He had seldom seen Kritika cry about anything. If she had been crying, then this must be something big. His well-knitted world suddenly was going towards a spiral.
“Love is an abyss for the unfortunate. A deep never-ending hole of darkness.”
Look into this abyss, and the abyss looks back into you.
The abyss. He felt drawn towards this abyss. All his feelings for Tannu were starting to creep back into his heart.
“NO!” his mind screamed. Years of endurance had successfully helped him elude this feeling again. No way was he going to throw his life into a chaos yet again.
He went back home and lay on his bed to sleep. He couldn’t. His habit of over-thinking hadn’t passed. He tried to make this calculative, thought of each possible scenario as to what could happen the next day at dinner. He tossed and turned over his bed, perturbed by this cogitation.
At last, he could just arrive at one conclusion. She must just want to make amends to the friendship, and she might just tell him that she liked him too at that time.
The next morning, he texted her the time and place to meet up and went to work. He was determined not to droop into his miserable self again, and was happy that he was successful this time.
He sat on the table, waiting for her anxiously. He dressed up in an informal tee with a black jeans and brown sneakers. He dressed modestly enough to seem calm, to hide his anxiety. His eyes were fixed on the door. Suddenly, it opened.
There she was. Tannu. She wore a green suit with some abstract designs. Her hair wasn’t as long as it used to be, and she still donned the same black-framed spectacles which Zain had always liked. She looked at him at smile.
The smile. It was so amazing. He almost felt his defences dropping guard. He smiled back.
She came and sat opposite to him.
“Hey, how are you, Zain?”
“I’m good. How are you Tannu? You look good.”
“I’m good. You look great dude. Still sporting that beard ah? Nice.”
“Heh. Clean-shave never suited me.”
“True that.” She laughed.
They ordered food, vegetarian of course because Tannu was a vegan. They talked about stuff in their lives, how their past decade passed by. It was as if they had picked up right from where they left off in college.
“So, why this meet all of a sudden Tannu?”
“Well, uh, I needed to meet up all of my friends once. It had been a long, long time.”
“But we seldom contacted in these years. Why now?”
“I want to have ice-cream. Can we go to the lake, have some ice-cream and then talk? This place feels so formal” she smiled. Her eyes gave away the fact that something huge was coming.
“Sure.”
They went to the same spot Zain was last night with Sara. He got the cones and they sat at the bench facing the lake.
“So, talk” Zain said.
“What do you think I have to tell you?”
“I haven’t given it much thought” he lied.
“Who are you lying to” and she stared at him. He stared back.
“Anyways, the thing is Zain, I am leaving tomorrow morning. I needed to let you know about something.”
“Okay. And that is?”
“The time when you told you loved me.. I loved you too. I never take risks, which is why I never confessed that to you so as to not give you any hopes. I loved you, Mr. Zain, and I am really sorry we couldn’t have worked out. I had to move on, and I did, with Raj. Sadly, he and I never worked out.
I told you last night about my engagement being called off. I called it off. I realised that I didn’t really love the guy. My family did. There was something about him which made me think whether he was right for me or not. He was chosen by my parents on the basis of his caste. Same castes don’t always necessarily mean that the person is nice too, and I realised what a blunder I was about to commit. I wasn’t happy, and thus I decided to finally do something about it. How I wish I would’ve done that in college too. I knew we could’ve been great. The religion created an invisible barrier which barred us from happiness. I am so sorry for all that. I, uh, just wanted you to know, just like you did 12 years ago.”
A minute of silence. Surprisingly, Zain was benumbed. He was tired. He had a neutral expression for this. He did not want those deeply buried emotions of his to resurface again.
“Why now? After all this time? Why now?” he asked in a calm fashion.
“I just wanted you to know. I wanted to have this one final closure. I have made a lot of mistakes, and I am making an effort to amend them in time. I just want to be free of any guilt.”
“Tannu. How I wish we could’ve worked it out” he sighed.
“It’s okay. Even I have that one guilt. We could’ve been great. But anyways, it’s way too late now. Even if both of us want that, it is impossible for us to have it.”
“I just, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t.”
She called a cab for herself. They sat in silence for some time. He took her hand in his, feeling so full of sadness and remorse. She did not retaliate, she just sat there, her hand with his, feeling utterly saddened.
The cab arrived and the driver called her up. She asked him to wait for a minute.
“This is good-bye then. Take care, Zain.”
“When do we meet next?” he asked.
Her eyed swelled up with tears. “Let’s hope we meet up.”
“Tannu….”
“Take care, Zain. I hope you have a happy life ahead of you. Goodbye.”
She gave a slight peck on his cheek, as she sat inside the cab.
He just waved her goodbye, still surprised by that peck. He clearly saw tears in her eyes.
As the cab drove away, it felt to him as if his gravity was running away from him. He went back and sat on the bench, and did something very, very unexpected from an emotionless robot like him.
He started sobbing. Incessant tears.
After about an hour or so, he was back at home. He put on some light Ramin Djawadi music to soothe his mind, as he lay on his bed staring at the rotating fan above him.
He was awake till 5 a.m. in the morning, tired of shedding all those tears.
Suddenly, his phone rang.
“Kritika calling” it read.
He picked up the call. “Hey” he said, trying to sound as much cheerful as he could.
“Hey Zain, can you meet up real quick?”
“Yeah sure.”
“The whole group is here at the hotel. Come fast. I texted you the address.”
“Okay” and he got dressed up and hurried.
He was there in 15 minutes. All his friends were there. Ansh, Kritika, Varun and Piyush. Piyush lived in Hyderabad too, and they had in touch, not very often though. They looked deprived of sleep. It was evident from Kritika’s face that she had been crying.
“What is it? What happened Kritika?”
“Tannu is at the airport. She leaves in an hour.”
“Yeah, I know that. Why have you been sobbing?”
“Zain…” she started crying again. All of them tried to calm her down. The rest of the guys were teary-eyed as well.
“You people are freaking me out, tell me what happened?” Zain said.
“Tannu has cancer, Zain. She has just…. Just 6 months to live.” Ansh spoke up this time, and he broke down.
Suddenly, all his resolution broke down. Zain was aghast. He stood there like he had gone cold. Suddenly his feet gave away and he fell down. He felt the same glob between his ribs as he had 12 years ago.
Cancer. That’s why she had confessed to him.
After 10 minutes, suddenly Zain was up again. He turned to his car, without saying a word to his friends. He revved up the engine and headed to the airport.
“Let’s hope we meet up again”
“I have made a lot of mistakes, and I am making an effort to amend them in time.”
In time, she had said. Now he knew the purpose of her visit.
6 months, she had. She had never told him this.
“One batch. Two batch. Penny and Dime.”
It was after a long, long time that Zain had said this line. It meant only one thing.
He was going to do something life-changing again.
TO BE CONTINUED
TOS
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Beautifully written! I could really feel the main character's pain. Keep writing! :)