Atharv stared at her for a few seconds and then smiled.
‘I love you, Koyal,’ he said.
‘I love you too, Atharv,’ Koyal replied and they began walking again.
And then, just like that, completely out of the blue, something from the conversation she’d had with Atharv four months back at South Bank when he had told her he loved her, came to her.
She stopped in her tracks, stunned, unable to breathe.
No, it couldn’t be true, she thought to herself.
‘Koyal?’ Atharv asked. ‘Are you okay?’
Koyal barely nodded her head.
‘Atharv,’ she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. ‘You said something about using the word love the first time around. That day, at South Bank, that was the first time you were telling me that you loved me, right?’
For a moment Atharv frowned, as if he didn’t quite understand Koyal’s question, but soon his forehead cleared.
‘You got me there,’ he said, grinning. ‘I never really said that before.’ Koyal exhaled, immediately feeling her body relax – false alarm, she said to herself – but Atharv continued, ‘The first time, of course, I wrote it.’
What?
Koyal stared at Atharv, blood draining from her face.
Oh god, no. No.
‘Where?’ she asked, her body tensing immediately.
‘The email … the one I sent to you just before we were leaving for college,’ he said casually.
Koyal’s heart was thumping.
‘[email protected]?’ He grinned. ‘Remember the email ID I created for you? Your first?’
‘Yes.’
‘Those were the days’ said Atharv, a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Internet was new and email was a fad. Can you imagine that now?’ And then he paused as it all begant to sink in. ‘You read that email, right?’ he asked, trying hard to keep his voice casual.
‘No…’ she whispered, the horror in her voice apparent, her face white now. ‘I never read that email.’
Atharv’s face lost colour in one second. He stared at her as if he had seen a ghost.
‘I … I … need to…’ and now tears were hindering speech, ‘I … really … need to see that email…’
‘You still use the ID?’
‘No, I haven’t touched it … since…’ Koyal stared blankly at Atharv.
‘Since I created the email ID,’ Atharv finished, his face white. ‘Mansha,’ he said, turning to his daughter, ‘run and get my Mac, please?’
In a matter of seconds the laptop appeared and Atharv quickly opened his email.
‘You can see it in my outbox … I know it’s there. God knows how many times I have read it.’
And with that he turned the laptop so that she was looking at the screen.
‘Now read,’ he said slowly as Koyal stared at the screen, unblinking.
Dear Koyal,
I know that ‘forever’ means different things. We leave for Delhi tomorrow and I think this is the right time to finally say what I have forever wanted to say – should have said years ago.
Koyal, you are my best friend, and while I am not too sure about what love is, if it includes things like wanting to spend every minute with that person, caring more for that person than for anyone else, thinking of that person every waking second then, well, I think I am in love with you.
I wish I could be all cool about it, but the truth is, I am just very soppy about it, you, and us.
However, between my love for you and our friendship, I value our friendship a lot more and would not, for the world, want anything to change.
And hence this letter.
We are meeting tomorrow under the imli tree for one last dinner before Delhi and if you feel that you love me too, say something, just mention this email and I will know … If you don’t, then please just forget this email. Pretend you never got it. And I promise I will behave like I never wrote it.
Our friendship is the most important thing to me and I promise if you don’t have similar feelings for me, I will do all that is in my power to keep things between us the way they have been forever.
Atharv
I felt Atharv loved me because he did, thought Koyal to herself and she felt an unimaginable weight lift off her shoulder.
‘So you never read this?’ he asked slowly, the meaning sinking in.
Koyal shook her head.
‘When you never said anything that night under the imli tree … I … I…’ Atharv left the sentence incomplete. ‘And then in Delhi I met Nili…’
Koyal nodded, still stunned, she understood.
‘I was expecting you to say something that night,’ she said, ‘but when you didn’t, I … I thought … I’d been imagining things…’
‘Oh god, Koyal,’ Atharv exclaimed, looking helplessly at her. ‘Look at what happened after that.’
Koyal was staring horrified at Atharv. ‘Ten years, Atharv,’ she said, her shoulders sagging in defeat.
‘None of the rubbish that happened needed to happen,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘And when Nili came along…’
‘And then Amit…’ Koyal finished and Atharv flinched at the mention of that name.
The two of them stared at each other trying to find some logic to what life had done to them.
‘Just one conversation, Koyal, just one call that day would have changed the course that life took.’
‘And just one look at your email, Atharv, just one look would have changed the course life took.’
‘Why did this happen to us, Koyal?’
‘I don’t know Atharv, I don’t know if we will ever know.’
The two looked at each, stunned at how life had had the last laugh.
In the background, Mansha squealed at something and Koyal turned to look at her. Atharv watched her as her expression shifted. Her face relaxed and a small smile appeared.
‘If those things had not happened, she would have never come into our lives,’ Koyal said, gesturing towards the little girl.
Atharv looked at Mansha and then at Koyal.
‘I would happily go through those ten years again and again, just so I could have her in my life, Atharv,’ she said.
‘No. There is a lot that happened, Koyal, in your life that …that will never be okay. Never. I have trouble dealing with the idea that you had to go through it once, I will burn the world down if you have to go through anything that is remotely horrible ever again.’
Koyal could not help but smile at his words.
‘I choose to focus on the other bits that have happened more recently, Atharv. Bits that are beautiful and happy’
‘Like?’ he asked with a knowing smile, leaning in.
‘I now have someone to love…’ Koyal said looking into his eyes.
‘Some to love?’ he asked.
Koyal nodded slowly.
‘Two people, actually’ she said looking at Mansha. ‘Two people to love to bits,’ she repeated with a smile.
At this point Mansha ran to them and wriggled into the middle, putting an arm around each parent. The trio walked into the hall where some of their closest friends and family were waiting for celebrate a new beginning for Koyal, Atharv and Mansha.
About the Book
From bestselling author Ruchita Misra comes a moving, poignant tale about the very blurred line between love and friendship.
Not everyone is lucky enough to find this kind of love.
Koyal and Atharv are childhood friends. They are also soulmates. Confidants. Kindred spirits. They are made for each other – only, neither of them seems to have figured it out just yet. As they grow into adulthood, they turn to each other in sorrow and joy. But then one day something happens, and their rare friendship is cruelly transformed into something a lot like hatred. Atharv, scarred and hurt, fumes with anger, while impetuous Koyal presses the self-destruct button.
Years later, just when they’ve bot
h found peace within themselves, their paths cross again. And destiny, that strange creature, has a few tricks up her sleeve. Will these two ever forgive each other? Or have they already lost their one chance to find someone to love?
About the Author
Ruchita Misra is a three-time gold medallist from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi and the author of the bestselling books Second Chance at Love, The (In)eligible Bachelors, for which she was awarded the Awadh Samman in 2012, and Can This Be Love?. She works in London and blogs at smilethesmile.blogspot.com.
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Smart, hilarious and utterly unpredictable, Can This Be Love? will have you at the edge of your seat – unless you’ve already fallen off laughing.
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First published in India in 2016 by Harlequin
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Copyright © Ruchita Misra 2016
P-ISBN: 978-93-5264-163-5
Epub Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 978-93-5264-164-2
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Ruchita Misra asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Cover design: Divya Saxena
Cover image: iStock
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