SCARRED- Chapter 3

                           Chapter 3

After around ten minutes, he found himself rushing into the hospital. Around ten yards away, he spotted Sindhu lying on a stretcher. Man, she was breathing! He let out a long whoosh and leaned against the wall. There were two nurses huddled over her, but she was still alive. 

But when he went closer he froze. The left side of her upper body was sort of… disfigured. Her left eye, the skin on her face had almost melted away… Acid, he realized in horror.

He knew he had to run to her, but he felt as though a dumbbell was tied to each of his leg. His vision became blurred, his head throbbed. It seemed like all his vital organs had ceased to function. As he ran his hand through his hair, his mind projected a series of random incidents at an unbelievable pace. He tried to slow them down. When he began to concentrate, he heard the voices.

‘Let’s go to the police….You better stay away from her… Why didn’t you tell me before…Why not?... Or else, you might end up being hospitalized for life… I wasn’t sure if he was stalking me…They would make us seem like criminals…’

Suddenly, it struck him. His eyes widened. He felt the blood rush to his head. ‘It must have been that bastard…that bastard who had been stalking Sindhu a month earlier’ he told himself.

He clenched his fists. He and his friends had warned him twice. He did seem to back off. He had stopped stalking her. ‘Oh god! We must have approached the police, or maybe no, I should have beaten him to death.’ He thought.

Suddenly he wanted to kill him, rip his body into thin shreds, throw acid on every part of his body and watch him wriggle, watch him die…

Pooja walked over to him and sat down beside him.

“I’m terribly sorry, Aakhil”, she said.

He looked at her bloodshot eyes; he knew that she must be feeling more miserable than him. She is Sindhu’s childhood friend, after all.

“It was th-that bloody stalker”, she added after a moment of silence.

He nodded slowly, very slowly, gritting his teeth.

“She lost her left eye…and her upper left arm looks really bad. The doctor told that she has to undergo around twenty to thirty surgeries…

He just stared blankly at the floor. He couldn’t respond; he felt numb.

Then, he heard her break into sobs. He opened his mouth to speak, but the huge lump in his throat didn’t allow him to do any talking. He gently patted on her shoulder and turned away.

After half-an-hour, they were done with the first aid.  “Maybe you should talk to her”, he heard Pooja say.

‘Talk to her?’ echoed a voice inside his head. The idea of talking to Sindhu now seemed like an alien concept to him. He sighed. Only around an hour ago, he had wanted to propose her…

He slowly tottered towards the room in which Sindhu was lying.

For a spilt of a second, he saw her face, especially the part that had melted away, and then she immediately buried her face into her hands.

“Please don’t come in, Aakhil, get out!” she screamed.

“Sindhu…please…”

His voice choked. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. Seconds later, he realized it was a serious mistake. His tears made her yell louder.

“Get out, I say!”

He stumbled out of the room, feeling more heart-broken than ever.

Three weeks had passed since he spoke to her. None of his calls were answered, none of his messages received replies.

What nagged the most was, she won’t allow him to lay his eyes on her, atleast not when she’s awake. He desperately wanted to talk to her in person, holding her hands and gently stroking her hair. But he didn’t want to upset her. So, he made visits to the hospital and her house only after checking with her parents if she was asleep. And during the visits, he noticed how a shawl neatly covered that part of her face.  He spent hours talking to her parents and her lawyer and did almost everything that their son would do, if they had any.

He wondered how he had survived these three weeks. Each day seemed to be more painful than the previous one, with each second making him feel guiltier, making them grow more distant. Maybe, this is how lovely couples fall apart. ‘Not that the lovely couple tag really suits us’ he thought bitterly.

Twenty one days sans Sindhu’s calls and messages gave him a lot of time and space for introspection; terribly painful, nerve-wrecking introspection. And it resulted in one of the worst realizations: His love was dependent mainly on physical attractions.  All the tiny, squeaky voices in his head tried to deny the inner’s voice’s accusation. But deep inside he knew how right his inner voice had been.

                                                                            

                                                                        ***

After the acid attack, he came to the park every day. His lifeless eyes gazed at the hustle and bustle, as he solemnly contemplated on the terrible incident. He slowly, deliberately recalled all the fine, intrinsic details of it, allowing guilt to take a toll on him. More than often, he desperately wished to see Sindhu’s normal, unburned face.  He hated to admit it, but sometime caught himself wondering if he would love her less now.

But today, exactly three weeks after the acid attack, he was a changed man. He decided to let go of the acid attack. True, it did cause a permanent stain on their picturesque love life. But after all, it had been a stain which had kick-started their love life.

And anyways, a love life can’t remain to be picturesque forever. Sometimes, it ought to get stained… And now he knew their love can now withstand worse stains.

He decided to visit the hospital today, no matter what. He got on his bike and shifted the gear. As he heard the engine roar, he thought, ‘Hey angel, I’m coming to see you and nobody can stop me from doing that. Not even you.’

                                                                       ***

He stood at the entrance of the room, gripping the frame of the door. His heart did a mini somersault.  The first thing that caught his eye was the bright red shawl covered that part of her face. She was lying against the propped up pillows with a novel in her hand. He squinted to see it was a novel by her favorite author Dan Brown, or rather their favorite author. She placed her finger as a bookmark and fixed her gaze on him.

He could see hatred, pain and anger in her eyes but what shone better was her want to live, live past these struggles, insults and the pain.

He expected her to shoo him away like the last time.

 Instead she spoke“If you’re here to talk about the lawyer or the thug, let me tell you; I don’t want any of it. I don’t care, anymore. He threw acid on me only once. But there are people around me who burn my feelings every day, every single moment…”

She stopped abruptly.  He thought the tears would come gushing out. But no, she didn’t cry. Her eyes were red and watery, but not a single tear was to be seen.

He took a deep breath and gripped the door frame harder.

“No, it’s not about him.”

“Then, what else?”

 He felt a sharp pain in his heart. She made it seem as though they had nothing to talk about, she made him feel like a complete stranger. He suddenly realized how far she had gone away from him.

‘What can I do to make her understand that I love her more than ever? True, I  had been smitten by her looks and found her really attractive, but now my love was beyond the fading charm, beyond the sweet, flirtatious talk, beyond the meeting of the eyes, and beyond a lot more things ‘ he thought  bitterly.

Suddenly he found himself being on the verge of tears. ‘No, not now. O god! Not again.’ he told myself.

A painful silence enveloped the room, like a thick layer of smoke suffocating me. I knew it was suffocating her too, but she would never admit it.

A chill breeze entered the room , as if to break the silence. It made the curtains flutter; her shawl got slightly displaced, only slightly. She immediately pulled it back. He felt the sudden urge to pull away her shawl, caress that part of her face and shower it with his kisses. But he still stood at the entrance, gazing helplessly at her.

She slowly spoke, “Maybe we’ll talk some time later. I’m tired.

“But Sindhu…”

She looked irritated.  “Oh Aakhil, can’t you understand? Do I have to explain everything to you? Get out, now!  Get out of my life, please! Please…”

She paused for a moment. Her voice became close to a whisper. “Aakhil, I know you don’t deserve to be yelled at. But it’s hard to keep my cool, because I have gone through enough. These three weeks meant hell to me. And I know it’ll only get worse…”

Her voice cracked. She drank water and continued to speak, “You know what, I want to punch peoples’ faces before they could turn them away feeling disgusted for having laid their eyes on my face. I want push people out of my life, before they shove me off from their hearts. I hope you understand…”

“Sindhu, no one can understand you better than me.”

Her expression softened. Her right eye tenderly gazed at me for a moment and then it fell to the ground.

Then the breeze came again.  Her shawl fluttered, slowly very slowly, it revealed her face. She made no attempt to replace it now.

He went numb. He relived the nightmare again and imagined the how painful it must have been for her.  He searched her face. She looked very different from the woman he had found attractive and had flirted with. But he knows she is the woman he wants to wake up seeing every day, the woman who would fill his little lifeless house with love, happiness and the sweet sounds of little children, and with whom he would be huddled with in the veranda to watch the dawn break and the sky change colours, the woman with whom he would spend his last moments…

He swallowed hard and prepared to speak.

“You have every right to push me out of your life. But allow me to sort out few things and then I shall walk away.”

He doubted if he would ever walk away from her. Very rarely does he come up with which dramatic lines. He made a mental note to tell her later that he spoke such lines only to add a little spice to their conversation.

He closed his eyes for a moment. The lines that he had rehearsed for the marriage proposal back then seemed so meaningless now. She was a changed person, a much stronger person than she used to be and his love was no longer superficial.

She slowly climbed out of the bed and bent down to pick the shawl.

“No! Sindhu, you don’t have to wear that. You don’t have to hide your scars; the scars show what you’ve gone through.  There’s a tough journey ahead, I agree, but you can’t run away from it.  You ought to show the monsters out there that you won’t let the scars affect your dignity. And there are many who need inspiration and support from you. You got to reach out to them…”  He stopped suddenly feeling breathless.

She cried, smiled and blushed at the same time. She then closed her eyes and remained still for a very long moment. It’s hard to explain what happened next.

She came running towards him and flung her arms around his neck. He stood still, not knowing what to do. When she pulled her arms away, he spoke, “I- I want to a part of the journey ahead of you, I want to stay by your side all the time. Sindhu, Will you marry me?”

She nodded, looking straight into his eyes. He wrapped his hands around her and smiled through the tears.