Page 46 - Till the Last Breath . . .

That day, Kajal’s phone had been lying unattended and he had seen

pictures and text messages that were more than a year old. He had not
reacted at first. But as the night progressed, he started to get drunk. And
angry. He hadn’t talked much. Shot after shot was downed. His eyes were

bloodshot. Later that night, after an argument, he had struck Kajal on her
face while he cried and howled like an animal. Everyone, friends of both

Dushyant and Kajal, had watched helplessly as she fell and hit the chair,
reeling from the impact of his heavy hand on her face. He had locked

himself in a room. All his friends had banged on the door relentlessly,
scared that he might overdose inside. Kajal had pleaded with him to open

the door. He had let her inside. There were no words exchanged. For the
first time, Dushyant had forced himself on her. He had paid no regard to her
cries and pounded her with disdain. He had treated her worse than a whore

and violated her repeatedly. Once done, he had rolled over, drunk from the
bottle of vodka, and passed out. A crying Kajal had left the flat and gone

back home. She had texted Dushyant telling him they were over and he was
dead to her. For the next six days, he had kept calling her. With every

missed call, Kajal’s temper had risen. Her decision to stay away from him
had strengthened. Tired and angry, she had told him that she had never

loved him and that she was thinking of getting back with Varun. The calls
had stopped immediately.
Again, she had no one to talk to. After fiddling with her phone for hours,

she dialled Varun’s number. You have me; you don’t need him, Dushyant
used to tell her. Lies. ‘Hi, Varun,’ Kajal said, fighting her tears.

‘Hey? Long time. Where have you been? You don’t pick up my calls, you
don’t call me back? I dropped you about a million texts. What’s the

problem?’
‘Dushyant never liked you, you know that, right?’

‘Yes. I never liked him either. He asked you to stop talking to me, didn’t
he? That narrow-minded bastard. I don’t know what you’re doing with him.
Really, he is worse than the Taliban,’ Varun joked.

‘Yes, he asked me to stay away from you, but it’s okay. No boyfriend
likes the ex-boyfriends of their girls.’