Someone Like You (29 page)

‘Right here,’ I say.

‘You seem lost.’

‘Just thinking.’

‘Don’t worry. He has got it. We’re winning!’ The smile on her face is one of relief and happiness. She has confidence in Karthik. So do I.

And sure enough, almost immediately, Karthik has the ball back at his feet. He runs with it for a while, before passing it
over to the striker, who then passes it back to him. Everyone has their eyes set on Karthik. We can almost see him hitting a goal in the next second.

‘KARTHIK! KARTHIK! KARTHIK!’

The chants across the stadium are deafening. The crowd gets rowdier. The rain gets heavier. This is the end of the match. One goal and it is done.

‘KARTHIK! KARTHIK! KARTHIK!’

Karthik runs towards the goalpost and Ratul passes the ball towards him. I can almost see Karthik stopping the ball and directing it straight to the goalpost. But it never happens. When the ball comes to him, he lets it pass right through. The ball hits a player from the opponent side and rolls away from the field. It goes out of the boundary and the referee blows his whistle. It’s an outside.

No one knows what just happened and why. It was a very easy shot. It’s hard to believe Karthik missed it accidentally. He did it on purpose. It is very evident. But—
why
? I find my answer within seconds.

As he makes his way to fetch the ball, Karthik shouts out to me, ‘Niharika!’

‘What?’ I shout back. I am sitting just three rows away from where the ball is, and I can see him coming towards me.

‘Do you want us to win?’ he asks.

‘Yes, of course! What kind of question is that?’

‘Do you
really
want us to win?’

‘YES!’
I shout.

‘Then you’ll have to do something for me.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yes,
now
. Give me what I want, or else I won’t go back to the game,’ he smirks. He has reached the ball and bends down to pick it up in his hands.

‘What is it? There are just four minutes left in the match!’

‘I know. And only you can make me go back to the field and win it.’

‘Karthik! What is—?’ I panic. I can see the referee and the other players getting curious.

‘Shh! Let’s not waste time. Just—tell me you love me.’

‘WHAT?’

‘I know you do. You know you do. Don’t you?’ he cocks his head to one side and asks. He is way too smug for his own good. But I find even that endearing. Moreover, there is a certain uncertainty in his eyes. No one else could have noticed it, but I have. I have come to know him. And I have come to love him.

‘I do,’ I whisper. His eyes never leave mine, my eyes don’t leave his. The referee blows his whistle, but we hardly notice.

‘What? I can’t hear you.’

‘I SAID I DO!’

‘Say it,’ he says. Strangely, the sheer arrogance in his attitude makes me love him more.

‘I love you, Karthik,’ I say in a clear voice. I can feel the blood rush to my face, and my ears turn warm. The referee blows his whistle again. Mandar and Ratul shout out to Karthik, asking him what’s going on. I doubt he hears any of them. He seems interested in listening only to me.

‘Now—kiss me!’ he says.

‘Now you’re pushing your luck!’

‘Okay, okay!’ he laughs, blows a kiss to me and turns back to the field. The referee pulls out a yellow card and waves it at Karthik. Darn. He had crossed the time limit for the outside. But it’s just a yellow card; no harm done.

Karthik throws the ball to one of the players of our team and runs inside the boundary. I am still reeling from the impact of what just happened between us and feeling terribly embarrassed. People all around me, who saw it happen, are
shooting me strange looks, making me blush even more. But fretting about how soon the news of my ‘scene’ with Karthik would travel to the entire college will have to wait. There are just two minutes left in the match. So, for now, I just worry about whether or not our team will be able to make it.

We do. Karthik hits the most spectacular goal ever. Weaving his way through the mesh of players of the opposing team, he runs determinedly towards the goalpost. His clothes are soaking with water and the rain pours down all around us, but that does not deter him. He passes the ball to Ratul, who runs with it for three seconds, before passing it back to Karthik. Without wasting any time, Karthik kicks the ball hard, right into the middle of the goalpost. The goalkeeper manages to touch it, but that does nothing more than change the direction of the ball fractionally. It deviates slightly from its path, but enters the goalpost in the next second. The crowd goes berserk; the noise around me is thunderous.

Everything blurs in front of my eyes. People leave the stands and rush to the field, towards the players. Even after about ten minutes later, I can’t spot Karthik anywhere. It seems like the crowd has devoured him.

‘Where is he?’ I ask Pia, as we stand near our seats, holding hands.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispers. Her voice breaks. I look at her, to find that she is crying. I hug her tightly.

‘We won, Pia. Tanmay would have been so happy.’

‘I know. If he is seeing this … he must be so … he wanted to bring the cup home—’

‘Shh. Don’t do this to yourself. We just won! Smile!’ I prod her and she smiles, a little sadly at first and for real after some more prodding.

We wait for ten more minutes, watching the jubilant crowd surrounding the team, cheering, dancing and spinning around
the field madly. We can’t help but feel ecstatic ourselves. But … I still can’t spot Karthik anywhere.

A finger taps my shoulder from behind. Startled, I turn around to see Karthik standing behind me, his clothes dripping water, his hair all over the place, one hand behind his back, hiding something.

‘You scared me! Where were you? I could not find you anywhere!’ I say.

‘You were searching?’ he smirks again.

‘Shut up! Don’t flatter yourself,’ I say. I try to be a little aloof and cool, but the pinkness in my cheeks gives me away. ‘I just …’

‘You just …?’

‘I was just looking for you because … Pia wanted to thank you!’ I say and turn to Pia.

‘What?’ she looks up at me and asks. ‘Oh, yes. Karthik, thank you so much for—’

‘No, Pia. Please don’t,’ Karthik says abruptly and we all pause. There is suddenly a strange silence around us. I curse myself for dragging Pia into this just to cover up my blush.

‘But I really did want to thank you. It means a lot,’ Pia says.

He just nods.

‘Umm … what are you hiding behind your back?’ I ask, to change the subject.

‘It’s nothing,’ he says. It’s his turn to blush now. I have never seen him shy. So it’s new, and it’s also adorable.

‘Show me!’

‘It’s just …’ he murmurs and pulls out a red rosebud from behind his back. It looks freshly picked and has barely even opened yet. ‘I plucked it just now from the college garden … just to … tell you I love you too. Next time, I promise you a dozen.’

‘I don’t
need
a dozen! I just need you,’ I say and take the rosebud from him. On an impulse, I hug him. I shiver a little in the cold, as the water seeps into my clothes too. But he holds me firmly and I feel amazing, resting my head against his chest. I look up at him, smiling. We lock eyes, and I stand on my toes to reach his lips. I kiss him softly, before hiding my face in his chest again. ‘And there’s your kiss.’

He holds me tighter.

W
e have just gotten back to our hostel, after our annual break, following the end of the second semester exams. It has been two months since I last saw Karthik. Ever since that football match—the one in which Karthik was amazing and brought the title home for the team—we had been practically inseparable. Until the stupid break happened.

I can’t even begin to tell you how hard these two months at home have been for me, away from Karthik.

I hug Pia as soon as she enters our room and she shrieks on seeing me. She throws her bags down and her caretaker, her Didi, looks at her lovingly, as she jumps up happily, hugging me. To say the least, I am relieved to see her all right. Although we all are fine on the outside, I do find myself sinking into depression, thinking about Tanmay. Sometimes, I miss him just way too much. The pain is almost physical in its intensity.

It is worse for Pia. But she has taken good care of herself. She has handled herself very bravely and tried really hard to be happy. Now, when we think of Tanmay, we think about all the good times we spent with him. All the cherished memories of that cute childish face, not the sadness of his death. We think about him all the time, and we think about him fondly.

Akshat has never shown his face again, ever since he got punched by Karthik during that football match. We let him go, leaving it to karma to take care of him. Nothing we ever did could get Tanmay back. And I did not want Karthik, Pia or myself to get into those power and revenge games. So I made Karthik swear that he won’t go looking for Akshat. It has worked out fine for us.

‘You can’t imagine how much I missed you! I was so eager for college to start again that Mom thought I had a boyfriend here!’ Pia shouts.

‘My Mom thought the same. Only, in my case—she was right!’ I laugh and she joins me.

‘You lucky girl! So, where is he?’

A bike honks outside our hostel and my heart skips a beat. I know that sound; how can I not? We look at each other for a second and rush to the window. There, in a black Led Zeppelin tee and worn-out grey jeans, is the best sight in the world, looking up at me and smiling.

Co-authors always thank each other last in the acknowledgements page, and that, too, merely as a formality. But since we have written and re-written this book several times and ended up fighting like crazy on too many occasions, we think the first people we should thank is each other. Moreover, we deserve to be thanked for not losing our calm and killing each other.

Our families and extended families for their undeterred support, no matter how much they love or hate what we write—our parents, Nishant Malay, Rituparna Datta Ghosh, Kumar Abhinav, Prishita Singh, Tushar Deep, Vishal Kumar, Abhimanyu Singh, Shaina Singh, Shreela Singh and Pooja Singh.

For taking the trouble to read our books and lying that they like it—Maanvi Ahuja, Sachin Garg, Avantika Mohan, Alka Singh, Ashay Shukla, Abhay Mishra, Pratham Jain, Viyali Michael, Nidhi Sharma, Deepika Rathore, Naman Kapoor, Ankit Mittal, Arpit Khandelwal, Komal Rustagi and Palak Kandelwal.

We would also like to thank everyone following us at social networking sites. Thank you for all the love. We are forever indebted.

The whole team at Penguin India, for their support and encouragement. Especially Vaishali Mathur, for bearing with us over and over again, while we kept missing deadlines, setting new ones and missing them again!

Last, but not the least, we thank Guruji for his blessings.

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in Penguin Metro Reads by Penguin Books India 2012

www.penguin.co.in

Copyright © Nikita Singh 2012

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-01-4341-769-9

This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-699-9