To end my suffering, to end my pain.
If I’d only known,
That this is the last time I sit by your side,
I would have told you how much I loved you,
Keeping rest things aside.
If I’d only known,
That we would never hold hands again,
I would have held them strong,
And never let anything go wrong.
If I’d only known,
That you would stand always by my side,
I would have fought the world for you,
Breaking all the walls through.
If I’d only known,
That your love was true,
If I’d only known that you would come back soon,
I would have waited for you to come by.
If I’d only known any of this,
That you were what I was breathing for,
I would have breathed my last for you,
Seen you enough and bid you adieu,
While all I can do now,
Is sit here …
… and wait.
Love you.
If I’d only known.
Bye, Deb.
Malini.
My heart pounded, my brain felt heavy, and my eyes welled up. I tried not to think what she would be doing. She would be crying. I wanted to rush back above, hug her, and do something about it. Anything. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t deserve her. Or anyone else. Her. Avantika. No one.
Malini. She screwed me, and then saved me and I gave her nothing. The car drove into the airport and the driver loaded my luggage on to the trolley. I looked at my cell phone and I wished Malini would call, but she didn’t. She once told me that she would never call or message once I left for Bangalore. She told me that it had to end some day, and this is how she would end it. She would be out of my sight and out of my mind. I had always thought she was kidding. Probably she was not.
I collected my boarding pass and headed for the waiting area. A lot of flights were being cancelled those days due to bad weather, so Malini had asked me to check for mine before leaving. I had not. I sat there thinking about her. And Avantika. She lied and I failed her, just as I had failed Malini. I finished everything.
Avantika would not take me back. Why would she? Had I loved her, I wouldn’t have left her. Maybe I should just stay alone for a while, I thought to myself, and not destroy any more lives. I glanced up to see the flight schedule. Two flights stood out. A flight to Bangalore meant a new life. The flight to Mumbai meant the old one—Avantika.
BANGALORE
MDLR AIRLINES
2.00 P.M.
CANCELLED
MUMBAI
INDIGO
2.15 P.M.
DELAYED
I stood there staring at the flight chart. Bangalore—cancelled. Bangalore—cancelled.
I kept looking at the board. Malini had asked me to call her once I boarded the flight. There was no flight now. My eyes kept shifting from Bangalore … to Mumbai … Mumbai. Should I tell Malini about the flight and go back to her? Or catch the next flight to Bangalore? Or should I get on the flight to Mumbai?
I flipped open my cell phone and dialled a number; selfish as I always have been. We are allowed one big mistake in our lives, aren’t we? I was being selfish again, I was being Deb again, and I was being spineless again. I dialled the number. The phone rang.
‘Hey,’ the voice said from the other side.
‘Hi, Avantika.’
I looked up the flight schedule board. The words, the letters, the numbers … everything became clear.
MUMBAI
INDIGO
2.15 P.M.
DELAYED
‘Where are you?’ Avantika asked.
‘… minutes away from a flight to Bangalore,’ I said. I wanted to get out of the phone and hug her. I wanted to kiss her and make her mine again.
‘Oh, new job. Best of luck,’ she said. It was such a pleasure to hear her again.
‘Thank you, Avantika,’ I said.
‘So when’s your flight?’
‘I am thinking of missing my flight,’ I said. I had not decided what I would say when I made that call. But as I talked to her, it became clearer.
‘What? Why?’ she asked.
‘… I am coming to Mumbai,’ I said.
‘Mumbai? Why?’ she sounded genuinely shocked.
‘I met Kabir,’ I said. ‘I know you lied.’
‘…’
‘I know you love me,’ I said, ‘… and I love you.’
‘What if you hadn’t met Kabir?’
‘Sooner or later, I would have run back to you,’ I said. She was not convinced by what I had said.
‘Sooner? It’s been three months, Deb,’ she said and her voice started to crack.
‘The next flight to Mumbai leaves in an hour. I should get a ticket!’ I said.
‘But—’
‘We will talk when I get there!’ I said.
She was still talking when I cut the phone. She didn’t want me to come, but I didn’t care any more. I looked at the girl at the ticket counter and she smiled and said, ‘One ticket to Mumbai? An angry girlfriend, I suppose?’
‘Yes, please!’
I took the ticket and walked away from the counter. The ticket-counter girl shouted from behind, ‘Go! Get her!’
Also in Penguin Metro Reads
If It’s Not Forever
It’s Not Love
Durjoy Datta • Nikita Singh
To the everlasting power of love …
When Deb, an author and publisher, survives the bomb blasts at Chandni Chowk, he knows his life is nothing short of a miracle. And though he escapes with minor injuries, he is haunted by the images and voices that he heard on that unfortunate day.
Even as he recovers, his feet take him to where the blasts took place. From the burnt remains he discovers a diary. It seems to belong to a dead man who was deeply in love with a girl. As he reads the heartbreaking narrative, he knows that this story must never be left incomplete. Thus begins Deb’s journey with his girlfriend, Avantika, and his best friend, Shrey, to hand over the diary to the man’s beloved.
Deeply engrossing and powerfully told, If It’s Not Forever … tells an unforgettable tale of love and life.
You Were My Crush
Till You Said You Love Me!
Durjoy Datta • Orvana Ghai
Would you change yourself for the love of your life?
Benoy zips around in a Bentley, lives alone in a palatial house and is every girl’s dream. To everyone in college he is a stud and a heartbreaker. But is he, really? What no one sees is his struggle to come to terms with his mother’s untimely death and his very strained relationship with his father.
Then once again his world turns upside down when he sees the gorgeous Shaina. He instantly falls in love but she keeps pushing him away. What is stopping them from having their fairy-tale romance? What is Shaina hiding?
It’s time Benoy learned his lesson about love and relationships …
Till the Last Breath …
Durjoy Datta
When death is that close, will your heart skip a beat?
Two patients are admitted to room no. 509. One is a brilliant nineteen-year-old medical student, suffering from an incurable, fatal disease. She counts every extra breath as a blessing. The other is a twenty-five-year-old drug addict whose organs are slowly giving up. He can’t wait to get rid of his body. To him, the sooner the better.
Two reputed doctors, fighting their own demons from the past, are trying everything to keep these two patients alive, even putting their medical licences at risk.
These last days in the hospital change the two patients, their doctors and all the other people around them in ways they had never imagined.
Till the Last Breath … is a deeply sensitive story which reminds us what it means to be alive.
Of Course I Love You
Till I Find Someone Better
Durjoy
Datta with Maanvi Ahuja
Let love be your guide …
All Debashish cares about is getting laid. His relationships are mostly short-lived and his break-ups messy until he falls in love with the beautiful and mysterious Avantika.
When she returns his feelings, he is thrilled. However, his joy is short-lived as Avantika walks out of the relationship. A broken-hearted Debashish plunges into depression and his life takes a dizzying downward spiral. He finds himself without a job, friends, or a lover. Loneliness strikes him hard.
That is when his friend Amit comes to his rescue and they start putting the pieces of his life back together. Things begin to look up, but Debashish is still pining for Avantika.
Will she come back and make his life whole again, or will he continue to pay for his mistakes?
Acknowledgements
Many people whom I thank below have unwaveringly stood beside me while I finished this manuscript in record time, guiding me, criticizing me and supporting me. I hope their efforts pay off. I thank Maanvi Ahuja, for always being there, no matter how stupidly or senselessly I have acted.
Sachin Garg for letting me know every day that I can kick some serious ass this time, Ekta Mehta for being so unrealistically sweet, supportive … and beyond awesome! Vaaruni Dhawan for being such an incredibly cute influence in my life, Neeti Rustagi for being with me all these years, Savvy Singh for the helping hand she has always extended, Rohini Khanna for fooling me into believing that I am worth something, Surabhi Guha Mazumdar for being the awesome person she is, Uttara Rao for being such a boost to my ego, Hansita for being the one who bears the brunt of my typos the most, Chhavi Kharuna for all the spiritual gyaan, Ankita Mehta for just being there!
I also thank these people for making my life as good as it is right now—Nikita Singh, Naman Kapur, Abhishek Sachdev, Nitin Verma, Aeshna Nigam, Vandana Vidyarthi, Anupriya Aggarwal, Ekta Bharadwaj, Farah Maheshwari, Farah Saxena, Varun, Neha Kakkar, Soumi Das, Shreyasi Bose, Medha Shree, Nidhi Sharma, Gunjan Sayal, Rumpa Roy Chauhan, Neha Kakkar, Gunjan Upreti.
Arpit Khandelwal, Ankit Mittal, Abhishek Chopra, Ashish Rander, Eeshaan Sharma, Tigmanshu Dubey, Mukul Gupta for making college life at MDI what it should be like—awesome! I thank the entire batches of MDI PG ’08 and ’09, especially PG ’09 Section C, simply because I love these guys.
Now to thank people who really matter—my extended family for they have always been there. And Guruji, because without his blessings all this would still have been a distant dream!
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN METRO READS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguinbooksindia.com
First published by Srishti Publishers and Distributors 2010
Published in Penguin Metro Reads by Penguin Books India 2013
Copyright © Durjoy Datta 2013
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover photographs © iStock Photo
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-143-42159-7
This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-9-351-18395-2
She Broke Up, I Didn't: I Just Kissed Someone Else! Page 19
