeply. It irritated her how everyone seemed to be besotted with him. She would have liked a bit of exclusivity, but that was not to be. It was okay, anyway, for he was happily married to only the most beautiful girl Kimberly had ever seen. Nili.

  Kimberly was happy for Atharv. In a way you would be for a favourite actor who is madly in love with the love of his life. You love the actor, he is your biggest crush, but you never really think even in your wildest dreams that you could be with him.

  Your friends can’t really understand your obsession with this man because, well, they say you are stunning yourself, but they don’t see what you see.

  One day he invites you home for dinner and you see for yourself what a dedicated husband he is. Though sometimes you really wonder if it is Nili he truly loves because his eyes … his eyes are always searching for someone else.

  What if that turns out to be me, you wonder, the girl he is truly looking for.

  And then, Nili dies.

  And while you are heartbroken at his grief, you know that a part of you is happy that he is now available. And that scares you so much that you try hard to stay away from him. Nothing that makes you such a bad person can be worth it.

  And then he announces his decision to move to London.

  And you look helter-skelter, unable to imagine life without him around, and make up some family in Scotland and get a job in the same hospital as him.

  You try and become friends with his mother and daughter, and because they are both lovely, that is not difficult.

  You see him heal, his wounds become smaller and you know you have helped him. But at the same time you know his heart is not all his. And no, the missing part is not Nili, it is someone else. Someone who haunts him in his dreams, someone without whom his life is heartbreakingly incomplete. Without whom he is always going to be a little bit empty.

  And then one day, when you come to meet his daughter who is unwell, you see her.

  This girl.

  A heart-shaped face.

  Large, beautiful, innocent eyes.

  A mole on her upper lip.

  Something about that girl, the way she looks, the way she looks at you, the way her soul feels – something about her is very special. Something about her is so Atharv.

  For the first time since you have known him, Atharv looks complete. He is not talking to her, there is an undertone of baggage, yet, there is a completeness about him that you have never seen before.

  And you know, just know – without any doubt, you know.

  That is THE girl.

  Not Nili.

  Not you.

  This girl.

  This is the girl Atharv’s heart beats for.

  No one seems to notice the change in him, not even Atharv himself, but you can see it plain as daylight. Even when they are not looking at each other, when they are not near each other, they are together. It is like they speak a different language, a language no one else knows. It is like they belong to another world, a world no one else belongs to. It is like they exist for each other.

  Yet, they are angry with each other.

  And then slowly and surely, as you watch from a distance, you can see the cracks appear in the ice. And then the cracks become bigger and then the ice begins to thaw. You have known, from the day you first saw them together, that the connection they have is too strong for them to not get back together.

  You see them whisper to each other as they step out of a room and you can see her blushing. They have just made love, you realize and your heart sinks. There is no turning back for them now, no there is not.

  The fact that you love Atharv and have done so for five years carries no weight, matters to no one, not even to Atharv. You sit and wonder if you can continue to be around Atharv and watch him slip away from your fingers.

  No, you cannot do that, you want to scream and shout and punch and hit. But you don’t.

  Instead you type out a letter to the Institute.

  Sometimes you have to run away from a situation to protect yourself and you know you are doing just that. You do not have a choice. He has left you no choice.

  42

  That night, in the semi-darkness of her flat where they had spent the whole evening talking, Atharv gently pulled Koyal to him. Koyal wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could.

  Atharv had brought up the old question again, in vain.

  ‘Why did you leave, Koyal?’ he had asked.

  Koyal just shook her head and said nothing.

  Atharv stared down at Koyal now, unable to get the letter out of his mind.

  ‘Koyal Jayakrishna,’ Atharv said and when Koyal looked up, startled, he realized what he had just said. Red-faced, he corrected himself. ‘Koyal Raje … I mean.’

  Koyal Jayakrishna.

  Koyal repeated the name silently to herself, again and again. Life, she thought to herself, could be blissfully intoxicating if you have someone to love.

  Yet when Atharv covered her face and neck with the softest kisses, Koyal found herself putting a cautionary hand on his chest. Atharv paused, pulled Koyal’s face up at him, stared into her fearful eyes. He understood. He leaned closer and said, ‘What Amit did was wrong, Koyal. He deserves to be behind bars for it. In no way, no way, was that your fault,’ he said, meaning every word.

  Did Atharv know more than she thought he did, Koyal wondered for one mad minute, but then she shook her head. That wasn’t possible.

  ‘Anything we do tonight, or ever, that you don’t like, just say it and I will stop,’ Atharv said.

  Koyal stared into the most earnest eyes she had ever seen and felt that her heart would burst with the immensity of the love she felt.

  When Atharv unzipped her top, lifted it off her head and whi
spered a cheeky ‘Am I allowed to look now?’ she couldn’t help but laugh and blush at the same time.

  And when Atharv took off his shirt to reveal a chiselled torso and mumbled, ‘I never said you could look,’ Koyal playfully boxed him in the gut.

  And when dawn broke, Koyal, her limbs entwined with those of a sleeping Atharv, looked out of the window with a wide smile on her face.

  She turned to face Atharv, and rested her chin on his chest. She had never felt this happy.

  She realized for the first time how beautiful a touch could be, how a kiss could make you feel, and how peaceful it was to wake up next to the man you loved more than anyone else in the world.

  Atharv stared at the bag left on his table and shook his head. That girl was becoming more and more careless by the minute, he thought. Koyal had offered to pick up Atharv’s Mac that he had, by mistake, left at the hospital. As she had just left, Atharv grabbed her bag and dashed out of the room, hoping to catch her, tripped on the curb and fell with a crash.

  All the contents of the bag spilled on the road and Atharv was hastily stuffing things back in when his eyes fell on a crumpled piece of paper.

  He smoothed out the paper. A letter.

  His eyes widened in surprise when he saw the name at the bottom.

  Amit.

  It was a letter from Amit to Koyal. Atharv had asked Koyal about her meeting with Amit and she had spoken in great detail about the stinging slap she had administered across his ‘pig-like face’. Atharv had hooted with laughter at the description and not asked for any more details.

  But now, a letter.

  Atharv wondered why his heart was thumping as he began to read. A little voice told him that this was personal correspondence and he shouldn’t be reading it, but the voice gradually faded into silence.

  Dear Koyal,

  Don’t we all need someone to love? And don’t we all need that someone to love us back?

  Our story, the Koyal and Amit story, is as dark and stormy as it is because both of us, you and I, were unfortunate enough to not have our someones love us back.

  I am sorry for the husband, man, partner that I was to you.