It’s strange Daksh is asking them to do what he couldn’t. But I can’t escape the undeniable truth: he said what he did to protect me. I put on my earphones and play some music to drown out my thoughts about him. It has the opposite effect—every song seems like it was written for us. Be it a love song, a heartbreak song, an item song—all I think about is how it’s about us.
I dial Rajat’s number and recount the entire sequence of events to him.
‘You should do what you want to do,’ he says.
‘That’s the most generic answer you can give, Rajat.’
‘... and that’s because I’m done playing a part in life-changing decisions of yours, bro.’
‘You never had a problem before,’ I argue.
Rajat was the only person I could turn to when I held that pregnancy strip in my hand. The result stared back at me, tossing up the myriad possibilities my life could go in, each onemore dire than the other. I was twenty-three and pregnant. There was one clear answer. I had to end it.
I couldn’t have given up my freedom. Daksh villainized me for using the word freedom. Is my love a cage? Are children jailers? The answer was that both could be. I didn’t want to take a chance. I had just broken free of Vicky’s clutches. My freedom was so new even then that I would wake up in the middle of the night in dread thinking that Vicky was back in my life somehow. I knew my parents wouldn’t understand my reasons to terminate the pregnancy. After my job started, I knew they felt an emptiness in their lives. They would have jumped at the opportunity of being grandparents. Like Daksh, they would have promised to do everything to relieve me of the pressure of raising a child.
But I couldn’t have done that to myself.
Why would I rob myself of time? Of a successful career? Aromance? A married life before a child?
I couldn’t have shared anything with Vanita. She—with her own rules and ideas about family—would have tried to convince me otherwise. And since I love her to death, I would have listened.
Rajat came along without a question. He took charge and immediately booked a hotel room. They said it would take twelve hours for the foetus tissue to pass, or a maximum of twenty-four. He filled the room with snacks and made a list of shows we could watch.
I will always be thankful to him. Sometimes you don’t need advice. You need someone to trust your intelligence to make tough decisions.
That day is the actual anniversary of our friendship. He—and I—believe that was the day we saw each other as friends for life. A friendship forged through tears, loss and new beginnings.
‘My own life-changing decisions are enough, bro,’ he complains. ‘Nandini has been dancing on my head asking me to take the next step and that’s kind of enough for me.’
‘Okay.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Why aren’t you getting married to her?’
‘She thinks I still have feelings for you.’
‘Which you don’t.’
‘I’d rather be suspended from the ceiling by my pubic hair. My parents are going to create a big scene if I tell them about Nandini. They will feel intimidated by her parents. Anyway...’
‘You’re dying to tell me what to do.’
‘Run the opposite way, bro,’ he says with a finality in his voice. ‘It’s just the rush of a new place. All of your relationships with him have been that—the Andamans, Mumbai and now this. You think you’re a new person in a new place and you want to take all these risks. Real life is not a vacation. And you also know he’s too good for you.’
‘Good to know my friend is on his side.’
‘He’s good in a way guys are supposed to be good—family, love, romance and all of that. You’re not like that. You’re good in a way where you protect your own happiness.’
I take a deep breath. ‘So, I should just ignore this little whisper in my heart?’
‘Snuff it out. Murder it.’
I close my eyes and imagine what my life would look like in the US. Hadn’t this been my long-standing dream? What a leap it would be. From a one-room house with a flickering tube light to the US? Why would I give that up? My second international flight, my new home in a new city, an entirely new world to experience, enjoy, worry about, get intimidated by. Rajat’s right. I need to murder it. With the glut of emotions I am going to feel once I start my new life, this little flutter in my heart will be dead before I know it.
‘Done,’ I say, ‘and you should tell your parents. They love you too much to not agree.’
We disconnect the call. I wait for the feeling to pass. But it doesn’t. I click open the pictures of the new apartment I’m supposed to move into, the new office, the pictures of my cabin in a country far away, and it all fails to distract me from the image of Daksh lying in that hospital room. The harder I try to bury it, the stronger it gets. The flutter is no longer merely that. It’s a drum beat that’s getting louder with every passing second.
15.
Daksh Dey
