Dutta's P.O.V.
"Dutta, please, come and eat," a voice says softly to me. The words are kind and gentle, as though I'm breakable. They're concerned. Sympathetic. Pitying.
I hate them all. If I could choose to block out all those words, all those voices, I would. I would block the whole world if I could. I would only keep Nakku.
"Please, Dutta, you'll feel better after," the voice pleads. My mom.
No, I won't. I'll never be better. Never. No matter how much time passes or how many wounds are healed, I'll always have the scars, memories. The pieces of my heart don't fit together anymore. It has been shattered beyond repair. I have been shattered.
Footsteps. My mom is walking away from me, downcast, giving up yet again. I don't care. I don't care about anything anymore. Not since they found Nakku's body dumped in a ditch and covered in blood.
If my heart were still whole enough to feel, I would be crying right now. I would be sobbing and spluttering and screaming, but I'm not. There's an iciness in my heart that is trickling through my veins and spreading through my entire body, bringing with it a numbness that obliterates all emotion. I'm an empty shell of my former self.
All I can think about is her. Think about her, dream about her, imagine her. I can see her in my mind now, almost as clearly as if she's standing in front of me. Her almost perfectly heart-shaped face is framed by waves of black tresses, and her dark green eyes sparkle at me with warmth and affection. Her lips are soft and red as holly berries, and they tilt up into a smile. Nakusha. The first and last person I ever loved.
When I first fell in love with Nakku, I couldn't understand why I felt so attracted to her. I've never been interested in girls, never even considered having a girlfriend. I felt like I was waiting for someone all my life, and then I met Nakusha. From first sight, an unbreakable bond formed between us, as if she were a magnet with a constant pull on me. I was so terrified of suddenly losing her, because she was everything I wanted my life to be. Finally, I confessed that I loved her. We dated for a few months, but afterwards our relationship became something deeper.
Then came the worst day of my life.
They said she had left a note for her mother saying that she was coming over to my house early in the morning. It had been my birthday that day, and what could be a better present than to wake up with her brilliant green eyes gazing into my own? She must've decided to come early and surprise me, but she never made it to my house. Nakku's body was found a couple kilometres away, thrown in a ditch. Murdered. Raped. Used, then discarded. They said that whoever had raped her had probably stuffed her body in their car and then dumped it farther away.
All this time, I haven't shed a single tear. Why should I cry? Nakku's not dead. She's coming back to me. She'll always come back for me—she promised. She never breaks her promises.
At least that's what I thought for the first few days. But then came the funeral, and I saw the body. Nakku had been put into a beautiful black gown that made her seem mysterious and dark. She wouldn't have liked it. Nakku had always liked bright, cheerful colours, and she would've despised all the black at the funeral if she had been alive to see it. But it didn't matter to me. I don't see colours anymore. It's like I've gone colour-blind, and everything I see now is bleak and grey, like the world outside when it rains. Everything is always colourless.
It was as I stood beside her grave, watching her coffin being lowered into the cool ground and the dirt being piled over top of her, that I finally realized that she isn't coming back. That she's gone. My Nakusha is dead. There's no return from the realm of death, ever.
That was when the last pieces of my heart were smashed. It was better before, when I hadn't believed it. It was better before, when I had been able to hope. Nakku was my life, and she was gone. My life was gone.
I wanted to be with her. I resolved that nothing was better than this half-life I lived without her, without emotions or thoughts or feelings. So I decided that I wanted to die, too. Then I could be back with Nakku, and we could live together and love each other for eternity, in heaven.
I couldn't feel the pain as I dragged the knife over my wrists, making them bleed. All I could feel was intense longing for Nakku, my Nakku. One cut, two cuts, three cuts… More blood was good; it meant that it would be over sooner. That I would be with her. Next, I slid the knife over my skin in the opposite direction, crossing over all the earlier cuts. That was when the pain of the first ones hit me, burning and smarting so fiercely that I dropped the knife. It landed on the ground with a clatter, and moments later I followed suit, collapsing on the ground in a slippery pool of my own blood.
I woke up in the hospital. I was alive, but barely. Everyone around me was tense and quiet when they were with me, as if it were just hitting them that I had tried to commit suicide. They wouldn't trust me not to attempt to somehow kill myself again, and they always had one person watching over me by my bed. What was I going to do in a hospital anyways, strangle myself with the IV cord? Either way, they weren't taking any chances.
It's been two weeks since I was released from the hospital. I haven't tried to do anything since then, so my parents are relaxing a bit around me. They think that I learned my lesson, and I'm not going to try again. But I will; it's just a matter of time. I'm not giving up on Nakku. She's waiting for me, and I'm determined not to make her wait long. Soon, I'm going to be with her.
I decide to do it today. My dad's gone back to work and my mom's busy praying. It's the perfect time to do it—if I'm lucky, hardly anyone will notice.
I got to a window and fumble with the catch on the lock before sliding it open. It's raining, and some drops are blown by the wind through the window, feeling like icy teardrops against my skin. I look down to the ground. The fall alone could kill me, but I don't want to die here. Here is too close. Someone could find me, and they might have enough time to save me. But I don't want to be saved. I want to be with my Nakusha.
I run downstairs and out the door without bothering to get a coat. I'll die one way or another, so why does it matter whether I freeze in the process?
After hailing a taxi and driving in silence for about fifteen minutes, I tap the taxi driver's shoulder.
"Let me off here," I say. I'm surprised at how calm my voice sounds. I expected it to be broken and pitiful, like the rest of me.
I press a wad of bills into his hand and then feel a whoosh of hot air as the taxi drives past, leaving me alone. The rain pelts down, plastering my clothes to my skin and soaking me. I don't mind. I'm going to be wet anyways, once I've done it. Once I've drowned.
I turn and see it. The bridge. The place where I first met Nakku. I walk slowly over to it and lean over the railing, looking down into the murky water. It swirls like ink, and I wonder what's hiding down beneath the surface.
I climb up the wooden posts and crouch precariously on the railing. A gust of wind nearly bowls me over, and I grip the cold metal so tightly that my knuckles turn white. Why am I postponing this? Why don't I just let the wind knock me off my perch? I wanted to die, and here I am. Why can't I just let myself drown? What's holding me up here?
I can see my reflection in the black water. I don't look how I used to. Before my stiff black hair was long, but I chopped it all off after Nakku died. Now it sticks out in uneven tufts all over my head, and there're some bald spots on my scalp. My brown eyes are hard and cold. My cheeks are gaunt and sallow, and my lips are pressed into a thin line. I look angry and desperate.
It's not my appearance that affects me the most. It's the fact that I look down into the water… and see only myself. Alone. The last time I looked into the water here, I was with Nakku, and our reflections showed us with our arms draped around each others' necks, caught in an embrace as we kissed. Now I look lonely and pathetic.
Nakku wouldn't want me to die for her.
The unwelcome thought pops into my mind of its own accord. It's true. If we were in reverse positions, Nakku wouldn't die for me. She would make sure to live life to the fullest, as if she could live it for me. She wouldn't let heartache ruin her life, like I've let it ruin mine.
I look down at my wrists, where the criss-crossed cuts have finally started to heal. They're pale lines now, scars. Memories. Nakku would've been angry if she had known that I had tried to cut myself. She forever hated those suicidal kids who thought they have horrible lives and tried to kill themselves. She was always saying about how "life is a rough road, and there'll be plenty of bumps and scrapes along the way, but the best you can do about it is to pick yourself off the ground and try again".
I'm certain now; she wouldn't want me to die. She would want me to live, and to be there in the moments she would be missing. She wouldn't want me to be doing this.
I can't do it. I can't kill myself. I won't kill myself. I'll try to build my life back instead. I'll teach myself to live again. Slowly, I put one foot down to climb down from the railing as the strongest gust of wind makes the bridge shudder and the trees sway. I look up at the stormy sky, and that's when the sky splits in two and the tree falls as if in slow-motion towards the bridge.
It seems like hours, but really it's only heartbeats as I run for my life, my shoes skidding on the slippery planks of the bridge. I reach out as if I can pull myself to the other side, and I'm almost there. Then there's an ear-splitting crack and the wood under me breaks. For a moment, I can see the veins in every leaf and every line on the gnarled bark of the tree. Then I'm dropping downwards, through the splintered bridge, and immersed in the icy cold water. My pulse pounds in my ears as I plummet down, and my hands scrabble to grab onto something, anything, that can keep me up. Bubbles spread out around me and the water turns white from my thrashing, and my fingers latch onto one piece of slippery wood. I cling onto it, praying that it will hold me up. The last thing I remember is the pain of something heavy hitting me, and then I'm plunged into darkness.
Nakku, I'm coming. You don't have to wait any longer. I'm here with you now.
Epilogue:
Dutta's body was found washed up the side of the lake the next day. People said that he had tried to commit suicide again, to be with his love, Nakusha but there was another story going around. This one said that he had only been out for a walk when the bridge had unfortunately broken, bringing him down with it. It said that he had tried to save himself—and proof of that was the sharp sliver of wood that was clenched between his deathly blue-white fingers.
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Kumkum Bhagya
Tu Dhadkan Main Dil
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
