I usually don’t write these kinds of stories. Hell, I can’t even imagine writing this kind of stories for I usually shun direct romance. But this was a story that one of my friends told us for fun claiming how great he was at narrating stories and we listened while threatening to stake him with knife for such a crappy one. When I walked back home, I realized light moments like this with friends are precious, I wanted to remember the moment so I improvised a little bit on his story.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim it to be any better than the story he told us but I promise, I have tried my best.

Author: Anish Singam.

Audience/Victim: Deepthi

Improviser/Co-author/part-audience/part-victim: Myself

Sorry for making you the victim now.

***

Today is my wedding to the girl who is the love of my life. I sit here, right beside her and look at her. She looks gorgeous as ever. She is smiling at one of her friends as she introduces the friend to me. She is happy right now but I know there is void in her heart that is never going to be filled.

Do I tell her the truth? What if he walks in to the wedding right now? Will she leave the altar and run to him while holding up her wedding dress? One of the scenes of a bride running away to the love of her life from a movie I don’t remember plays in my mind. I know truth can never be hidden and I know I will face the consequences of her wrath when she finds out the truth but I know one thing for sure, I would never be the one to tell her, ever.

All the instances, the sequence of happenings that led us three here to the places we are right now, started about a year ago.

***

It was the day, I really wanted to talk and there were only three people in the whole wide world I knew who would sit through my ranting. As I walked out from the restaurant, I sent out a group message and in half an hour two of them were sitting across me at our regular hang out bar.

“Should we order?” Aakash asked the question that was running in the mind of the other two of us and also the question to which all three of us knew the answer. However, Dheeraj replied anyways “Yeah and get murdered by him? No, thank you.”

“Where is he anyways?” I ask them.

“Don’t know but he seems to be busy these days.” Dheeraj replied.

“Yeah even I have observed that.” I concur with sarcasm pouring into my voice for I know the only thing that keeps him busy is his addiction to one MMORPG[1] or the other.

Our resolve didn’t hold long and we had ordered our drinks long before he had come. I don’t remember much of when he came and what I talked. But when I came to, the next morning, I was sleeping in my bed with a constant drumming in my head which I realized soon was a heavy hangover. As I got out of the bed, the room started to swim, well in actual it was the play of my hangover but when it did stop I started to wonder about when and how I had reached my room. Bracing myself for a long lecture from mom and my sister about how irresponsible I was, I stepped in to the hall. There he was sitting, watching the TV with a smug face. As soon as he saw me I knew he was up to do or already had done something wicked. I looked at him questioningly and my question was immediately answered when my sister walked in from the kitchen with coffee for him.

“How many days was it since your H1 was approved?” She asked me in anger; meaning my business visa to the USA.

I looked at him fighting my anger and range of other emotions. He just shrugged his shoulders. After that it wasn’t difficult for my sister and mother to convince me and my already beat brain to accept to go to US on the onsite opportunity. By the time I sat in the flight all my doubts were cleared that he knew about the girl too. He knew my predicament and yet he had pushed me in to the soup. The last time I had seen him I had slapped him for doing this to me.

****

It was six months after the incident and three months after the pressure to get married from my mom that I was in for the shock of my life. I had decided to say “No” even before looking at the picture of the girl that my sister had sent me for the matrimony. But when I looked at the picture my mind was blown. It was the same girl – Sunaina.

Only, she wasn’t pale anymore like the last time when I had met and proposed to her and she had rejected saying that she was fighting cancer. In the picture that was sent to me, she had color in her cheeks and she had a healthy weight. I collapsed on to the sofa with excitement, looking at her picture, my hands and legs shivering. I don’t remember as to how long I sat there like that but when I was back to my senses, the first thing I did was to ring up my sister with no regard to time in India. My sister though, sleepy and cranky had cleared my doubts that it was the same girl. I had to go back to India now – no matter what.

I was back on the flight for my journey to India on the first available opportunity which was about three months later considering my tie-ups with the projects and all that. Yes, welcome to the software life.

My whole family like any typical Indian family with Dheeraj and Aakash were there to receive me at the airport when I landed. But he wasn’t there. In a way I was glad, for not having to face him at this happy moment of my life which he had deliberately set out to spoil and I, on my part deliberately avoided talking about him with Dheeraj and Aakash on our journey back home in the car.

I couldn’t hold my horses till I could meet her face to face. My mom and her parents had arranged the meeting with my bride to be, with Sunaina at the same coffee shop where I had proposed to her the first time. The excitement that had made me jumpy turned to anxiousness the moment I parked my bike in front of the coffee shop. I grabbed the flowers, checked my pocket for the ring and with anxiety coupled with excitement I entered. I was half expecting to see her sitting at the same table as last time but – come on this wasn’t a movie where the stars aligned themselves to make our love story an eternal one! I saw that she was sitting in one of the seats at the back of the café looking around her with an uncertain smile.

She looked at me and smiled. I walked as if I was dreaming. I don’t know what I spoke but I am sure it was something stupid because she was smiling at my answers. My mouth and my brain were not in sync. We talked, laughed and talked for about two hours. I didn’t know how the time flew.

After sometime I couldn’t hold my doubts about the miracle, I had to ask her “How? What happened?” She understood for I saw her smile falter for a fraction of a second but then it could have been my imagination. She answered my question “I took an experimental drug and” she shrugged “it worked.”

“Lucky me!” I smiled which she returned but after a moment started biting her lower lip in apprehension. Clearly she was debating with herself about something. I didn’t want to push her and there was a silence and the silence started to turn awkward. I started thinking of small talk that could do but couldn’t come up with anything to say. When I sat there raking my brains about alternatives I had no idea that my reasoning would be flushed down the drain in a moment.

“Vaibhav.” She said and I was sure I hadn’t heard it right. I blurted “What?” how could she know his name? I started thinking maybe it wasn’t him but I was wrong.

She answered with slow, deliberate and pensive voice without looking at me but everywhere else “Vaibhav. That was his name.” She looked at me and obviously looking at my confused face she continued “Vaibhav Mishra was the name of the guy who convinced me to take the experimental drug.” There were tears in her eyes. She looked out the window and continued “I thought he loved me. But when the doctors said that I was cured and I told him that I was cured, he disappeared. Not a word. Not a single good bye.”

She totally forgot that I was even in the room; she looked towards the window and continued “After six months, I at least deserve that-a good bye at the least?”

I wanted to ask more but she anticipated that for she looked at me and said “I am sorry, I know this makes things complicated between you and me but this is as far as I am going to explain my relationship with him or my past to you.”

Normally she would have been right. I didn’t have anything to do with her past. It was the future that we were planning to share but this was someone I knew, this was someone I grew up with. Although this someone it appeared had tried every which way to keep me away from this girl, the girl I had fallen in love for the very first time in my life. We sat there in silence, when the silence turned to awkwardness; I knew we had to leave.

On the ride back home my head started to buzz. I didn’t remember the journey but I reached home. The moment I stepped in, my mother and sister unaware of my dilemma, were super excited to know if I liked her. I smiled uncertainly and collapsed on the sofa in front of the TV, my sister went on about how she was sure I would like her, and I started to tune her out but was snapped back to the conversation when I heard his name again. I paused in mid action while changing the channels and had to ask “What do you mean?”

She knew immediately that something wasn’t right “Well, I said we have to thank Vaibhav. He was the one who got us the details of this alliance.” She continued with uncertainty “Is something wrong?”

I turned back and went on staring out the window. Though my sister knew something was awry, she knew better than to bug me with questions so she walked into the kitchen to my mom giving me time to sort out my thoughts whatever/wherever they were.

As I sat there thinking, I think I knew why he would do this but wasn’t ready to accept it. A hundred scenarios ran through my mind but couldn’t settle on one.

I knew what I had to do next. I stood up, grabbed my jacket, helmet, bike keys and left, I heard my sister calling after me and I shouted back to her saying that I would be back, I am not sure if she heard me.

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in front of his house knocking. Well, house would be the wrong word to use for his house for me: has always been “the mansion.” I have seen bigger houses now but his house was the first I had known that had living room the size of my whole house and the next.

Ramu kaka opened the door, well actually his name was not Ramu kaka but we have been calling him that ever since I can remember, so I still call him that. The moment he saw me his eyes lit up “How have you been son? When did you return?” I answered him and when asked about Vaibhav, he looked at me confused “Didn’t you know son?”

“Know what?”

“He left on a world tour with his family about a month ago.”

I was taken aback. Of the thousand scenarios that ran in my mind previously about his reasons to bring me and Sunaina together; none of them even got close to this one – a world tour. “When… When is he going to be back?” I asked Ramu kaka, still confused.

“I have no idea son.” Even the plan was all of a sudden. Ma’am sa’ab just decided one day and the next day they packed and left.” He meant Vaibhav’s mother. “Is there anything important son?” Ramu kaka enquired.

I just shook my head in doubt and left. I didn’t know what to do or what to say to whom. I roamed the city aimlessly for the whole day and probably in the wee hours of the next morning made it home. I let myself in and crept up to my old bedroom without waking up mom or sister. Just as I pulled my phone out of the pocket to put it on the bedside table embracing myself for a sleepless night, a notification about a mail popped up. Mechanically, as was my habit I opened the mail and was surprised to see that it was from Vaibhav. After reading the mail I felt liberated and at the same time torn in every which way possible. I strangle him with my own hands but only problem was I couldn’t get my hands onto his throat, you see he was half way around the world.

***

It took me a couple of days to get my horses together but after a few dozen drinks, a tall lecture from mom, sorting out my feelings and about half a dozen more meetings with Sunaina the muhurthum for the wedding was fixed and here we are today to tie the knot and no he didn’t come back and no she didn’t ditch me.

It became evident in course of time that she did really love me, probably more than I loved her but the void in her heart was never filled.

Our married life is a happy one and I am generally happy except for those dark moments when I think about him, my stomach turns in to a knot because I know that there is something that can make Sunaina truly mad at me.

***

If you are thinking of the mail that Vaibhav wrote me? Here it is:

Hey fella,

I heard from Ramu kaka that you called on me at home. Sorry, I wasn’t there.

Hope everyone at home are doing well and hope you met Sunaina. Isn’t she an apple to the sore eyes?

I know I left town in quite a mess which I do deeply regret and I also know that I owe you an explanation. I wanted to talk to you in our old fashion; you know over a bottle of beer or a glass of whiskey but my mother (you dear JJ aunty) had to come up with this brilliant idea of the world tour.

Any ways, the explanation is that…

That day when you puked the sorry love story of yours about some random girl who was going to die, I knew immediately that you were going to ruin your life and well, I couldn’t let the life of my friend go to dogs could I?I had to intervene.

After the heavy bout that went down between us and you left on your way without even a proper good bye, it was then that I realized, maybe I crossed a line somewhere. So, I went through all your connections and got to know who the girl was.

The first time I saw her, she was a mess. Fighting with her father and her doc, reason- she didn’t want to undergo chemo anymore. It was evident she was tired of all the procedures that clearly didn’t have any results. I did some further snooping around and found out that she was suffering from Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) a rare form of cancer that is resistant to traditional forms of chemotherapy. But I realized that cediranib – an experimental drug could save her.

To convince her to take the medicine, god! I tell you, that girl of yours is a stubborn one. I had to literally plead to death for her to say yes to the experimental medicine. Neither the pleading of her family nor the doc could convince her. The things that I had to do to make her take the drug… (I am rolling my eyes even now and I will spare you the details).

And did she behave after that? No, there was a time when I had to leave her for a week and the next thing I know is that I get a worried call from her father telling me she had stopped taking the medicine. Can you believe that? Throwing her life away? I had to go meet her again even though every fiber in me protested against it. You ask me why? Well, isn’t it obvious?  I did fall in love with her man, I mean who can’t? What is there not to? She is such a sweet heart – caring, beautiful from the inside but I realized that I wasn’t right for her.

Eventually she did recover and the time came for my exit and your entry and well I think you know the story after that better than me.

I know, I am asking too much of you but take care of her. Don’t let your anger towards me hinder the path to find the soul mate of your life. Believe me she is born for you and in saying so I am not lying. You deserve her.

I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell her about me. I have convinced Dheeraj and Aakash. Talk to sister and mom.

Love,

Vaibhav.

I was confused about how he knew of the drug and my doubts were cleared after I read the post script.

“P.S.: If you are wondering how I knew of the experimental drug. I was diagnosed of ASPS about fifteen days prior to all this drama of yours started. Do you think it’s a coincidence? I do too. Only difference the drug didn’t work for me.”

And that was the end of his mail. There were no replies to my queries, doubts. That idiot just threw all this right in my face and vanished. He did so much as a friend and didn’t give me a single chance to repay. I curse him to hell from the bottom of my heart for putting me through this misery. You think I am conceited? I don’t care because may be I am.

But then again what better could anybody else have done in his place?

 

[1] Massively multiplayer online role-playing games