Right Here Right Now

by Nikita Singh

  ‘So, we’re cool?’

  ‘We’re cool.’

  ‘Cool. See you then,’ Kapil says and lets himself out.

  After the front door clicks, assuring me that it’s locked properly, I turn to look at the rest of them. They all look at me. I exhale, hiding a smile. ‘Begin,’ I say.

  ‘We were in love. And we still are. I’m sorry but we are!’ Tisha begins animatedly.

  ‘Okay . . .’

  ‘It was one time. You and I were together, and I went behind your back . . . but it was one time. We only cheated once,’ Sameer adds.

  ‘We were going to tell you. We just didn’t know how,’ Tisha says passionately. ‘Because we love each other and can’t live without each other. Before we had a chance to tell you, you found out on your own, and then there was that horrible accident and you were so badly hurt . . .’

  ‘We were so scared. I felt so guilty. We didn’t know if you were going to wake up and recover from it or not, and we felt so guilty about what we did.’

  ‘If you hadn’t made it, your last memory of us would’ve been that of us betraying you. We were so scared that was going to happen.’

  Sameer nods, ‘That was all we could think about. But then you woke up and we were told that you lost all your memory. It felt like the perfect scenario. We wanted to make things right. We felt like we were given another chance.’

  ‘Well, to be honest, I wasn’t too inclined towards this plan,’ Tisha exclaims, her drama not even annoying. ‘I said we could just, like not tell you that Sameer and you were together. And then Sameer and I could be together.’

  ‘That sounds like you,’ I grin.

  ‘Hey, don’t judge! I really love him. And seeing him try to make things right and be your boyfriend was hard on me,’ Tisha says.

  ‘And so you began to be mean to me.’

  ‘That’s the real me. I’m mean. I mean I know nobody thinks of themselves like that but like, it is true. It’s just who I am.’

  ‘That’s the most twisted apology I have ever encountered in my short life time,’ I say.

  ‘I’m really sorry for everything, Kalindi. I thought I had another chance and I owed it to you to try and I blew it,’ Sameer says.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ Tisha says.

  ‘It’s okay. I get it,’ I smile.

  ‘Yay! Come here, you!’ Tisha shrieks and hugs me tight.

  I laugh. At this point, Sameer excuses himself too. He says he also needs to be where Kapil is, and he too was just waiting to apologize before leaving. I assure him we’re cool, and let him go.

  Ada starts to say something, but I hold my palm up to stop her. ‘I know,’ I say, ‘you made a mistake, and you didn’t know,’ I add, pointing at Bharat. ‘All is forgiven and forgotten. Keeping track of who did what to me and why I’m mad at whom is getting really exhausting!’

  As soon as I say this, Ada joins Tisha and me in the hug. They pull in Bharat too, and we only break the hug when I croak that I’m suffocating.

  We resume the movie, since it really is awesome and we all get really into it, but this time, we all sit on the bed. We finish the movie, gossiping all the while. It is very different from sitting formally in different corners of the room and staring at nothing other than the TV screen.

  When the movie ends, Tisha turns to me, ‘So, what’s the deal with the delicious tall guy, what’s-his-name?’

  I know who she means, but I act innocent. ‘Who?’

  ‘Harsh Raj Sisodiya,’ Ada supplies.

  ‘There is no deal.’

  ‘Of course there is a deal. You like him, don’t you?’ Tisha asks, before going completely nuts and shrieking, ‘Ohmigod, you like him!’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like nerds,’ I state, to shift the topic.

  ‘I don’t. But he’s hardly a nerd. He used to be one, like in IX grade. But now he’s become quite the hunk. I wonder why he chooses to continue to hang out with the other nerds, though.’

  ‘Because they are his friends. And they are good people. And just because they don’t dress like you or party like you doesn’t mean they’re not fun,’ I defend Sarabjeet and Michael.

  ‘Whoa, easy!’

  ‘No, seriously.’ I look around the group and say, ‘You guys live in a make-believe Ken and Barbie world, where everybody is perfect and everybody has to have a partner and go on dates and dress impeccably. But we’re seventeen. Seventeen. We’re in school. And they’re the way school kids are supposed to be. They’re in no hurry to grow up.’

  ‘Okay. Is it just me or does anybody else think this girl here is completely in love with Sarabjeet Siddhu and has secretly turned lesbian?’ Bharat asks ever-so-seriously.

  ‘It’s not Sarabjeet she’s completely in love with,’ Ada says, wisely.

  ‘Oh, yeah! But she is in love!’ Tisha teases me.

  I change the direction of the conversation again. ‘I’m not in love with Sarabjeet, or anyone else. I just feel that those are honest people. Non-pretentious and true. And I like hanging out with them.’

  ‘Which brings us back to: what’s the deal with you and Harsh?’

  ‘There is no d—’

  ‘Come on!’ Ada interjects. ‘You know we are not going to let it go. Not after the scandal you created in front of half the school. You have to tell us.’

  Tisha nods furiously in agreement.

  Bharat isn’t as interested as the girls, because thankfully, unlike Sameer, Bharat is not a girl. But he does look curious.

  I exhale deeply and begin to tell them. I tell them about how we first met at our respective balconies and how we met again at the bus stop. How we kept bumping into each other at school and Sarabjeet invited me over. And how we became friends. And how he is so funny, and his eyes are so gorgeous. How he comes to walk me to his place and walk me back every time, how he bunked classes and took me to this brilliant hiding place. How he listened to my fears and held me and made me smile.

  The weird thing is, as I tell them this, I don’t feel like it is a big secret anymore. When I first told Harsh about the nightmares and my fears, it felt like a huge step forward, trusting him and opening up to him. But now when I repeat the story, I feel like it was just a detail. Like it was inconsequential and unimportant.

  And as I speak, I realize why that is. It’s because when I told Harsh, the nightmares and my fear of some of them being true still existed. When Harsh went to Dr Sahani and found out that I was not raped, all those fears vanished, along with the nightmares. I haven’t slept well in the days since the fallout with Harsh, but that is not because of the nightmares, but because of the fallout with Harsh. There have been no more nightmares.

  ‘So then what seems to be the problem?’ Tisha asked, looking so genuinely confused, she even forgot to add drama in her tone.

  ‘The problem is that I am only just now realizing that there is no problem. That it was all my fault. That day near the buses, I said some exceptionally horrible things to him. He went behind my back and talked to my doctor and even though it was to help me, I felt so betrayed. First by you guys, then by him too,’

  ‘You can’t blame it all on us!’ Ada protests.

  ‘I can and I will.’

  ‘That’s not done. We’ve never even spoken to the boy, let alone been mean to him!’

  I groan. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘We can make it right,’ Ada says. ‘You have to talk to him and tell him your side of the story. He might not want to listen in the beginning, might not take your calls, and when he does take your call, it’ll only be to yell at you, but then later when you’ve given him time to cool down and then go over to his place, he’ll forgive you. Trust me.’

  ‘He’s not me. And you were never as mean to me as I was to him.’

  ‘But you have to try,’ Tisha lets out. ‘You can’t not try!’

  ‘I wouldn’t even know where to start . . .’

  ‘Just tell him the truth,’ Bharat gives his first piece of advice.

/>   ‘And trust me, he’s going to forgive you. He likes you; he can’t stay mad at you!’ Tisha nudges me.

  ‘How do you know he likes me?’

  ‘Just like I know you like him! It’s what I do.’

  ‘I thought your thing was being mean,’ I say.

  ‘That too. Now. Are we going to do this or what?’

  ‘What, NOW?’ I panic. I’m not ready to face him yet.

  ‘No better time than the present!’ Bharat says and gets up, everyone following his lead.

  Twenty

  Three minutes later, we’re knocking on Harsh’s front door. Harsh’s mom opens the door and tells us to wait, while she calls Harsh. His door is shut and he refuses to come out.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ his mom asks him through the door. ‘It’s just Kalindi and some other kids from your school.’

  ‘Tell her I don’t want to see her,’ his voice comes from inside and breaks my heart.

  ‘What are you doing in there?’ his mom asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I hope you’re not doing . . . that thing we grounded you for . . .’

  ‘MOM!’ Harsh yells.

  I snicker, while Ada, Tisha and Bharat don’t get it.

  ‘Just open the door,’ his mom tries again.

  ‘NO!’

  She turns to us and says, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong . . .’

  ‘It’s okay, Aunty. We’ll come back later,’ I say.

  As we walk back to my place, I feel my heart sink. Before today, I’ve never had to walk from his place to mine without him by my side. What if he never forgives me? What if he never talks to me again? I call him up, he rejects the call. We repeat this about ten times.

  By the time I unlock my front door, I’m completely freaked out. ‘We have to do something.’

  ‘But what?’ Ada asks.

  I walk straight to my room and open the balcony door. ‘Harsh!’ I yell. ‘Harsh, Harsh, Harsh. Harsh, Harsh, Harsh, Harsh, Harsh!’

  Nothing moves. He doesn’t open the door or the window.

  ‘HARSH!’ I scream again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ada asks.

  Tisha and Bharat simply join in.

  ‘HARSH! HARSH! HARSH! HARSH! HARSH!’ we yell in unison, Ada joining in too, after a moment’s uncertainty.

  A few windows in both our buildings open. And a few from the one around ours. But not Harsh’s. We try again. ‘HARSH! HARSH! HARSH! HARSH! HARSH!’

  This time, he opens the door enough to peep out. Maybe he was wondering whose the other three voices were.

  ‘Please listen to me, Harsh,’ I waste no time. But he has already closed the door as soon as the first word left my mouth.

  The door is closed again. We all look at each other, and begin shouting at the same time. ‘HARSH! HARSH! HARSH! HARSH! HARSH!’

  But I know he is not going to fall for it again. We keep calling his name for a minute, but Harsh completely ignores us.

  ‘I have an idea,’ Tisha says. ‘We could shock him into opening the door.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  She points at the ladder in my balcony. ‘We could like put this ladder here across from one balcony to the other and you can tell him if he doesn’t come out, you’ll go to him over it.’

  ‘That’s so lame,’ Ada says. ‘This isn’t a Bollywood movie scene.’

  ‘You have a better idea?’

  Ada doesn’t. Nobody does. So we pick up the aluminium ladder, which is not very heavy and, after a little struggle trying to get the flat top to hook onto the railing of Harsh’s balcony securely, we get it in place. We fix the other end between the metal railings of my balcony. The ladder is now firmly placed horizontally between our balconies.

  We have sort of created a bridge between the two balconies. Admittedly, nobody walks on a ladder generally used for painting houses, placed horizontally between two buildings, but that has never been our intention. We just want to shock or scare Harsh enough to come out. It is pretty cool.

  ‘Come out or I’ll come to you!’ I yell.

  There’s no response from him.

  ‘I’m not kidding. I’ll climb onto this stupid ladder and walk across it.’

  There’s no response.

  ‘Harsh Raj Sisodiya. I will freaking get up on this ladder and come to you.’ I’m getting frustrated. He isn’t even saying anything. He’s not even asking me to go away and leave him alone. He’s just ignoring me completely. Like I don’t even exist anymore. It hurts like hell.

  ‘She’s not kidding,’ Tisha chimes in.

  ‘She’s really crazy. She will get up on this ladder,’ Ada adds.

  ‘A ladder that is not exactly structurally sound,’ Bharat says.

  ‘Get up on this,’ Tisha points to the concrete base of the railing—it’s made of iron rods embedded in a two-foot high base of bricks and concrete. I climb up onto it, which is not dangerous at all, but Bharat holds onto me from behind anyway.

  ‘WHOA! She’s climbing up. Another step and she’d be on the freaking ladder!’ Tisha exclaims.

  We’re not yelling too loudly, just loud enough for our voices to reach Harsh. We don’t want people in my building or Harsh’s or any of the others to start peeping out again. Although this is the middle of summer in Delhi and it’s a weekday, so half of the people living in these apartments have to be in office and the other half are taking naps in their air-conditioned bedrooms after lunch.

  ‘Harsh, I’m coming,’ I say.

  ‘What are you doing, man?’ Bharat says. ‘This has got to be at least a seventy-foot drop. Do you want her to die?’

  ‘Just come out already,’ Ada adds.

  ‘I just want to talk. Please come out, Harsh.’

  We’re quiet for half a minute. I feel like he is going to come out this time.

  He doesn’t.

  ‘Please give me one chance to explain . . .’ my voice starts breaking.

  He still doesn’t come out.

  ‘What the hell is this guy’s problem?’ Tisha says softly, turning to Ada.

  Ada shakes her head, ‘This is just cruel. What more can she do?’

  ‘The ladder plan clearly isn’t working,’ Bharat observes.

  While they are speaking softly amongst themselves, I put my right foot on the base of the ladder and climb up. Without thinking, I take two more steps forward.

  ‘KALINDI!!!!’ Ada, Tisha and Bharat yell in unison.

  Their voices jolt me out of whatever got into me and I make the mistake of looking down. I am standing right in the middle of the ladder. ‘OH MY GOD!’ I shriek, terrified. My legs shake and my knees get all wobbly. I automatically bend over and grab the ladder with both my hands. My feet are well placed and I cling to the ladder with all my limbs for my dear life.

  ‘What are you doing?! ’

  ‘COME BACK HERE!’

  ‘ARE YOU SERIOUS?! ’

  ‘THIS IS DANGEROUS!’

  I don’t know who screams what. I’m a little preoccupied with trying not to fall. As everybody goes into panic mode, Harsh’s door finally opens. ‘What’s going . . . ?’ he begins to ask, but freezes at the sight before him.

  ‘Hi,’ I grin nervously. My eyes are filled with tears. I’m petrified. What have I done?

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Harsh asks in disbelief. ‘ARE YOU CRAZY? HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR MIND?’

  ‘Maybe. I think for a minute there, yeah.’

  ‘What were you thinking? What were all of you thinking? Have you all gone mad?’ Harsh freaks out. He grabs the end of the ladder, trying to secure it with his weight.

  I turn my head around slowly and carefully. I can see only Bharat, who is doing his best to keep his end of the ladder steady. I hope Ada and Tisha are doing the same; I can’t see them and I’m too scared to turn more.

  ‘We didn’t know she was going to actually do it!’

  ‘We looked away for a second and boom! There she was bang in the middle of the t
wo buildings!’ ‘And don’t blame this on us! You were the one who refused to come out even after we warned you several times!’ ‘Yeah, if anything, this is your fault!’ ‘My fault? Did I help her set up this ladder—?’ ‘Guys?’ I say, my voice shaking badly. ‘Could we discuss whose fault this was after I get out of here . . . or die?’ ‘Nobody’s dying!’ ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you!’ All of their voices are high-pitched and panicky. Ada has stopped speaking a while ago, and I suspect she is crying.

  Like me. ‘I don’t want to die,’ I murmur. ‘You’re not going to,’ Harsh assures me. ‘We’ll get you out of here.’ ‘Which way can you move? Which would be easier?’ Bharat asks. I sniff. ‘I . . . I can’t . . .’ ‘Come on, Kalindi Mishra, don’t give up now! We’ve got this,’ Harsh looks me right in the eye and promises. ‘I’m . . . so sorry,’ I sob. ‘All those horrible things I said . . .

  I didn’t mean any of them . . .’ ‘Shhh! Calm down. It’s okay, it’s okay.’ ‘Should we call the fire department or something?’ Tisha asks. Her voice sounds oddly high-pitched and gruff. ‘I don’t think . . . I can’t hold on that long,’ I say. ‘You can and you will,’ Bharat says. ‘We’ll try to get you out, but we have to call the fire department just in case we need help, okay?’ I nod slowly, fearing the slightest movement could make me fall. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Can you move forward?’ Harsh asks.

  I’m resting on my hands and knees. I don’t know how to move. ‘Please hold the ladder still,’ I say and try to move towards Harsh. I shift my knees forward slowly, but find that I can’t. I let out a sob. I’m going to die.

  ‘Give me your hand,’ Harsh says. He frees his left hand and offers it to me.

  I slowly unclench my right hand and let go of the ladder. I move it up and hold Harsh’s hand.

  ‘See? Not so difficult,’ he tries to encourage me, but I can hear the fear in his voice.

  He lets go of the ladder completely and when I look at him with panic, he says, ‘It’s okay. It’ll stay put.’ He offers me his other hand and I take it too. He grips both my hands tightly and steps back little by little. ‘I’m going to pull you towards me now, okay? Don’t move your knees just yet. I’ll step back and you just lie down on your stomach. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.’