Chapter 2

The corridor appeared to be swirling before his eyes as he fought his way ahead. He felt as if he were walking underwater. Everything was happening in slow motion around him. Amidst all the blur and confusion, he unexpectedly caught the room number he had been looking for and he mindlessly barged in. He hardly noticed her brother stand up, the eyes blazing.

Once his eyes had found what they were looking for, the rest of the world had lost him. He took a few steps closer to the hospital bed where she lay, pale as death. His already torn heart ripped a bit more as he took in the ugly, angry purple bruises on her face, the cut slashing down diagonally from the corner of lip to her lower cheekbone, the tubes that were connected to her helping her hold on, the dark circles that made her eyes appear sunken...

Yet, he kept his face as expressionless as he could. This drama of hers would not affect him, but she had crossed the line this time. There was a limit to everything. He had made his decision and she had been fine with it in the beginning, or at least she had pretended to. Then why was she hell bent on creating all these complications now? Why was she making things difficult? Why was she insisting on hurting herself and everyone else who loved her?

No. Her cleverness would not work this time. He was not relenting, he was not coming back on his decision, but she would definitely have to stop this nonsense. He stepped closer yet, breathing hard, ignoring all the other people in the room who stood there, watchful. He took a deep breath in, observing her closely before he decided to speak. He had to admit, she was a great actress. Because looking at her, he could almost believe she was really unconscious, like all the others did... But he knew her too well.

"Give it break now, okay?" he hissed. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically as the machine regularly pumped air in and out of her lungs. But he knew it was all pretence. "Stop it, Khushi! This is not funny!" Her lips should have twitched slightly into a microscopic smile that no one but him would see. They didn't. "Khushi, I know you can hear me. Wake up right now, do you understand? Wake up! Stop this nonsense."

Someone came up to him and gently tried to tug him away but he shrugged them off recklessly and lowered himself closer to her, supporting himself by placing his hands on either sides of her head. "Look, they don't know you're joking. They are all worried for you. Just open your eyes and let them know you are fine, Khushi. It's me you have a problem with, right? Why are you troubling all of them?"

She did not budge and his heart sank. He tried to steel himself, he tried to deny the truth as well as he could, but the slow realisation ravaged him, bringing tears to his eyes. "Wake up, Khushi," he whispered, almost pleading now. "Don't do this to me. Wake up and punish me in any way you like, hit me, shout at me, kill me but don't stay silent like that, please. I'll do anything you want. We'll get married today itself if you say so but please... Just wake up."

She still did not react and he felt himself sit back on the edge of her bed, limp and exhausted. Why wasn't she listening to him? Numbly, he lifted his hand and caressed her cheek gently, not knowing that it would release pandemonium. He had barely felt the satin smoothness of her skin when loud beeping noises exploded from the machines. He looked up in alarm as the doctors burst in instantly and he was torn away from her.

***

"Why have you come here?" Shyam gritted out before he had the time to realise what had happened. He blinked at the older man, confusion thick in his mind. All he could think about was her. What had happened to her? Why had everyone been made to leave the room? Was she fine? Shyaam swore and grabbed him by the collar to shake him back to the present. "You bas***d! I had told you to stay away from my sister! Why the f**k are you here now?"

Arnav opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. Shyam's wife, Anjali, came up and rubbed her husband's shoulder, whispering unintelligible things to him and Shyaam half-heartedly released him. "This is all because of him," he spat with disgust. Arnav dropped his gaze shamefully. Shyam was right, this was his fault.

He watched the door to her room blankly as he stepped back until his back hit the wall behind him and his tired body slid down until he was sitting on the floor. This was his fault. His eyelids fell shut. He wished he could turn the clocks back. Back to the days they had been happy together. He would have given anything for that. And once there, he would have changed his decision; the one that had changed their lives.

He had met her a few years ago when he had returned to India after his father had fallen sick. His father and hers had been two very good friends who had maintained the contact between them even after Harish Singh Raizada had moved to Bangkok with his wife. Arnav was born there, and he had grown up there too. But when he had suffered a heart attack, Harish had been scared he would die without seeing his country again, so he had decided to return to India with his family. Shashi Gupta had been there for him, and Shashi Gupta had two children. Shyam Gupta, the elder child, was married to his childhood sweetheart and Khushi Gupta, the younger one, a ray of sunshine, was the most beautiful and intelligent girl Arnav had ever met.

They had started off well, despite the differences there seemed to be between them. Their families had started to hope that the friendship would turn into something more. It did. It started with small jealousies when she talked to other boys, bursts of electricity whenever they touched, heartbeats increasing when their eyes met across the room, barely controllable urges to grab her and kiss her senseless. His common sense caved in one day and he did kiss her. Their relationship turned awkward enough to stifle them and make them avoid each other until they realised how painful it was to be separated. They decided to forget about it but the more time they spent together, the more the desire thickened.

After less than a month of reconciliation, they forgot about the little agreement they had to keep this relationship within the boundaries of friendship and crossed every limit. She loved him tremendously, he knew. And he loved her too, but maybe not enough. Soon, their families, unknown to what was between them, expressed their wish to see the two of them married. Arnav cleanly refused, putting his career before everything else, without even realising how much he had hurt her. He wasn't against the idea of being with her, of course; in fact, he still wanted to be in a relationship with her, only, he didn't want to be tied down yet.

To his surprise, she turned him down. She told him there was no point in seeing each other if he was not ready for commitment. Proud, he had walked out, leaving her more broken than he had thought. He heard about her from his parents, who were very disappointed in him. She turned down proposal after proposal, and somehow, it made him feel relieved. Somehow, he couldn't imagine her being married to a perfect stranger, he couldn't think about someone else touching her, making love to her. Somehow, he felt she was his and no one else's... Still, he was not ready to marry her and he was not ready to apologise or explain himself either...

Sometime later, he heard she had resigned from her job to join the Red Cross and he had merely snorted at the idea. He knew her, he knew what she was doing. She was scaring him. If she thought that he would beg her not to go, she could dream on. He was not falling for it. He knew she wouldn't go anyway. But she did. He had thought that four months in Africa would make her chicken out; he had bet she would return before one week had elapsed. She returned after seven months and the survival of a civil war. Then only he had started feeling the chill. She had changed. Completely. While he was debating whether he should talk to her or not, South-east Asia had fallen prey to a tsunami and she had been summoned and she was gone again before he could make up his mind.

He had had a bad feeling about it instantly. A dark tingly foreboding had been gnawing at him. Five days later, his sixth sense proved to be right; another tsunami hit the area. They didn't hear anything from Khushi. She had gone missing. He almost died. For two days, he stayed locked up in his apartment, without eating, without sleeping, but thinking like someone who had gone mad. What if something had happened to her? What if he had lost her forever? How would he live? Why had he refused to marry her in the first place when he knew he loved her so much? On the third day, he caught the first plane to Indonesia to look for her.

It took him a whole month to finally locate her, and when he did reach the hospital where she was supposed to be, he learned that he was too late. Her family had already taken her back to India. Apparently, she had received a blow on the head and the injury had propelled her into a deep coma. The doctors said she was barely alive. He had sneered at them. They were stupid. They didn't know her. She was punishing him for rejecting her... He knew she was... He knew her too well...

***

"You called him? You called him?"

"Shyam-" she gasped but he stopped her by lifting his hands and stepping away from her. Anjali felt her stomach lurch, almost knowing what would follow.

"Don't," he growled. "You betrayed my trust."

She bit her lip hard to stop herself from crying. "I did it for her, Shyam. She won't listen to us, she won't wake up for us. But she will for him, because she loves him."

"Oh please!" he laughed mirthlessly. "Spare me this bullshit, will you, Anjali? My little sister is in this state because of that bas***d. He used her and threw her aside once he was done with her. He shattered her so much she stopped caring about her own breaths. Didn't you see how the machines went crazy as soon as he touched her? Wasn't that proof enough of how much she cannot stand him anymore?"

"No! You don't understand!" she looked at the door to her room, where the doctors were still hovering over her. "The machines did not go crazy because she cannot stand him, but because he makes her alive. It was her heart beating for him, Shyam!"

"Shut up!" she jerked and stared back in his eyes, dark with fury. A shiver ran down her back. She had known her husband from childhood and he had never looked at her this way before... "I will never forgive you for telling him to come here, Anjali, never. And if anything happens to my sister..." he closed his eyes tight, making a tear spill onto his cheek. "Go away. I don't want to see your face."

"What? Shyam-"

"Just leave!"

Anjali pressed her knuckles into her mouth as pain shot from her heart to everywhere else and turned away from him obediently. He was right. She had betrayed him. But she had done it for the frail girl that was fighting for her life inside there, the girl she loved like a sister too. And if the cost of that girl's life was her marriage of five years, then so be it...

***