If I could...(Fiction)

‘I’ve known about it for some time now. But I didn’t know how to break the news to you’, Sid spoke into Maya’s hair as she hugged him tightly. The tears were streaking her mascara and drawing dark lines down her cheeks.

‘I’ve to fly tomorrow because the specialist was saying that the treatment has to start soon. You know, the chemo and all that stuff’, he made a face as he said it and that brought a fresh tide of tears.

‘Let me come with you, Sid. I know that we can both beat this thing together, baby. I want to be with you. Please let me come along with you.’ Maya pleaded but she knew that it would not break Sid. She had already asked him a dozen times to accompany him to Delhi, to his parents’ house. But Sid persisted that it was better that they cut off their relationship now. He didn’t want to cause her the pain of seeing him in battered condition, weakened, sick and in a hospital. He wanted her to think of him always as the young, spirited boyfriend with whom she had spent the last 2 years together. Maya considered her time with Sid as the best two years of her life. In fact, she had hoped that their relationship was moving forward, she wanted to introduce him to her parents, maybe move in together.

The goodbye was heart-wrenching for Maya. She couldn’t digest the fact that Sid, all of 26-years old could be diagnosed with a terminal disease- lung-cancer that was spreading ominously but unquestionably through the cells in his body. He had pulled a wry face when he said that he should have thrown away the cigarettes all those times when Maya looked at him disdainfully. As she lay beside him in his flat, sharing his bed maybe for the last time, she looked at his sleeping face and felt a tug at her heart. Did she think that she could endure the pain of seeing him suffer? Could she give up everything- her career and her life in Bangalore and accompany him to Delhi? Did she love to him such depths really? She had no answers.

*********

Sid was in a bar in New York, 3 months later, his hands around the waist of a blonde who was plastered. Sid’s life was good, in fact it was great. He had a new job, he was in a new country and he had finally got rid of his clingy girlfriend. He was living his dream life, the grand American dream.

“Yaar, she had become so clingy and she kept dropping hints of meeting her parents. I mean officially, for Shaadi-vaadi. It got to me. We had good times, we really enjoyed each other’s company and then she had to do this typical Indian girl thing on me.” He had tried to explain to Ajit, their only common friend. Maya had apparently called Ajit to ask how Sid was doing and Ajit had a shock of his life when he heard that his childhood friend was suffering from Cancer.

“You could have just said that to her. Why do this drama of cancer? You are a complete asshole”. Ajit had somehow got Sid’s new number and blasted him with a slew of expletives when Sid had answered the call.

“You know me. I didn’t want all the drama of break-up, the emotional blackmailing. I know Maya had all our future built in her mind, the marriage, the suburban house, the pets and the kids. Hell, I was not ready to settle down. I know I’m a coward, but I didn’t have any other way of escaping” Sid hated Ajit for making him feel guilty. Deep down, he knew that he had wronged Maya. He knew that Maya and he made the perfect couple, but he was just not ready for the life-long commitment. He ordered another round of whisky and started necking the blonde. He just wanted to wipe out the memories of Maya that kept haunting him.

***********

Sid was in the middle of another coughing bout. He puked the little breakfast that he had managed to force down his throat. His mother and father rushed towards him just as he saw the blood that he had coughed up. His mom looked haggard, as if she had aged twenty years in the last six months. Bloody cancer, it had finally gotten to him. Six years after his little fib.  Well, if it had been lung cancer he'd have said that Karma had been served in a platter with a sprinkle of astounding coincidence. But he had been diagnosed with blood cancer. It made no difference to him. He had, what, 1 -2 years left? Despite the forced optimism in the faces of his parents and doctors he knew. It terrified him but he had come to accept it as his fate. He only wished that he could apologize to Maya. He had written a long letter to her begging for her forgiveness. But he knew what he had done was unpardonable. He had imagined Maya reading his letter and laughing at the line where he had written his fate. He pictured her tearing the pages in a fury and throwing it away in trash. And he did not blame her. He deserved this. He let the pain wash over his body and hoped that it would redeem his sin. He let the sleep engulf him and his tired body.

This post is written for Write Tribe Problogger October 2017 Challenge.

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