Page 96 of Someone to Love

Don’t we all need someone to love? And don’t we all need that someone to love us back?

Our story, the Koyal and Amit story, is as dark and stormy as it is because both of us, you and I, were unfortunate enough to not have our someones love us back.

I am sorry for the husband, man, partner that I was to you.

Often when a man behaves the way I behaved with you, and makes another person suffer the way I made you suffer, it is because he is suffering on the inside.

I did what I did because I loved you.

And because you loved (love?) someone else.

Sometimes I wish it was just an affair based only on physical needs. I think I could have possibly seen past it. But it was not.

You were passionately, madly in love.

With Atharv.

Atharv’s eyes widened in surprise.

About two days into our marriage, you were sleeping next to me when you began to squirm in your sleep. No doubt, it was a bad dream, and I remember wondering if I should wake you up. And then you started murmuring, then screaming his name. Even in your sleep, your voice had a desperation that curled my toes. It was like you would give up anything to be with the man.

I stayed awake the whole night.

I decided that you and Atharv may want each other and you may choose him over me, but I will be the one who will have you.

And then you wanted a baby because (as I found out while skimming through your email) Atharv had had a baby. That made me worse. I became even more cruel and began to hit you – something I shall regret to my dying day.

There is only one thing I want to say: Sorry.

I am sorry, Koyal. I am very sorry. I wish I could go into our past and change things, but I cannot. All I can do is apologize and hope that you will somehow find it in yourself to forgive me.

I hope you find Atharv’s love again.

Amit

Atharv breathed deep, trying desperately to calm himself down. His imagination ran wild – Amit hitting Koyal, oh god, the images, through this letter, how they had come alive in his head. He brought his hand to his face and closed his eyes.

Another wave of rage ran through him and he wondered if he should travel to India, find Amit and hit him hard.

He stood still, trying to even his breathing, when another thought struck him and his heart broke into a million little pieces.

Had Koyal loved him all these years?

She had loved him? Loved him? Been in love with him?

Had her love for him destroyed her marriage? Was he in any way responsible?

And then he allowed himself that one question: Why had Koyal never told him that she loved him? Why?

Oh, you mad, mad, mad girl!

He then sat down and stared at the floor for an eternity, his brain whirring.

Nothing made sense.

How could Koyal have been in love with him when she had turned him away from her door? Nothing appeared to make sense. Was Amit, the scumbag that he was, lying? And then, his eyes fell on a neatly folded sheet of paper he had picked up from the street. Does this even belong to Koyal, he wondered, still reeling from the contents of Amit’s letter.

When he unfolded the paper, he did a double-take.