Truly Madly Deeply (35 page)

“It's hot,” Grazil said sipping coffee from her mug and almost spitting it out.

Rahul nodded. He merely held his in his hand by clutching
the handle.

They sipped their drinks slowly. He noticed her eyeing him now and then, and quickly looking away when he caught her.

He was stealing surreptitious glances at her from a distance of four seats during the ‘Meet the Scientists' program.

He quickly shook his head to clear the gathering past.

“Are you all right? Feeling dizzy?” she asked, taking a step towards him with concern.

He held her and asked her how she felt, she had coughed twice as they were dancing together on the Annual Day.

“Yeah, I'm fine. No worries,” Rahul maintained, relaxing
his eyebrows.

“You sure?” she asked.

He nodded.

She smiled.

Rahul paid for the coffee when he went to place back the empty cup inside the shop. She followed him after a while and proceeded to pay but the attendant told her that the gentleman had already cleared the bill.

“Hey, you paid? That's not fair, I invited you,” she complained.

She was fighting with him as he tried to clear the bill for what had been her treat at Hot Ovens, the day their results were out in school.

“I needed the change anyway,” Rahul justified, shutting out
the thoughts.

She nodded with a smile.

Grazil shuffled in her place uneasily as Rahul looked at the
empty street.

“Ok, I have to get going. See you around!” Rahul wanted to get back to his room and lie down on the bed. The last three visions, even though they had flashed only for a moment, had disturbed him. The past flooded his brain.

“Rahul… actually, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Grazil said, holding his hand just as he stepped back.

He raised an eyebrow, very slowly freeing his hand from her
delicate grip.

“I realised that I really like you, you're not in the least like others. I want to say I love you and I mean it from my heart,” she said in one go with closed eyes and racing heartbeats.

When she opened her eyes, Rahul was staring at her, his hands folded across his chest, his eyes exploring into hers.

She walked nearer to him, placing her palm on his chest.

“We will make a wonderful couple, you so shy and reserved and me… well, so bubbly and talkative. Opposites attract, don't they?” she said happily. Rahul gently dislodged her hand.

“We are friends Grazil, only friends,” he said in a voice that reminded him of the way he had talked to her near the store.

“But, I really do love you!”

He sensed the panic set in her voice.

“You may Grazil, I don't doubt that but I'm not the right guy for you,” he said, not breaking the eye contact.

“Of course you are, I know. The first time I saw you in the dark, just your gallant silhouette when you came as my saviour; I knew that if it had to be someone, it had to be you. The next time you came at the shop, we talked for a brief while, and then that unfortunate accident happened. All I did then was worry about you. I skipped school and I ditched my midday meals to watch over you in the hospital. By the end of it all, I was totally submerged in your thoughts. What do you mean by saying you are not the correct guy for me? We'd look so good together,” she almost shouted.

Tears were beginning to take shape in her pretty blue eyes. She crossed her hands against her body holding herself before letting the tears flow.

He did something he would not have done otherwise. He stepped towards her and held her by the shoulders and shook her until
she looked into his eyes. Her quivering voice transformed into a stony silence.

“Listen to me Grazil, I'm in love with someone else,” he said.

Grazil thought she had not heard it correctly but when the words sunk in her heart, a void began to set in, disturbing the waters of her emotions.

“You can't be…” she said, the tears now flowing freely from her eyes onto the ground.

Something in Rahul stirred, a memory… No, a mirror… he saw….

“Grazil, get a hold on yourself,” he shouted, still holding
her shoulder.

“I have never seen you with any girl here. They say you're always alone, you don't even have a phone …” Grazil waved her hands in desperation, talking everything she could think of.

Rahul looked at her and paused for a moment. He saw that she could not find the words.

“My girlfriend's in India. She's from my previous school and we're in a committed relationship since the past two years. I don't keep a phone because she hasn't one. For me, it's only her,” he said slowly in the same cold voice.

Grazil would have collapsed on the pavement but he held her on.

He was sitting on the pavement near the highway, his head in his hands, crying his heart out as she walked out on him.

“Get a grip on yourself, Grazil. You will find many more eligible guys than me,” he explained as her legs wavered.

“I want you and only you,” she cried, pushing his soothing hands away and falling down.

“Go home Grazil, Colins would be worried,” he helped her onto her feet.

“How can you be so barbaric? Please don't do this to me. You're the first guy I have lost my heart to,” she pleaded.

“…Maybe just wipe away those ten minutes when you came to me for the first time and I looked into your eyes to realise what love is.”

“I won't be the last. I'm sorry Grazil, it's not in my hands,” he said, sounding as apologetic as possible. For the first time in a year, the voice came from his heart.

She paused and looked at him with tears resurfacing in her eyes as the pain of her first rejection stabbed her chest.

“I hate you, I hate you …god damn it …I hate you,” she said before pushing him back and running away the way she had come.

Rahul stared at her fast receding figure.

He hoped she would turn back and check on him, if not gather the shredding pieces in his chest.

He shook his head again. He looked towards the sky and then he looked at the figure that had almost turned right from the lane.

“Sorry… I am really sorry!” he said, hoping she would hear him.

He hoped she would be fine and would forget him and would find love in someone who could give back twice the love that he got from her. She was a genuine girl, a little immature but true at heart. He wondered what would happen to her just as he sometimes wondered what had happened to Seema when he had left her a year ago, back home in a similar lane. But then she had left him... or had he?

“You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him only that he is gone,

or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind,

be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what he'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”

David Harkins.

Seema looked up very slowly. She saw the tall figure turn and disappear down the alley. Her heart weighed down upon her. She thought it was the guilt but she did not know it was something else taking shape, filling the crevices of her heart, beckoning her back. She slowly walked along the same path, her mind still echoing with the words which had hit her like a flurry of bullets. She noticed that the thing that had fallen out of Rahul's pocket was a little parchment. She picked up the small piece of paper and dusted it with her orange dupatta.

“Oh, you are still here! Come on, we are running late for class,” a dark girl from her tuitions said as she was rushing herself. Seema tagged along with her, all the while turning back, expecting something, anticipating someone yet not knowing that the events of the evening were far from over.

When she stepped inside the class, their Sir was not too pleased at her late arrival and softly made that clear to her. For the first time in life, he had scolded her. She thought she deserved every bit of it albeit for a different reason. She merely nodded and took the only seat vacant by then. There was a girl seated beside her and she seemed strangely familiar. She was the latest entry in her tuitions. Seema sensed anger seethe through her nerves when she glanced up, to see her.

“Hi,” Farha smiled with her glowing face which Seema so hated. She looked away to focus on what was being taught. Her mind was too numb to react to any action and thus, became the exception to Newton's third law of motion.

For the first time in her life, she was not paying attention in class. Luckily, for her, she was sitting at the far end of the class and the Sir was too engrossed with the weaker students ahead, to look at her. Events of earlier times started playing in her mind. She tried to shut them out but was not successful like always. She sensed Farha eyeing her now and then, trying to make eye contact, whispering her name softly but she shrunk back further from her.

Seema was the first one to rush out as soon as their Sir announced that the class was done for the day. Her steps were quicker than her usual gait and she wanted to reach home and lie down on her bed, to gather herself. She did not want to break down. She had always been a strong girl, always been the self-esteemed warrior but today, something was amiss. She did not feel the same. She was fast losing her confidence.

“Seema!” someone shouted from behind. She stopped in her tracks and looked back. It was Farha.

She resumed her walk not bothering to hear her again.

“Seema, stop!” Farha almost ran and pounced on her.

“Keep away from me!” Seema pushed her back.

“Listen, you have to talk to me,” Farha said.

“Really? I have no intentions of doing so... so please, you go your way, and I go mine!” Seema said in the rudest voice she could come up with.

“It's about Rahul. I won't bug you again... just this once please,” Farha pleaded.

Seema stopped arguing on hearing the name and seeing the
look on Farha's face, she remained silent, an indication for Farha to start speaking.

“You remember the dance competition, don't you? Oh well, of course you do… I'm sorry about that,” Farha gathered her words before Seema could continue on her route again.

“Whatever happened that day or before it, Rahul had no hand in it, trust me. It was all Jay's doing, even you can realise that if you scrutinise it minutely,” Farha said as tears gathered in her eyes.

Seema was shocked to hear that, but then as Farha narrated the incidents that had taken place and how an evil mind had plotted Rahul's downfall; both in his personal and professional life, Seema began to shiver in the night air.

“Why are you telling this to me now?” was the only question that escaped her lips.

“I'm sorry, I lived with the guilt since that day and everyday has been excruciating for me. Rahul had warned me not to go
anywhere near you and I didn't want to hurt him again, I hoped that he would talk it out with you but then I also knew you'd
never listen to him, and even if you did, Jay had done more
than enough to see to it that you won't believe him. For all that I did, I liked Rahul but I did not want him this way. Any
other guy would have wagged his tail behind me after all that I did, but Rahul wasn't like that. He resisted me even when I was on top of his senses. He really loves you; I have seen it in his eyes even when you were nowhere near him, even when I was trying to conquer him.

“In the afternoon, I came to know from some of his friends in school who stay in my locality that he is leaving the country and with no option to wait, I had to get the load off my shoulders once and for all. I came here to attend a trial lecture, promising your Sir that
if I liked the teaching methodology, I would surely take admission, but in reality I came to meet you because I knew in school, perhaps I won't get a chance and I wouldn't have liked to create a scene.
My best option was this and in case he leaves tonight, I was hoping I wasn't too late…” her explanation remained unfinished as Seema cut her way in.

“What did you say? He's going tonight?” Seema sounded
almost frantic.

“I'm not sure. Just before you came, I overheard this short guy seated in the other row, telling someone next to him that Rahul would be leaving somewhere tonight… Hey…” Farha shouted as Seema's feet turned back and broke into a run.

She reached her fourth floor apartment in less than two minutes and threw her bag on the floor.

“What's the hurry?” her mother shouted at her. She hardly heard her to give a response.

She immediately picked up the phone but kept down the receiver. Then again, she picked it up and punched in a number.

“Hello?” Sapna answered the call just as Seema was about
to disconnect.

“What is Rahul's number?” she almost shouted in the instrument.