Sixteen
Anika
Tonight, when I dreamed of it all, I cried a little. Like I did each time when I dreamed of it all. And I whispered his name in a broken voice.
Vikrant.
This time, a gentle hand shook me awake. Warm and reassuring. Essential. Familiar. I snuggled into the palm, resting my cheek against it. And I thought I felt hot lips brush against my temple. But when I opened my eyes, Vikrant was sitting at the very edge of the bed, his face half in shadow in the lamplight.
Completely expressionless. As remote and untouchable as a statue god, but so alive in his sleevelesstee and track pants.
I ached to touch him, to crawl into his very bones and stay there.
‘Did I wake you?’ I sat up, drawing the covers over my legs and waist. I’d kicked them off in my tumultuous sleep.
He shook his head. ‘No. I was reading up on a case study.’
‘Oh.’ I dropped my eyes and took a steadying breath.
‘It sounded like you were having a nightmare.’
‘I wasn’t.’ I raised my eyes and confessed the truth. ‘I was dreaming about you.’
‘I see.’
And then it came out. The question that tormented me even now. After all this time.
‘Why did you never finish our counseling sessions, Vik? I know I rescheduled the first two times but that was because I was in surgery. You know I can’t leave my spot at the OT. Those intern piranhas would have eaten me alive. But you didn’t bother responding to any of the other times the counsellor called us. Why?’
I sniffed, appalled at how close to tears I was. Constantly.
Vikrant gripped one hand with the other, and in the shadowed moonlight I could see the hair dotting his forearms.
I wanted to touch that too. Just the hair on his wrist and arms.
I swallowed back a sob. Coming here had been such a bad idea.
***
‘Why won’t you say something?’
God, I had zero pride where this man was concerned.
Vikrant swallowed; it was a bleak motion. But it was just me. Feeling bleak and sad and aching all over again. I was projecting my own emotions onto him. That much basic psychology even I had studied back in school.
‘The first time after you rescheduled, I called up the counselor and told her I was driving down to do the session in person. That I had things to say to you and to her.’
‘What things?’ I held my breath.
‘It’s not important now, Ani,’ he sounded so certain. ‘The thing is, I drove fourteen hours straight and I came to the hospital to pick you up and I saw you at the nurses’ station.’
Vikrant’s voice was gruff with remembered emotion. ‘You were consulting on a case – the baby was seven months old with a bowel obstruction of some kind. You were telling the senior surgeon what kind of path to take, and you were righ t . You belonged there,’ he said softly.
Pride filled his words. Pride he’d never shown me before.
‘Vik--’
‘You belonged there like you never could with me. I am a simple physician,’ he said simply,‘And I’m happy with it. You’re meant to save little kids from certain death. And you were right. I couldn’t stand in the way of that. Not if I cared about you.’
I sniffed some more because it sounded so noble and heroic, what he was saying. In reality, it sucked. Because it meant I couldn’t be with him.
‘So, you gave up on us?’
Vikrant shook his head, looking as ravaged as I felt on the inside. ‘I realized the things you wanted, and I wanted were mutually exclusive, so I did the right thing. Without making it harder for you.’
‘It wasn’t your decision to make.’ He’d never even given me a chance to know how he really felt. Once the cloud of anger and accusations had parted.
And he countered my logical argument with one of his own. ‘Are you telling me you would have been happy moving here to Aronda and playing at being a doctor when you could be a surgical god in Mumbai?’
***
I had no answer to that simple question. And it wasn’t fair to tell him he should have given me the choice. I would have resented him for it, if only when my parents came to visit once in a blue moon and my father reminded me of all that I could have been.
Either way, I’d have felt trapped and resentful. And he wasn’t to blame for it. Not really. That much I understood in the year being apart.
‘We were happy, weren’t we?’ I sounded so hopelessly na?ve, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know. Needed to know that, before the end, we had been happy. We had been togethe r .
It hadn’t all been in my head.A fairytale I made up to get through falling for the wrong guy too soon.
He evaded the question. ‘Get some sleep, Ani. We have a full day ahead of us tomorrow.’
Vikrant stood up and I watched his loose-hipped walk helplessly. He switched off the lamp and sat down in the middle of the couch. Continued looking at his hands.
I lay back in bed, knowing this was all he would share tonight. And it was more than I expected to get from him. I stared at the ceiling and willed myself to go back to sleep. Then I stupiheard it.
My name.
In Vikrant’s rusty whisper.
Anika.
‘Yes?’ I turned to face him, barely able to make out his silhouette now that the room was completely dark.
‘I dream about you too.’