I was dead long before our story really started, his story really started. We were never really a 'we' and after my death he preferred to pretend that I never existed in the first place instead of accepting that I saw the longing in his eyes when he looked at other people. There was regret in me, of course, there was but there was not want.
The fine line between friendship and want was blurred by Dhruv and Dhruv himself.
He was alone in that relationship or so I thought. One could even say it existed only in his head so really, there was no 'us' to begin with. That, however, changed when my cold and limp body was dragged out of the apartment, we shared in Bandra. There was paparazzi, a lot of it actually.
They flashed cameras and recorders over the ambulance that carried me wrapped in a white cloth from head to toe. Dhruv Malhotra was nowhere to be seen but I wasn't hurt by that.
After all, did dead people even have the right to be hurt?
It was December and the morning air was horrible. Everybody was wheezing, crying, and sniffling. Whether it was because of the cold or because of my departure from life, I did not know. Dhruv's mother was by the side of my corpse like a sad reminder of my own mother's absence in my life. Both our dads were stoic in expressions, solemn but holding themselves together as they always had. I wondered why.
My death was news for quite a while. As the 'rumoured' girlfriend of a rising star, the media went bonkers when they didn't find him there. Questions started to arise among them. The attention was off me so quickly, I had no idea whether to be grateful for that or not.
'Why wasn't Dhruv Malhotra present at the final rites and the funeral of his long-term friend and girlfriend?'
'Is this some sort of statement? Was he responsible for this?'
'Did they break up? How could he be so cruel as to not even attend her funeral?'
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Dhruv and I? We had been friends for as long as I could remember and whatever I remembered of my childhood was with him. We lived right opposite each other the first five years of our friendship and even when he moved out to live with his grandparents; it wasn't that big a deal.
We were still in the same school and met almost every day. For me, he was always just a friend, a best friend, my closest friend but I couldn't catch a hold of when things changed. It was sudden for me, he changed his way of looking at me, talking to me.
It would be a lie if I said that he wasn't attractive. Of course, he was. Thousands of people fawned over the grace he carried himself with. They liked how he looked, how his voice made them feel things they weren't aware they could. I liked all of that, too but not in the way they did. Maybe it was my own mind holding myself back but he fell first.
Dhruv fell in love first, I didn't fall at all; not until he showed up five days later at the apartment with red-rimmed eyes.
It was weird to him too, to find me gone, all my stuff was intact in the apartment. He picked up the shirt I wore last and pressed it against his nose. Personally, I think it must have smelled like hell in there since the place was locked down for five whole days. Fog hung over his eyes and the food rotting in the kitchen didn't bother him.
I wasn't there to remind him either.
"Why?", was all he said. I knew why but I didn't know what to tell him.
How exactly do you explain to the boy who has loved you for years that nothing could save you from you? How do you tell him that you just couldn't bear the thought of being alive another day? How do you? Simple, you don't.
The days after that were quiet as if nobody lived in the house. The pictures of us together were taken down. By him or by somebody else, I wasn't aware. Dhruv would simply spend all his days lounging in his bedroom with the door ajar in hopes of me catching his eyes.
He was acting like a kid, thinking I'd be back but that was impossible. You can't have something that doesn't exist. I could try and make a point but nobody could see me, nobody could hear me. I was nothing but a heap of ashes drowned in the river before sundown.
After a week had passed, his parents came to collect him. Dhruv didn't complain like I had expected him to, he picked up his notepad and tossed a few essentials into a small bag before walking out the door. Somebody would get his clothes and stuff, he knew.
His parents lived in Delhi. They owned a lavish flat in the NCR region that I think was an anniversary gift from Dhruv himself. They moved his stuff back there for a while, tried not to bring me up but it was inevitable. I had been a part of their lives for so long.
So when things constantly reminded him of me, he moved out of his parents' place, bought another expensive studio apartment in Jor Bagh, South Delhi. A couple of his years passed in the same place, burning out cigarettes and writing dozens of songs at an end. Things were peaceful for a while, he thought he would simply spend the rest of his life like this.
A good career, not as flourishing before the break he took in lieu of my death but stable enough for his lifestyle, a couple of friends, and a loving family. Things were okay, he assumed he could get on like this forever; till he couldn't.