Chapter 45 #2
Samar entered the kitchen and found her back turned to him. She was staring out of the window, one hand on her forehead, sniffling. She was not crying, but this was the aftermath that he had caught. He walked on, holding up his buckling knee with a hand on the wall.
“Amaal.” He set his hand on the small of her back.
“Go.”
“Amaal.” He curved his hand around her waist and pulled her back into his chest. She resisted. His forehead fell on the back of her head. “I hate this.”
“What?”
“You haven’t seen it yet.”
Her whimpering stopped. She went still.
“Your scars don’t matter to me.”
“You don’t deserve them.”
“You don’t decide what I deserve.”
He circled her waist with both arms and pulled her in. This time she came, falling back on his chest where the sensation was still strong. His arms, his calves, some of his thighs and his back were at different stages of numbness.
“I am so much older, and we overlooked that. Now this is there, and it’s not getting better soon or maybe ever.
How will you be ok with this? How will your parents ever be ok with this?
Keep the things I’ve done on one side, I am still not out of my head.
Last time it took me months and now…” he exhaled, inhaled.
Lilies. “I can give up the little conscience I have left and embrace you here today but will I still be the man you were making of me? No.”
Amaal turned — “I am not giving up on you.” Fierce, blazing eyes met his. “Try as hard as you like. You will make me cry and make me fight back. It will be a waste of energy for both of us.”
He stared into her eyes. It was the most intimate he had been with anybody in his life. Covered from neck to toe, closing off his feelings to her, and still having her standing there like she was ready to embrace even that wall. Samar was at a loss with her. Again.
“What do you see with me?” He asked.
“If I say everything, you will not believe me. Because you yourself don’t see anything today.
But I have come here from a day when Fahad called up telling me Samar Bhai is in an explosion and may not make it.
I came here crying and kicking, fighting everything and you, every prognosis that predicted some failure, every scare before a surgery about you not making it, every infection that could turn into a death sentence.
So, Samar, you can look at those scars and think I don’t deserve them but I look at you and see god giving me back so much more than what I begged for that day. ” Her throat clogged.
His hand rose and cupped her cheek. “You are perfect. There is nothing about you that is even a little less.”
“Thank you.” She deadpanned.
Samar found his mouth breaking its scowl.
“I am sorry.”
“You should be.”
He pulled her into his chest and buried his face in her neck. “For all that I have done and all that I will do.”
“Will do?”
“I trust myself.”
She laughed in his chest, squeezing him to the point of pain. He didn’t wince, letting her.
“There is one thing imperfect…” he said. “Maybe… you could work on your rajma recipe.”
“I know right!” She pulled back. “It was bad, no?”
“Hmm.” He managed, apologetically.
“I thought so too, but you were eating it quietly so I thought, maybe I am not enjoying my food because of the long day.”
He chuckled, pulling her back under his chin. “Thank you.”
“For all that I have done and will do?”
“For who you are. No other woman in the world would put up with a man like me, forget work so hard to make him happy.”
“Do I make you happy?”
“Whatever is good and happy left in my life is you, Amaal. Every innocent moment of my life belongs to you.”
She raised her face. “And you?”
“I belong to you, too.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?” He raised both brows.
“Hmm. It’s difficult between us right now, but it will not be so forever. Ok?”
“Hmm.”
“And I will not come into your bedroom. That’s your space. Show me what you want to show me, hide what you want to hide. That will be our LOC, I promise”
“I…”
“I promise.”
His mouth snapped shut.
“Hmm?”
He smiled. “Hmm.”
————————————————————
That night, he peeled all his clothes off, then the compression jersey and slacks, and came face to face with his own body in its entirety after two months.
He had seen grafted and recovered third-degree burns in textbooks, seen fresh burns with his own eyes, treated them, known how they would always live on that body. Now he saw them on his own.
The upper left corner of his chest, running up his shoulder and neck, was melted.
The hair follicles dead. The colour lightened from grafts.
His left bicep was melted, the skin running down to his wrist and back of his hand leathery.
This particular wrist was also jammed. His physiotherapist was paying extra attention to return motion there.
Samar turned his attention to his right hand.
Some of the palm had burned but it was healing well.
No scarring. The scars began at the back of this hand and continued to the back of that arm, running all the way up to the shoulder.
He turned, and everything south of his neck was melted, the lower back affected the worst, as that part had come in contact with live fire as he had jumped.
Amaal was right. He had to be grateful that he had lived. He was. But his mind was shifting between the blessing of a new life, of being reborn for her, and making peace with offering her this version of himself.
Maybe the everything she saw for them would become visible to him, too, one day.
Until then, he would make sure his body worked well for her, even if it did not look well for her.