Page 43 - Till the Last Breath . . .

‘You need a cigarette every hour, Dushyant,’ she said. ‘You will kill

yourself.’
‘I am trying. It will take time. You just can’t let it go overnight,’
Dushyant retorted irritably. Kajal never liked to talk about his drinking

problem. She loved him, so she had to. But she had had enough. The
steroids he took as bodybuilding supplements, the marijuana, the never-

ending cigarettes … his addictions kept piling up. She didn’t know where to
begin.

‘If you loved me enough, you would have stopped by now.’
‘I have stopped taking steroids,’ he defended himself.

‘That’s because it’s been months since you have been to the gym. I don’t
like to see you destroy yourself. I hope you understand that. I have nothing
to gain out of restricting you from your addictions. It’s just that I don’t want

anything to happen to you.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to me. Okay, fine,’ he said. ‘You stop talking

to Varun. I will stop smoking. That’s a fair deal?’
‘What? How’s that even connected?’

‘You’re addicted to Varun. I am addicted to my cigarettes. You leave him,
I’ll quit smoking. I am not comfortable with you being friends with your

ex-boyfriend and you’re not comfortable with my smoking habit. It sounds
fair to me.’
‘You talk to Smita too, Dushyant. I have never pointed my finger at that.’

‘Fine, I will stop talking to her. I never call her anyway. But you do call
Varun. There are times you put my call on hold to pick up his. Sometimes

you talk till the dead of night or early morning. What do I make of all this?
If you need more friends, why not someone else? Why do you have to be

friends with your ex-boyfriend, of all people?’ Dushyant accused.
It wasn’t the first time Dushyant was being paranoid about Kajal still

being friends with Varun—her best friend for the longest time and a
boyfriend for two years.
‘You’re being childish. I have told you a million times that there is

nothing between us. He is just a friend and will always be,’ Kajal asserted.