Page 70 - Till the Last Breath . . .

minutes she had imagined him as a bad boy straight out of old English

movies. Or more like Ajay Devgn, with his legs in a 180-degree split on
two Yamahas, from the cult Hindi action movie Phool aur Kaante!
In the eighteen years before her disease was diagnosed, she had never

looked at boys like a girl usually does. They were always classmates, not
potential boyfriends. Over the last few months, she had grown fat on a

healthy diet of her mother’s old Mills & Boons, the Fifty Shades and the
Sylvia Day trilogies, and felt an insuppressible urge to be amongst the

opposite gender. To feel what it was like to be attracted to a guy, to feel the
little goosebumps when a guy touches you, to be in the naked company of a

man. To …
‘There,’ the nurse said as she tucked Pihu in. Pihu thanked the nurse,
who asked her to push the button if she needed anything and left.

‘It’s not that bad,’ Pihu mumbled to herself. She fiddled with the controls
of the bed. Up. Down. Stop. Up. Down. Stop. Up. Down. Up. Down. Stop.

She giggled.
‘Can you stop?’ the voice from the other side of the curtain said. It was

hoarse and demanded attention.
‘Oh.’

Dushyant. She drew the curtain to the side and met his piercing gaze.
‘I am trying to sleep here,’ he grumbled.
‘You’re not trying to sleep. It’s a symptom of the disease you have. You

will feel sleepy for the next month or two,’ she explained, her playful
enthusiasm anachronous with the news she delivered.

‘Whatever. Will you just stop making that noise? It’s annoying.’
‘Hi, I am Pihu!’ She thrust her hand out.

‘Umm … I don’t need to know your name. I am leaving in a day or two,’
he said, ‘and your voice is more annoying than the noise you were making

earlier. Let’s not make it any more difficult than it already is.’
‘Fine. By the way, you’re not leaving in a day or two. Your liver is shot.
Your treatment is going to be long. So it’s better if we became friends.’ She

forced a smile on her face.