by Sonali Dev
“Asif, did the coma kill your brain? He’s the pride of the Mumbai Police right now. He’s already emptied half a magazine of bullets into you once. If I were you, I’d run as far away from him as possible.”
“Very protective of him, you are. And you’re usually ready to throw anyone who isn’t of use to you into the fire. Interesting. Why the soft spot? I wonder.”
“The coma did kill your brain cells. Go after him for all I care.”
“Right. For once I think I’ll listen to you. Let’s save your hero some time. I’ll just go after him myself. I never thought I’d say this again, but thanks!”
28
Kimi
Present day
One question—that’s all it took to ruin what could have been a really nice day with Rahul’s lovely aie and his surprisingly adorable brother. For a while there, it had even felt like Stonewall Savant was done with his walls. But Kimi should’ve known better. Letting her guard down with Rahul was no longer an option. She had to stop being idiotic enough to let hope unfurl inside her again and again.
All she had done was ask him a simple question. They had left his home in the most awkward good-bye in the history of good-byes. She had hugged his mother and Mohit. While all Rahul managed by way of good-bye was a look at his watch as though it were his salvation from her “exuberance.”
“Your aie is beautiful. I love her,” she had said as he started the car, her heart full of something. Okay, not something. It had been joy. The joy of having been within feet of him all day. The joy of being in the home where he had been a boy. The joy of knowing the people who saw him at his worst but whom he lived for.
Instead of thanking her for the compliment he had stiffened. How had she ever thought she understood the man?
“Mohit isn’t half bad either,” she had said, because leaving things alone was a skill she was still working on.
He had almost smiled at that.
And then she had asked him about Mona. “How come you never told me about Mona?”
He had hit the brakes so hard, she’d blessed the great soul who invented seat belts. After that he’d been driving like a madman, cold anger emanating from him in waves.
She tried to wait it out. Watched the bright city lights zoom by. It was still dark, but you wouldn’t know from the steady flow of traffic. He looked like he was focused on the road, but she knew better, and before she could stop herself, she touched his arm, because she couldn’t just sit there with him so distraught.
He yanked his arm away. “What the hell, Kimi! What do you think you’re doing talking to Aie about me behind my back?” He had never used that tone with her.
“Behind your back? You were in the bathroom, and we had a conversation. What was I supposed to do, stand around like a statue without a tongue? They get enough of that from you, don’t you think?” Great. So much for trying to make him less distraught. Why couldn’t she learn to leave things alone?
That made him race through traffic some more with even less concern for little things like other cars. “Stop trying to fix my family. This isn’t one of your American TV dramas with characters struggling with their neat little demons. We’re just regular people. Just butt out of my life, okay?”
He screeched to another halt when a rickshaw attempted a suicidal maneuver in front of them and then went back to racing along.
“Gladly,” she said, mostly because it would be too ironic for her to die in a bloody car crash. “I didn’t ask you to take me to your home, you know.”
“I didn’t ask for this either,” he snapped. “It’s not like I had a choice.”
This was a side of him she had never seen. This was Storm Boy turned mean. And all she wanted was to not be here with him right now.
Naturally, a second after that thought passed through her head, they hit traffic—at two-bloody-thirty in the morning! And he became so doggedly focused on staking out their surroundings, she might as well have been a package he was in charge of delivering. Which was just as well. Because she’d heard all she needed to hear.
When they reached the airport and checked in, he got on the phone and stayed on it, growling instructions until their plane took off.
As soon as they had taken off, Kimi locked herself in the bathroom and shoved her medications down her throat. It was a handful of pills, and usually once they went down and she clamped down on her gag reflex and her body worked around its need to throw off the blast of immunosuppressants, things settled down fast enough. Just her luck that the stupid churning and gagging was particularly bad today and it wouldn’t stop.
She could never predict the days when it would be worse than usual. It was one of those things she had to live with as a transplant recipient. When she returned to her seat next to Rahul, he sat up all alert. Great, now he cared.
“Kimi, what’s wrong?” he asked as though the past few hours hadn’t happened. As though the past bloody year hadn’t happened.
She was too nauseated to answer. Then, as soon as her butt sank into the seat, the shakes started, and she pulled her knees close and turned away from him.
He had never seen her after she took her immunosuppressants. Her preference was that no one ever saw her right after. Especially when it was this bad. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball to stop the plane from spinning. All she wanted from him was that he not break his damn silence. When the flight attendant handed her the eye mask, she slipped it around her eyes and fell into a shaky, queasy, fitful sleep. When she had a reaction to her medication the only way she could get through it was by waiting it out.
A blanket was wrapped around her when she woke up, and finding it made her shaking worse so she pretended to continue to be asleep until they landed.
* * *
Kimi had no memory of flying into Chek Lap Kok airport. None at all. Usually, she remembered each airport she had flown into in great detail. She remembered the color of the uniforms of the people who worked there. She remembered how kind the immigration staff was to her. She remembered the pity in all the eyes that fell on her. Something about a dying person stripped everyone of their ability to hide their fear of mortality and their relief and guilt at being alive.
“What are you thinking about?” Rahul asked when the person in the immigration line in front of them moved and she didn’t notice. Or she thought he asked the question. He might not actually have said the words. And knowing his questions whether or not he had said the words was really starting to annoy her.
She took a step forward because his hand was hovering at the small of her back, and she couldn’t bear to be touched by him right now. Not after what he had said to her last night. “I was just thinking how flying upright is completely different from flying horizontal on a gurney, plugged into machines and drugged out of my mind.”
She had meant to push him away. And that sort of answer usually did the trick. But instead of giving her one of his finely honed distant looks, he moved a step closer. “Tell me what it was like to travel like that.”
Now he wanted to get chatty—really? He might be done with the brooding portion of the trip, but for once she didn’t care. Not after he had asked her to butt out of his life in that tone, as though she were some sort of hateful, nosy stranger. And now he wanted to talk about how traveling on a plane on your own two feet was different from doing it on your deathbed?
“Well, for one, it’s interesting to see how regular people are treated.” So, yes, she stretched out the words regular people because she was done with his labels. “As opposed to someone hanging from the cliff of death.”
As expected, he looked so guilty one might think he had personally caused her to hang from the cliff of death for twelve years, instead of being the person who had made it bearable.
Of course she knew why he was being nice to her again, why his anger had cooled so fast on the plane. But she didn’t want him being nice for that reason. If he was only nice to her when she became sick, then she had to question everything
their friendship was. Had it always been only sympathy? It made their entire friendship teeter beneath her feet. And she didn’t know what lay underneath if that crumbled.
“Kimi, are you sure you’re okay?” he asked as they got closer to the immigration desk.
She gave a quick nod. He looked miserable, and it made her feel like she was stuck in an ugly farcical play. His guilt somehow cheapened something she struggled with every day. She didn’t want her health to be a currency between them, didn’t want it to be the thing that brought him back. Until he found a way to pull away again.
Moments of clarity always came from the most unpredictable quarters. After seeing him with his family, she knew that his angst, his distance, it had nothing to do with her. All the hope that one day he would see what he was turning away from, it was gone now. It wasn’t her. It was him. He couldn’t let anyone near. At least not out here in the real world.
In her bubble, somehow he had been able to lock everything else out too. That’s why he had told her that the world outside her room was an ugly place. For him it was. It’s why he had kept her separate from everything. He had never spoken about his family. He had kept their relationship pristine, so when she was gone, the damage would touch nothing else.
She was two years into her transplant. She hadn’t had a single episode of rejection—which was rare and encouraging news, and something she worked toward with everything she had. She had never missed a single dose of medication, never disobeyed a single doctor’s instruction and she never would. Truth was, despite all her effort, she came with a big warning label of “Impending Loss.” When he looked at her, that’s what he saw. It wasn’t what he wanted to see. Even in her anger she knew that. But he had lost too much for him to see past it.
The Great Escape was going to have a tragic ending again after all.
They reached the immigration officer and he had no questions for them. He slammed a rubber stamp into their passports and welcomed them to Hong Kong without a smile. All these years she had dreamed of roaming the world with Rahul, of running off on adventures with him—not for the adventure itself but because their time together would not be limited. It had always felt like their friendship had been a prisoner to time, confined by good-byes. She would have given anything to not have every meeting hurtle too fast toward an inevitable good-bye. She had always had too many things to tell him, too many things to watch with him, to show him.
We’ll do it tomorrow, he always said.
And she waited.
Their tomorrow had come and gone and now here they were, stuck together on a plane, at an airport, in a foreign land, and all she wanted was to not be near him.
“Do you want to go to a hotel first and rest?” he asked when they finally got through customs and were waiting for a taxi.
“I just want to get this over with.” A bed of tulips, bright red and vibrant, stretched out behind him, and suddenly, she remembered being at this exact spot almost two years ago and waiting to go home to him. She had wanted to show him those tulips so badly she had almost tasted his reaction. This moment felt like something she had forced into existence by the sheer stubborn will with which she had wished for it. And now here the moment was, and he didn’t even look at the tulips. What a waste dreaming was sometimes.
“At least tell me what’s happening to you.” For a moment he sounded like her Rahul. “Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said in the car. But if you aren’t feeling well, please let’s just rest for a bit. Please, Kimi.”
“I’m fine. Nothing is wrong with me.” Apart from the nuclear-level anger that came with her epiphany. Having off days like this was just part of being a transplant recipient. Even if she had the energy to explain that to him, what was the point of it?
He had never asked her what it was like to live with a foreign heart in her body. She had shared every bit of her illness, her wait and recovery with him, but now that she was living The Great Escape, there were so many things every day that were unique to her existence, just letting someone know would have been such a relief. And of course, by someone, she meant him.
Butt out of my life.
“Mount Elizabeth Hospital,” she said to the driver and settled into the cab. Rahul slid in next to her. His body was tight with worry, his eyes dimmed with concern. Truth was, she felt like shit and all she wanted was to squeeze into him and to have him hold her. He was all of two feet away, for heaven’s sake. Two feet of distance that seemed today to trap within it miles and miles worth of barriers. Where was the girl who had dragged a boy to a rock in the middle of the ocean?
Where was the boy who had shown up at her door despite being told to go away? Nine times, no less. Yes, he wasn’t the only one who kept count of things. How could two adults have such a hard time navigating an emotional landscape that they had skated around with such ease as children?
“I hate being an adult,” she said. And he laughed, and she looked at him because that laugh was a giant spike shoved into all the pressure trapped within them. His eyes met hers, and for one instant they burned with the truth in his heart and the world felt right.
Then his phone buzzed and there was another update from Maney. Apparently, Papa had been on Maney’s case about finding out where Rahul and she were.
“I’ll call him,” Rahul said. “Don’t worry about it. No, you will not lose your job. I promise you that.”
“Let me talk to Papa,” she said when Rahul hung up.
“He can’t know where we are.”
“Really? Because you haven’t already told me that a hundred times.”
He dialed. “Sir, it’s Rahul.”
“Where the hell are you?” Her father was so loud she heard him across the two feet separating her from Rahul.
Rahul didn’t flinch. “In a safe location, sir.”
“I need to know where.”
“I can’t take the chance that someone isn’t listening in. And I haven’t told Maney or anyone else. Please let them do their job.”
“But you aren’t doing your job. None of you. That bastard is still at large.”
The muscle in Rahul’s jaw worked. “I realize that. But Kimi is safe and Dr. Joshi and Nikki Sinha are safe. And we will catch the bastard. Have you heard anything more from Khan?”
“No. But I think it’s too dangerous for you to watch Kimi. He knows you. You shot him. What if he comes after you? I want another officer assigned to her.”
Kimi snatched the phone from Rahul. “No other officer is watching me, Papa. It’s Rahul or no one.”
“Don’t be an idiot, beta. This isn’t the time for emotion.”
“It’s not about emotion. It’s about ability.” Rahul’s gaze locked with hers. She turned away. Today was not a good day for her immunosuppressants to be acting up. Her stomach had stopped feeling like it was too small in her abdomen, but she felt too tired to fight the only two men in her life who mattered. “Please stop threatening Rahul’s team. You have to promise me no one is going to lose their job over this.”
“Fine. Now let me speak with Rahul.”
She handed Rahul the phone. “I’m not happy, Rahul. I’m disappointed in how you’re handling this.” Papa had lowered his voice, but she could still hear him. “Call me when you’re alone.”
“You can say what you want in front of Kimi, sir. I will share whatever information you give me with her.”
Kimi had the strangest urge to cry.
“Why do you think he’s this insistent on you not finding the donor?” Rahul asked after Papa had called him unprofessional in his most disappointed-Bollywood-dad voice and hung up.
“You know he’s just worried about us, right?” she said, sounding a little bit like a pathetic Bollywood daughter. “He takes my donor’s rights very seriously. You know how he is about ethics and not doing anything morally wrong.”
The fact that Papa and Rahul respected each other meant everything. This couldn’t ruin that. They were the two most honorable men
she knew. Mamma had once told her long ago, when her mother still told her these things, that our ancestors’ good karma filtered down through generations as good fortune. Papa’s goodness was probably why Kimi was alive today.
“Is what we’re doing wrong?” she asked.
“You said you felt sure that the reason Khan targeted you has to do with your heart. Do you still feel that way?”
She thought about Khan’s bloodshot eyes when he had run the back of his fingers along her scar and asked her where her heart had come from.
“Yes.” She had to follow this to the end.
“Then it isn’t wrong. What do you have planned?”
“We’re going to see my surgeon. We became friends when he treated me in postoperative care. I had a meeting scheduled with him today, we’re going to be a little late, but he’ll understand.” She had made the appointment last week, and fortunately postponing her flight by a day hadn’t messed things up too much.
Rahul’s discomfort at entering the hospital was palpable. He did it all the same. She wanted to hold his hand and assure him that nothing bad was going to happen. But all she could manage was meeting his eyes. As always, an entire tangle of memories matched up in their gazes and it eased some things and made others worse.
Dr. Gokhale gave Kimi a long, warm hug. “How is it that you’re even more beautiful than before, Kimaya?” he said, and she smiled. She had forgotten what a handsome man he was with those gray eyes, so rare for someone who was Indian.
He had told her his eyes were a freak genetic incident. Both his parents had dark eyes. They’d had to live through a lot of mailman jokes, since his parents had lived in America when he was born.
“How do you feel? Although if you feel anything like you look, I’m going to call it a grand success.”
* * *
She had to be the vainest person on earth, because for the first time that day she didn’t feel utterly shitty. “It’s been great, thanks to you and Dr. Girija. Not a single rejection episode yet.”