authors note ° THE CHAPTER!!! so here it goes! this also brings an end to "till i heal" part where virat has totally recovered from his paralysis. i've not been in the knack of writing so this hasn't come up well. i'll probably edit it out later. thanks for being so patient! 😄

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T E M E R A T E » to break a bond or a binding promise

VIRAT

Dad and I are walking across the road, forested on both the sides. He is talking about the club match we had played against Chandigarh.

I'm smiling because he says he is proud of me. More than anyone could've ever been.

He is smiling one moment until a car runs over him. I have never watched his smile drop so soon. A feeling of a very cold shiver cascades through my entire body, making me numb. Fragments of memories of us together plays in front of my eyes, making me feel overwhelmed.

I run towards the spot where my dad lays – almost lifeless.  A raw scream escaped inside of me, in a hope that someone could hear me out.

"No, papa!" I knelt on my knees, talking his head in my lap. It's bleeding a lot, and although I was no doctor, watching him struggle to breath let me know the seriousness of the wound. "Breathe, papa. Keep breathing." 

 I see the car stopping when it's a few feet away. Squinting my eyes, I yell at whoever is behind the wheels. "Please help. Please," 

My attempt goes in vain as the blue 4Runner speeds up and leaves me behind to watch my dad bleed to death.

°°°

When I woke up this morning, I couldn't help but feel weird. Like it was going to end, like the last grains of sand in the hourglass. Unlike how it was thought, that ends are slow and excruciatingly painful – this end felt rapid.

I rolled onto the other side of bed, watching Anushka squirm in her sleep as she couldn't feel my back under her palms anymore. I stood on my toes, trying to be as less noisy as people so that Anushka doesn't wake up. Tiptoeing silently to the other side of the room, my eyes scanned a crumpled piece of paper. 

I unfolded the soft paper, trying to straighten its edges. My eyes peered at the creases until they read the words written on it.

Dear Virat,

Yesterday, I was trying to think when I started loving you. Guess it was the time when you jumped forward when you saw me falling. You wanted to help me then, even if it was you ends up getting hurt. I think, it was the most selfless action anyone has done for me since a long time.

Sometimes, I wonder if I deserved it at all. Then, you left me. Reminding me of the time when I was left all alone. With my demons because I've done so many wrong things in my life. But loving you has really changed me. I know it.

I love you so much. But sometimes, I think you deserve so much more. So much because –

The letter was incomplete.

My eyes peered into Anushka's sleeping face. She looked so innocent while sleeping that I wondered what wrong things she was talking about in the letter. The nightmare still had gotten a better control over me, so I decided it was for the best interest of me to leave the room and breathe in some fresh air.

From across the window, I saw the gardener watering the lilacs in the garden. I decided to go there, abd kill time until Anushka wakes up. I had so much to talk about to her. About Natasha. How we had skyped, and she was the one who made me realize how much Anushka meant to me. She had helped me evolve into a better version of myself.

The one who doesn't run away from his problems.

Smilingly, I entered the garden. The gardener doesn't notice my presence, so I cleared my throar awkwardly.

"Are these freshly planted?" I asked, looking in his direction.

The old man snapped his eyes in my direction, before a subtle expression of surprise and joy mixed emvraced his face. "Virat Kohli..."

"Haanji," I answered. "Yeh naye hai kya?"

"Haan, yeh Anushka beti ne naye lagaye hai." he smiled, continuing to water the plants. I watched how the water sprinkled over the plants, softly kissed the beautiful petals of the lilacs. "These look so beautiful. Anushka baby has great choice."

"Absolutely," I gave him a nod, before my eyebrows scrunched in dismay. The water supply had stopped abruptly. "What happened kaka?"

"I'll have to check the source, it's near the garage." the gardener said but I stopped him.

"Aap yehi rahiye," I insisted. "I'll go and see." The old man simply smiled, pointing towards the garage. I sprinted towards the garage, leaping over a puddle to reach the source tap. The pipe had actually slipped off its mouth, resulting in a huge puddle of water near the garage. I immediately fixated it back on to its initial position. 

I leaned my back on the rear side of the car kept in the garage, my hands grazing the ice-cold metal of it after fixing the water issue, hearing the water running on the ground once again. I turned around to face the support on which I was leaning a moment ago, and my eyes widened in shock.

A blue 4Runner.

Fucking coincidence, I murmured under my breath as I took a look of it. It had a lot of scratches on the front side. The memories of the hit-and-run incident eats my mind wholly as I see them.

I ran towards kaka in anticipation and fear, panting as I stood beside him after the short sprint. My thumb arched backwards as I asked him, staggered breaths quietly filling in the voids between the words, "that car, standing there? Who's it is?" 

"Anushka ki hai," kaka smiled. "When baby was eighteen and had cleared her medical entrance, Sir gifted her then." It was roughly older than the time accident had placed, making it a possibility that it was the same car.

Stop being so fucking paranoid, Virat. I shut the voices in my mind. Anushka could never leave a person to die.

"Does she still drive it?"

"She stopped driving it after sometime. Don't know the details though. I'm just a worker here, not her acquaintance."

His words hit hard. It made perfect sense – everything, that it scared me. Anushka's journal entry which was discarded. The words from it which I wasn't supposed to read. She had done something wrong.

Time's rapid but a blur at the same time when I walked upstairs, peeping into the room. I watched Anushka smile at me. The time was indeed going fast today, I realized, as something was going to end, leaving both of us in pieces.

Promises of forever and always, new beginnings would slowly be replaced by the ending.

Her gaze doesn't leave me when she saw me nervous and anxious. She took a step closer to me, and waited for me to speak up.

I breathed in deeply, and exhaled shakily, eyes not quite meeting hers. "So here's the thing,"

Anushka waited, breathless.

"I thought about it a lot. About us. And it was exhausting honestly," here I brought up my hand to run through my hair but Anushka caught it between her hands midway, giving it a slight squeeze.

It still didn't make sense how she could be so heartless to leave behind a dying man.

I pulled my hand away, making her startle a bit. I watched her cross her eyebrows, and man, it hurt. It hurt so bad because it hurt her. It hurt us, and we were helpless. "I don't love you, Anushka."

Static silence.

"I mean, it's not your fault. It's mine. I've been so confused about my feelings for you and Natasha. But I've realized that no one can drive away memories of their first love," Her chest tightened at my words. "I'm sorry; you've been nothing but selfless to me in your service."

"It wasn't just service, Virat." Anushka paused. "It was so much more."

"I'm sorry, Anushka. I didn't mean to string you along."

"But still you did, and you hurt me–"

"It was amazing to get to know you. Really."

Anushka chuckled dryly.

"That's all you've got to say? You're the most selfish person I've ever seen. You–" she sobbed. " don't deserve to see me cry. So just leave. Right now."

I breathed hard, giving her a silent nod. While leaving the room, I could only think that, perhaps, this was the most selfless thing I had ever done for her.

I trudged my way across the garden when the old man gave me a smile. I returned it, although a fake one, but still he acknowledged it well.

As I drove the car across the road back home, I spared a thought for Natasha – wondering if she was beginning again. I thought of how she could be floating around in some dark, clouded space on her own, battling against her own demons. How she must have fought them back, to emerge as a new person on a whole. 

That was what I wanted. A new beginning from all this crap.

Because even when my body had healed completely, my entire world which had shifted off its axis months back had still not returned.

And it was not going to, any sooner.

§ end of TILL I HEAL §