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twenty seven

• ADVIKA •

“Ved!” Ishaan, the first to react after seeing his suicidal best friend, went to Ved without caring that he was dying his white shirt red with blood. Those trembling hands of his reached out to his shirt pocket and took his mobile out, probably to call the ambulance.

As the situation prevailed for over two minutes— though we expected the ambulance to pull over— Ishaan carried him in bridal style, put him at the backseat, and sat next to him while putting Ved's head on his shoulder.

“Do you know how to drive a car?” He asked in a tone of urgency while I shook my head slowly, shame filling me over. Clicking his tongue, he asked, “It’s okay. Could you at least sit next to him? I'll drive the car.”

Nodding a yes, I sat next to Ved and gripped his head while Ishaan drove the car. As we heard a faint pinging sound, Ishaan gave his mobile to me and asked to check what was the message he had received.

“Ishaan, passcode?” I asked while the keypad was looking back at me.

“0829,” he stated while it took less than a second for me to find out what was the meaning behind those numbers. 29th August— my birth date.

Typing those numbers with a small smile, I checked the mail he received, which in turn wiped out the tiny smile that I had.

“Ishaan,” I called him with caution coating my tone. “A mail from Aadya Chatterjee. She had sent you five pics.”

The silence from Ishaan had let me know that I should open and see what it was. And so I saw the first photo attachment that looked more like an excerpt from a book. As I read the first line, I knew what book it was from.

A life without his Mehak, his Cookie, and his sound mind felt like death for Ved. That was when he thought, why not experience death all at once instead of prolonging it? Though the death of Mehak and his unborn baby was the reason for his inescapable sorrow, the other reason that could possibly kill him was the one Ishaan blabbered.

If he was a mere character from a book, then why would the “author” wish to ruin his life? What profit could that author ever get by ruining his life?

The thoughts whirling in his mind were so disturbing that he wanted to scream and cry even after doing the same for the past forty-eight hours.

I swiped right and continued reading the contents of the next page while the voice of Ishaan asking me what that was was heard by me at the back of my mind.

His thoughts transitioned from the events that happened two days ago to listing out various methods to die. Painless and slow, painless and fast, painful and slow, painful and fast were various categories how he categorised each method of death.

And finally, he went to one of the cupboards in his kitchen to take out his pocket knife with a surety that he had taken a decision faster than he decided to get into a serious relationship with Mehak and marry her.

I swiped right successfully with my hands trembling as though I was a septuagenarian with a blood pressure of 150 mmHg.

The thought of Mehak made him curl in on the floor and cry louder than he did when he was at the site of Mehak's accident three nights ago. Though no voice escaped from his vocal cord, all thanks to him crying incessantly for the past forty-eight hours, one could see him trying to scream aloud yet again.

Wiping his tears, he crawled to the living room, sat next to the place where Mehak's photo was placed, and took it for one last time while tracing the curl Mehak's brown lips had made with his finger. Reminiscing the moment when they were at Madrid two years ago, he couldn't help but admire his lady for one last time.