After The Rain

Chapter Twenty-Two - The Air I Breathe

To know that I miss you
so much when you leave;
to know that I need you
like the air that I breathe.

To know that I want you
with a passion so blind,
is to know that I love you -
with no doubt in my mind.

- Lang Leav (To Know)

~

Arnav needed to get out of there. And yet, he couldn't get too far.

His feet took him away from the hospital ward, away from that doom-stricken corridor, down to the ground floor and out of the hospital, but he stopped somewhere in the parking lot. His eyes were still on the building which was shining and flickering with light against the falling darkness.

Except two cars, there were no other vehicles where he was. No one was around. It was deserted and silent, but Arnav didn’t think he would have cared even if he had been surrounded by a crowd. This was as far as his legs could take him, as far as he was willing to go from the one he left behind in the hospital—and here, he sank down. His back was against a wall and his head was in his hands as he sat on the ground, breathing hard.

She was fine, the doctor had said, minutes, hours ago? He didn’t know. He didn’t know how long had passed since he had been standing there, replaying the same words over and over again in his head before he moved.

That she was fine. Out of danger. She was going to be out of it for a few days, but she will push through.

Of course, she will, a voice spoke fiercely in his head. That’s Khushi. The most ridiculously stubborn, and annoyingly determined woman on earth. Of course, she was going to push through. Of course, she is going to be fine.

She is going to be fine. She is going to be fine. She is going to be fine.

The litany formed in his mind, and he willed it to echo throughout himself. To be the comforting hum that could sooth the dreadful pang that had seized his body. A pang that ached, screamed, and conjured up such images that made him feel as if something vital was being sucked out of him. A pang that had settled in from the moment he registered his sister’s words back in Shantivan.

“Khushi! She was with Mohanji! I told her to go on and I waited... I waited and she...”

A pang that had gotten devastatingly stronger from the second he saw her on that stretcher, lifeless, and bleeding. And a pang that ransacked him for all those hours he spent inside that hospital, numb and still from the outside, and going mad by the second from the inside.

He needed that pang to go away. He needed to forget that feeling. But even after all he heard, even after the confirmation that she was fine, he couldn’t get rid of it.

He needed more than the words of that doctor. He needed to be with her, to be beside her. To hold her hand and allow her steady pulse to sooth his own raging one. He needed to hear her heartbeat, he needed to touch her to make sure she was not going to fall apart and disappear. He needed…he needed her.

He arched his head skywards, feeling the knot in his chest tighten a little more in desperation.

Following her surgery, the doctor had permitted only immediate family members to visit her, not wanting to crowd the room. And in the time he took to sink a little bit in relief, the whole Gupta family had already barraged into her room. He had wanted to tear through them, but the weight of everything had suddenly crashed over him and he realised he needed to breathe again. It was only when he came outside that he realised it was not fresh air that he needed. The one person who could help him was the one he had left behind.

His eyes fluttered shut and like a movie, a series of moments played behind his lids. Moments of her—laughing, teasing, and simply existing. The way she walked with her head in clouds, the tiny crease on her forehead whenever she tried hard to concentrate on something while letting herself be distracted by the smallest of things, the fire in her eyes when she was defiant, the smile on her face when she was content, and the blush on her face when she was flustered.

These moments played in front of him in his weakest moments, whenever he was caught off guard or every time he gave in to sleep. But unlike then, he did not shut them away. He willed himself to remember her more as if by remembering, he could conjure her up. Right here. With him.

Their encounter from this morning followed the snapshots of memory and he tried to backtrack to that. To leave this moment behind and return to when she was with him, caged in his arms. He wouldn’t let her go then. He would keep her with him. Safe and sound so that all this never occurs. If only he could do that. If only there was a way. He would have done anything it takes to reverse whatever just happened.

Because never in his life had Arnav Singh Raizada felt the grip of fear as strong as he did hours ago. That fear had loosened it's hold, but had not yet left him. It was a fear that punctured holes in the blissful bubbles that had surrounded him an eternity ago. It slashed through him and broke down every particle of joy he had somehow managed to find in his long life of misery.

Someday a girl will enter your life, someone without whom your heart will stopping beating. Someone you will not be able to live without. Someone you will yearn for, and if you don’t get her, it will feel like you couldn’t breathe anymore.

The words that had rang so very often in his mind these days rang yet again, paired with images of her—images that shifted against his will to include the godforsaken memory of her unconscious and bloodied.

Di was wrong. Because when he saw her, when he finally had to accept that she was hurt, he hadn’t felt like he couldn’t breathe. He really couldn’t breathe. The air had been knocked out of his lungs and he had been a man tormented ever since. He still was and he will continue to be until he sees her. Hear that voice of hers.

Fuck, he needed her. He did. So bad, his life depended on it.

The need blared in him louder than everything else, finally overpowering the chaos within him and his eyes snapped open. He took a deep breath, or tried to, before pushing himself back to his feet. He turned towards the hospital, his eyes fixed on the building with such intensity it felt like he was trying to zero in on her from this distance. Without him knowing, his feet began to move forward, retracing the path he took minutes ago—back to her, back to where his breath, his heartbeat laid.

Because now he had no excuse. He had no reason to run away. No will, no desire to deny what was so blatantly obvious.

He loved her. With all his broken heart, and with all his fractured being, he loved her deeply and irrevocably.

Because only love could give the joy he experience hours ago and only love could hurt the way it did when he thought he was losing her.
 

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