Keeping the Promises (18 page)

I know; not trusting him would be the last thing on my mind, but all my thoughts are running. Is this what I’m thinking? Is this the big day? I’ll have to wait for probably two hours to find out. But I’m happy; I always wanted to see his home there. I want to see the room where Ansh and Angie ascertained each other completely, and the sofa Dhruv mentioned, where he and M watched
P.S. I Love You
in each other’s arms. I want to see the table where he proposed to M, which she mentioned even in our last meeting. I’m both exhilarated and nervous at the same time; what if he proposes me there? In the same house and under the same roof? That would be more than anything he could ever give me. All the struggle and pain that we are going through, there would be no better end to this. I want that – desperately.

In between the whirlwind of thoughts in my mind, he hands his iPhone to me.

“Read the final part.”

“What? Here? I mean in the car?” I say appraising my nervousness.

“Yes, Nilu, we’ve almost one-and-a-half hour to reach there. Let’s use it.”

And I start reading.

12 February:

The goodbye kiss

I
t was a quiet and peaceful morning. The clock was ticking and it was the only sound I could hear. I wasn’t feeling her breaths. I already sensed it. I woke up and looked at her. She was gone. I moved my hand close to her eyes, but
Wait!
She moved her head a bit. I felt blessed with a new life. She was not gone. I had one more day. She finally opened her eyes and smiled at me.

“Mithu?” She was barely able to speak now and almost mumbled.

“Yes, baby. I’m right here.”

“The time has come,” she said and tears rolled down her eyes. I wiped her tears, but failed to sense the amount of tears I kept shedding, which I did not want to wipe. I wanted to cry. Only they could help me with the pain of losing her.

“Mithu?”

“Hmm.” A blunt sound came out as my voice chocked within my throat.

“It’s the time for a goodbye kiss.”

I know my love! But how can I see you going?

“Are you in hurry, M? Or can you wait for five minutes?”

“I could wait all my life for you Mithu, if it was in my hand. But I don’t think our God is so cruel that he will not give me five more minutes.”

Our God, the concept of our God was simple. We both believed in one God, who is beyond religions, mosques, temples, and churches. Our God lives within ourselves and within every other being. And yes, he was not so cruel after all. He gave us more than five minutes.
I’ll always be grateful to him that he gave us the chance of saying goodbye. This way, he proved his existence to me. Otherwise, she’d died five days ago. But he gave me all those moments to live my life with – along with those bloody promises. But you have to pay your price and perhaps those promises were my price.

“Mithu!”

“Hmm?”

“Say something Mithu! I do not have much time left.”

I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

“You are still not done with kisses, right?”

“No, never!”

“So… How was it Mithu?”

“How was what?”

“The entire quest of us?”

“You know how it was baby. You know, I could do anything possible to change our fate because somehow I feel that I couldn’t give you everything I wanted to. Love, passion, intimacy…I feel there are so many things I’ve missed and failed in giving you.”

“Hey Mithu, shhh! Please don’t say that. You have given me more than I could possibly ever desire. I know we are not having a perfect end of our story, but I assure you that I will be around. I’m not done with you yet. You’ll feel me around someday. Now tell me, how was I? Praise me, compliment me…because I want to relive those moments for one last time.” She winked with a smile.
Girls! They want compliments even on the deathbed
…

But what I said was much more than compliments and praises. I made her relive our whole journey – of course with tears in our eyes. I had tears of all my life in those last twelve days but as I said, I did not mind crying.

“Our journey… It started with your tears, remember? (her face frowned, snaps at me). You were crying in the middle of that road,
when I saw you from my car, I thought
How dumb is She?
(she gets more angry, gasping in fury). But then I realised that she was not crying for herself. She was crying for the stress it could cause her father. Though it was still hard to understand that for an irresponsible and insensitive guy like me, I somehow found it cute (she blushes) and then all that night, we were chasing each other’s eyes (she smiles, yeah, we did). Although at first, I thought it may be infatuation because I did not believe in love at first sight. But I knew this wasn’t just any other attraction; it was something more than that (she blushes even more). You know you were not the first girl in my life and because of those bloody promises, not the last (she now grins, flaunting pride for that bloody promise). But, you were special. Because I still get butterflies in my stomach when I look into your eyes. I still get as fascinated as I was when I saw you for the first time. I felt it was my duty to never let that smile drop from your face. I always wanted to make you laugh. Every minute, I was thinking about how to impress you and when I saw my plans working, I would literally jump with joy (her eyes moistened, but she hadn’t dropped her smile. She still gets impressed by me). Then a big day came, I proposed to you. First through a text message and then at my home, by looking into your eyes, just the way you wanted (her nose and cheeks are getting red. She is blushing more than ever). On that day, I kissed you for the first time. It was like a never-ending ecstatic excursion. I still can feel those lips. Pink, wide and gorgeous. Oh shit I’m getting butterflies, even now (She tightened her grip on my hand, as if she would never want to leave them). Then it became regular. Kisses, fights and a competition. Who’s smarter? And I won it by outsmarting you most of the times (She now gets angry; twitches her face, clenches her teeth and smiles too. A combination good enough to instigate me to smooch her which I did… and continued). Ansh, Angie, you and I – the fantastic four. No amount of money can buy the time we shared together. We were extremely romantic and crazy
enough to blow each other’s minds and passionate enough to kiss each other in front of them. I think they were more shameless, what say? (She widens her smile, nods her head in affirmation). It was going like a desired dream when the time came…you left me. I should’ve tried to understand you and should’ve known you well enough that you could never leave me like this. I should’ve remained calm and sought the reason. But I turned into a jerk. After seven forgettable months with alcohol, drugs and dopes, our God was kind enough to give me that wake-up call through that accident at the right time (heavy tears started dropping from her eyes). Sorry baby, for hurting you, but it was also a part of my love for you. No matter how drunk I got, no matter how many cigarettes I smoked, no matter how many drugs I took, I always failed in erasing your memories. Not a single day passed when I did not feel for you; your sharp blue almond eyes, your delicate red nose and ears, your silky golden hair, your everlasting and enchanting smile. I just couldn’t get rid of you. Even though I tried to hate you a lot, but I could never really succeed in that. My love, you were a part of me. How could I cut you off (she is still in heavy tears and not even trying to restrain it)? When I came back, you did not have much time left and I did not have enough time left with you. The last two weeks, my love, I can proudly say that you’ve changed me and my life in those two weeks. When I first saw you like this, I was a person in unbearable grief and turmoil. In these past few days, you’ve taught me what life really is; through this story which I wrote for you and through our new family that will be strangers again from now and that’s because of you (this time I snapped at her, she lowered her wet eyes). I feel like I’m born again as a better person than I used to be. I grew up. I can feel that I’m more mature and calm than I used to be. Still, a part of me will always hate one word because of you – sacrifice. I’ll always hate that word and a part of me will always hate you for choosing death over me (she is now weeping - in extreme disappointment. I realised I should have
slurred my words). My love! But you gave me a new birth. The wisdom I got in these last fifteen days, will always be with me like shadow as well as a gift from you. Thank you, my love! Thank you, for coming into my life and making it wonderful (she is now smiling. Gripping my hand as tightly as she can and trying hard to move her head to kiss my hand. I gave it to her and she kissed my hand and her tears moistened my hand).”

“Now kiss me for the last time….” She softly demanded after having a long session of kissing my hand.

I took her in my arms and kissed her. It was the most passionate, ecstatic and breathtaking kiss we ever shared. It was everlasting and I just kept going, till her tongue stopped moving inside my mouth. She was gone. I knew it, but I still kept going. She had left her body, her lips were not moving at all but I still wasn’t stopping. After several minutes when I started having problem in breathing, I parted my lips from hers. I kissed her head for the last time. I slowly put her down; her eyes were already closed. She was gone. I lost my girlfriend in between our heavenly kiss. I hope it stays with her – and stays with me too.

I packed my stuff quickly and opened the door.

Dad was waiting for me outside. He understood everything as he saw me and hugged me tightly. We both fell on each other’s shoulders in our cries. A wind of agony rose inside our hearts, and we both were literally growling in pain. Mom came there and understanding what would have happened, went inside. I could hear her cry of pain. The pain of losing the only child cannot be understood by anyone else other than the parents. I saw it. From the past twelve days, I had been an intact part of this family.

And she took them away from me with her bloody promises
.

“Can we have our last breakfast together? Can you make those omelettes for the last time?” Dad asked. Surprisingly, he was in no
hurry for the cremation of his only daughter. She could wait to turn into ashes for a while, but that was our last time. I knew it, they knew it. To be honest, I hated that bloody promise more than anything at that time. Her cremation process, I don’t know when and how it happened because I was not there. I wanted to but I knew that was her father’s legal and virtuous right. Once again, she was just a stranger to me. I had nothing of her other than our memories.

“Of course, dad!” I went in the kitchen and made those omelettes for us. We sat together, and ate it, quietly. I realised it was saltier today. I wanted to apologise, but I didn’t need to. They knew very well from where that salt taste was coming. I think at that time, we all were running out of words. He finished a little earlier, went inside and brought an envelope for me.

“This is something for you,” He said and handed me the envelope. It was a letter from her. I started reading.

Dear Dhruv
,

You are reading this letter, which means I’m far away, yet so close. There are some things that I never felt like telling you, but now I think I should. In this short journey of my life, I’m feeling proud and pleasured to think about those substantial moments with you. Every moment that I shared with you, with our friends, were blissful and went like a dream for me. I lived my life with dignity, joy and without having a single regret and I want you to live the same. I might have taken those promises from you…Well, I know you’ll keep it well enough. My intention of writing this was to inform you that when you leave this house, I want you to take nothing of me except my memories. Not even this letter. Give it to my father. Have a great and wonderful life Mithu! See you in your memories. Bye
.

My tears had made that letter almost wet. I handed it to her father whom I could not call dad anymore. I pulled out my diary and gave it to him. “This is all I have, except her memories. This is the story I wrote for her, and I know I’ll be able to do that again. But I want you to have this, I want you to read our love story before the entire world does and that’s all I can give you, sir!” I saw how that last word “sir” pained him.

“I’ll be waiting for your name in one of those books son!” he said shedding uncontrollable tears.

“How do you know about that?”

“She was planning it for the past four months. She used to tell me so much about your art of storytelling,” he said amidst sobs.

“She was the only one who believed in that.”

He nodded positively; still the three of us were in tears. I felt that I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I think I need to go now, sir!” I said and picked my bags.

“All the best, son!” they both said. I touched their feet, took their blessings and left them once and for all.

I
keep weeping, thinking about how hard it could be for Dhruv and her parents to see her go. I somehow feel nice about not being there when she left us – but that didn’t keep me from missing her and secretly crying for her.