“Sit down, why are you standing? Where is your bag?”
“Still in the car. It’s just a change of clothes.”
“Why?”
“My Himachal flight is pre-poned by three hours.” He took a seat on one end of the long sofa. “I will be leaving directly from Atharva’s house.”
“Oh.” She took a seat beside him, not too far but not close enough to touch either. “How is your knee after the Matayen drive?”
“Better. Not limping. You have the scanned files from last week.”
“And the numbness over…” her eyes roved his chest. “You had your appointment last evening, no? What did he say?”
“The sensation on my chest is about 70% recovered. Light touch, pressure and major temperature shift feels real. That’s as far as it would get now. Back is at 40%, but Dr. Gill has hope. The scar tissue has not hardened yet. There is scope for nerve endings to regrow. Physio and massage has helped, but now he suggests we explore steroids and temperature therapy. After I come back from Himachal.”
“You are ok with steroids?”
“Yes, if they help this recovery.”
“Side effects?”
He stalled. Their eyes held.
“Not that.” He managed. “Erectile dysfunction is a result of shock, systemic inflammation, kidney problems and hormonal imbalance. My opioids have been reduced to negligible now. The next two months are crucial to see how things respond.”
“You are talking to me about this.”
“Wasn’t that why you left me?”
Amaal sat up — “No! And if that’s what you thought all of the last three months then what were we even doing!”
“Amaal!” He sighed, pulling his specs off and pinching the bridge of his nose. How had this messed up so bad so quickly?
“Samar, I did notleave you. I gave you the time to grieve on your own so that you could come to terms with this new reality. It was clear that you couldn’t do that with me there. And I was going crazy thinking why wouldn’t he share it with me, why wouldn’t he tell me, why would he hide his scars from me? God, what a waste of three months…”
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“What else do you want me to say? You called me back from death for you and then you left me to live like that. I am stuck in hell now with everybody gone off to live their own lives, including you! I talk to the therapist, I do my physiotherapy, I go to appointments and all I think about is, would this make her come back?! I want to call you every second of every day to see if you are ok, to check if you are still with me, to get over panic that you may have moved on and then it hits me that that’s exactly why you left. Because you couldn’t take this loser version of me…”
“Stop right there.”
“No, listen, now that you started it.” He raised his voice. “I cannot function like this! I don’t know what more to do. And then I come back to you after three months and you call the last three months a waste.”
Her eyes fell shut. He caught his breath, looking at her face. It was fresh and dewy, and now suddenly tired.
“What is the therapist saying?” She finally opened her eyes.
“A lot of stuff, that I know the theories of.”
“Like?”
“Like I need to resolve my grief from my mother’s passing, write to her, desensitise myself from attachment to you…” he gave a bitter laugh. “I told him that anyway I talk to you once a week, sometimes less. And this is the first time I am seeing you after three months, and that too for just a few hours. At this point, I think I am pretty desensitised.”
“And your thoughts about your scars, the blast?”
“Work in progress.” He clipped.
