Love didn’t deserved a good bye like this

“No problem!” Mohit said looking at me. “I had a feeling you would be a lot more help here than I would be today.”

Anjali didn’t say anything at all. She just smiled at Mohit. Mohit smiled back and I wished I could punch him and wipe that smile off his face. How I loathed him. “I guess I’ll just go take a bath while you finish up here, alright Anjali?” he said.

‘Go die if you can,’ I felt like telling him.

“Will do,” Anjali replied smiling again.

Mohit left the room and it was just me and Anjali again. For a moment the awakwardness was back as Mohit left the room and a smiling Anjali turned towards me but we immediately broke the eye contact again. Not that this was any less awkward but at least I didn’t have to watch her smiling at Mohit.

Anjali picked up a pice of cloth on the side and dipped it in the lukewarm water. Rinsing it, she looked at me again and simply said, “I am just going to clean the wuonds.”

“Alright,” I replied looking at the piece of cloth and wondered how badly this was gonna hurt.

She brought the cloth over to my forehead and just as she was about to touch the gash across my forehead she said, “Now this is going to burn.”


As soon as she said it, the cloth touched my forehead, I felt like boiling water was being poured inside my wound and immediately repulsed in pain, “Aaaahhh…aaahhh…aaahhh!” I screamed as I withdrew from Anjali and covered my forehead trying to protect it.

“Rahul!” Anjali said as if a mother was ordering her 5 year old child to stop playing with the ball inside the house.

“What!” I said as she looked on at me disapprovingly. “It bursns…you know!” I said defensively.

“I know it burns. I told you it will burn. Now you bring yourself here or you are going to get burnt seriously this time.”

If there ever was a time when I felt like a 5 year old who had just dirtied the lawn-then this was it. I slowly brought myself closer to her again, looking full of remorse while she was still looking at me as if she was my mother. Anjali once again picked up the piece of the cloth and brought it closer to my face. I recoiled once again but this time she grabbed my head and pulled it towards hers. Our faces stopped millimeters apart, our lips so close that I could hear her breathe, that I could almost feel her lipstick, that I could sense her heart beat faster and faster as we stayed there, on the sofa, aware of what we had almost done but much more importantly perhaps-aware of what we really wanted to do. They were the same things, the feelings were the same, the passion was the same and yet-and yet the distance between the lips remained and somehow, despite how badly we wanted to, we couldn’t bridge the gap between our lips.



And suddenly-she pulled herself away from me and went about regaining her composure. I looked away from her as soon as she pulled away and tried to act as if nothing had happened. And yet it had. A few seconds later though it almost seemed like years, she came back and picking up the piece of cloth brought it to my face again. “Now keep still,” she said ever so quietly.

I didn’t move. I just kept staring at her, at her lips that I had almost kissed and for me the pain didn’t matter anymore. The wound felt as if it was detatched from the body, detatched from the heart for my heart was somewhere else, with someone else. She cleaned my wound with the cloth and as she did so, she blew into it ever so softly. I could feel her breathe again, feel the breeze, feel her softness and I so wished I could kiss her. I so wished I could tell her how much I loved her.

After cleaing the wounds, during which she kept stealing glances at me as I continously looked at her and kept smiling, she went and kep the cloth back in the kitchen. She then came back and opening the first aid box, she picked out a set of bandages and a pair of scissors.


Anjali cut open the bandages into four halves for my four wounds and picked up one to apply them. As she applied the first bandage on my left cheek, I once again couldn’t help but look at her. She knew I was looking at her and while resisting the temptation to look back at me, she finally had to give in and ever so slowly she stole a glance. I smiled as I caught this act of hers. She immediately looked way and started concentrating on he bandages.

“Did you fight with Mohit?” she asked as she placed the first bandage.

“Yes,” I replied ashamed that I disappointed her so much.
“I am sorry,” I said immediately afterwards.

“For what?” she asked as she picked up the second bandage.

“For letting you down,” I answered, still ashamed at what I had done.

“Don’t be,” she replied slowly. “It’s not like we mean anything to each other anymore right?” she added almost coldly. “I thought we made that clear at the beach yesterday.”

“Anjali…” I said wanting to explain everything to her. To explain why I had said what I had said yesterday, to explain why I fought with Mohit, to explain how much I loved her. But she cut me off even before we could begin. “Don’t Rahul…please!” she said in a stern voice. “You have nothing left to say. Whatever you had to say you said it yesterday. I don’t need to hear anything else.”

“And you?” I asked in a last ditch attempt to apologies. “Didn’t you want to say something yesterday? Some thing that you wanted to but couldn’t tell me.”


Anjali picked up the last bandage and before placing it, looked at me for a few seconds as if it was getting harder and harder for her to keep her emotions in check. “I thought I did,” she finally answered. “But I don’t anymore.”

There was a tone of finality to her last statement. Meaning nothing I said would make any difference now. I felt like my only chance at redemption was slipping away or had already slipped away. And yet somehow I accepted her deceision like it was the right one. But then maybe it was. Maybe this is exactly what I had deserved for what I had done.

“There,” she said as she finished applying the last bandage. “We are done now.” She said it to mean that she was done with the first aid but somewhere I felt as if she had said those words meaning that we were done-Rahul and Aanjali were done. There was a bitter sense of irony about all this. She had taken care of me, nursed me only to tell me that we were done. That there would no more of us. I wished that there was a way I could convince her that we were not done yet.

Anjali picked up her bag from the table and stood up. “I guess I better leave now,” she said as she walked towards the door. “Tell Mohit that I’ll come by later if needed.”


I felt a dab of pain in my heart. She was asking me to tell Mohit that she would come later to meet him when she had just moments ago told me that we were done. God-love hurt so much! And she had said it almost casually as if she knew what effect it would have on me, she knew how much it would kill me from inside and she did this all for the way that I had hurt her yesterday.

I looked down at the ground, not having any more strength speak to her or even look at her beautiful face. “And Rahul,” she said forcing to me to look upto her again. “Please take care of yourself.”

I nodded silently as tears began to form into my eyes. I looked down again, trying to control them telling myself that I couldn’t afford to cry, not yet-not now. I looked up at Anjali looking at me, waiting for me to say something but I had left nothing to say. And then suddenly the tears stopped even before they had begun as a sense of anger came over me. Anger at the way I had treated the people I had loved and the way I had been treated by them. Anger for I may deserve what was happening to me but love didn’t. Love didn’t deserved a good bye like this. Anjali didn’t deserve to be treated like this. I may not deserve her but the truth was she loved me and she could deny that fact all she wanted but the truth would remain unchanged. She loved me. And she deserved her love.
“Goodbye!” I heard Anjali say in almost a whisper as if she didn’t really want to say them. And she didn’t. I knew she didn’t want to say goodbye and she definitely didn’t mean it. She wasn’t going to walk away from my life just like that. I wasn’t going to let her. Not so easily.


As she opened the door to leave, I grabbed her hand and pulled her back. I pulled her to face me and brought her down on the sofa. She yelped and crashed into me as we faced each other, sitting with our knees bend, our lips once again so close that we could hear each other breathe. This time I didn’t wait. I held her face in my hands as she looked at me- her eyes pleading, pleading not for me to ler her go but pleading instead to ler her not go from my hold, pleading for me to hold her forever like this, pleading for me to remove the distance between us, the distance between our lips-the distance that should had been removed a long time ago but if it didn’t now then we could lose each other forever. And so I slowly removed that distance, touching her lips with mine, at first slightly as if kissing was just an act which we had done so long ago and we didn’t really need lips for it. I touched her lips with mine again but once again she didn’t respond, the emotions that she felt when I had held her hand and pulled her to me still over powering her to what was happening.

Then her lips came onto mine and she kissed me back. The next time it didn’t matter who kissed whom. Soon we were lost in our worlds, as our lips met and immersed in each other, our body feeling everything that we had felt for so long, our lips giving into the love that we had shared for so long but had been afraid to admit. I kissed her on the forehead, on her eyes and the back on her lips as she touched my face with her hand and kissed me on the lips again. She was now kissing me on my forehead, and my cheeks, almost ferociously, asking me to kiss her back. I caught her lips with mine again as we continied to lose ourselves into each other, continued to lose ourselves into the love we felt for each other.


Suddenly there was a noise from the bathroom. The door was being unlocked. Anjali felt the knock into her head and immediately got up from the sofa and stood near the door. Mohit came out a while later looking all fresh in a brown t-shirt and track. Anjali looked flustered as she tried to do her hair which had been messed up in our act of passion. I looked at Anjali for a few seconds but then looked away as soon as Mohit came out. I couldn’t help but notice that Anjali almost had tears in her eyes. As if all this had got too much for her to take. I so badly wanted to go her and tell her that this wasn’t a mistake. That what had just happened was because I loved her…I loved her so much and because I was afraid to let her go.

“Wow!” Mohit said looking at me. “Well-I knew Anjali was always a better nurse than I was,” he said smiling.

‘A better kisser too! I couldn’t help but think to myself though I had no intention of finding out how Mohit was as a kisser.

“Yeah!” I simply answered for I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Anjali still looked harassed. I so needed to talk to her now. To finally let her know that I did love her.

“You alright?” Mohit said looking at a petrified Anjali.

I wanted to hit Mohit in the face. ‘Do you have to come between us every time?’ I wanted to scream at him.

“Yeah!” Anjali replied still in shock.

“You look as if you have been bitten by a snake,” Mohit said now looking from me to Anjali as if trying to make out what exactly had happened while he was singing DIL DAANCE MAARE RE!!

“I…I…”Anjali stammered, “I need to go,” she finally said and just like that walked out of the house.

For a few minutes after Anjali left-we both continued to stare at the door and the empty hallway for different reasons. I looked on wonderin when I would get to see her again while still tasting her lipstick on my lips while Mohit continued to stare completely flabbergasted at the sudden exit of Anjali from the house.

Then we both turned and our eyes locked. I immediately looked down hoping my eyes wouldn’t give anything away while Mohit continued to look at me, sill intrigued by what had happened.

“What did you do this time?” Mohit asked finally as I continued taste the last bit of Anjali’s lipstick and praying to God that the color of my lips wasn’t too noticeable to Mohit. It’s a weird feeling to kiss a girl in her ex-boyfriend’s flat. A side of me felt triumphant and wanted to jump on the sofa and scream at Mohit-“Take that!” while the other side kept trying to hide the color of my lips from him in order to avoid any more physical confrontations.

“Nothing,” I simply answered.

“Then why did she leave so suddenly?”

How I would have loved to tell him the truth. I kept playing the true answer in my head. ‘Because you dumb dodo-I just kissed your ex-girlfriend in your flat, on your sofa and she doesn’t want you to know about it.’ Damn-life really was cruel at the best of moments!

I ofcorse didn’t answer what I really wanted to. I simply shrugged my shoulders and said, “She finished bandaging me so I guess she didn’t have a reason to stay anymore."



Mohit looked at me for a little while not really believing what I had said but then he knew as well as I did that there was no way I was going to tell him anything if something indeed had happened. And man-I still couldn’t get over what had happened. I so badly wanted to get out of here and catch hold of her. I felt almost helpless on this sofa, with my stitches and looking at the one man I hated most in the world.

“If you say so,” Mohit finally said as if closing an interrogation of a wanted criminal.

“So can I leave now?” I asked not knowing what else to say. I mean, I wasn’t exactly going to indulge in small talk with the man who was trying to steal the girl I loved from me.

“I guess you can,” he said. “But I just think I need to talk to you first.” Apparently, he did want to indulge in small talk.

“About what?” I said getting back that bitterness in my voice. I had pressing matters at hand. Like talking to Anjali.

“About Anjali.”

I was taken aback a bit. I shouldn’t have been because if there ever was anything we were going to talk about then it was Anjali-the girl we both loved yet I couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to push me down now.

“What about her?” I asked eyeing him slyly.

“Look-and don’t get me wrong here, I know that you don’t like me…” he started.

“Correction,” I said interrupting him. “It’s not that I don’t like you,” I said looking at him. “I practically despise you,” I said with as much venom as I could.

It had its effect. Mohit almost seemed stunned at the bitterness I still had for him despite his hospitality. Well-nothing he would do could ever make up for what he did by coming back into Anjali’s life.

“Fine,” Mohit said gathering himself. “You despise me and I am not telling you not to. You have every reason to despie me…”






“But…” I said wondering where this was leading to.

“But Anjali…” he started and I cut him off again. “What about Anjali?”

“Look…let me just say that what ever happens from here I don’t want Anjali to get hurt again.”

“Oh!” I said spitting as much venom as I could. “Like you hurt her by dumping her and then not even looking at her again.”

Mohit almost had a smile on his face. “Ok! I had that coming. Yes-I made mistakes in the past. And I am not running away from them.”

“Those were just mistakes?” I said cutting him off again. “Mistakes like you do in your exams for which you lose a couple of marks and then forget about it?”

“Jesus!” Mohit cried out. “Why are you making it so much more harder than it already is?”

“And you wonder why I don’t like you,” I replied.

“I don’t,” Mohit said hissing at me. “I don’t wonder why you don’t like me Rahul. Because I don’t care about you. Don’t be mistaken for what happened here today! I am not trying to play the good Samaritan to you while you walk into the sunset with the girl I love. Don’t even think about that!”

I was looking stunned at the sudden change in Mohit’s attitude towards. I guess I did push him too far.

“I did what I had to yesterday night. I am not trying to get into your good books. I am not trying to make friends here and don’t even think otherwise. This,” he said indicating towards himself and me-“what’s happening here is a necessity. Because I don’t know about you but I…I care about the girl that just walked out the door. And I don’t want her to get hurt again. Anjali’s been hurt enough. And yes,” he said as I tried to open my mouth to say something, “I know a large part of it is due to me-and damn! If there was something I could do about it,” he clinched his fists in frustration as if trying to stop himself from hitting something.



“These last few days,” he said calming down a bit now, “I have wished and prayed that I would do anything and I mean absolutely anything to undo what I had done, to undo the hurt that I had caused to the one person who had made me happy. But the truth is-I can’t. I am forced to stand by and regret the past like everyone else is. But it doesn’t mean I can’t improve the present. And that’s why I came back into her life.” contnd...