Chapter 10 - What Goes Around, Comes Around

A couple of days passed unnoticed. One morning, as Arjun dressed up for his jog, he opened his wardrobe to get his white jacket out. Days were turning cold and he knew the beach would be even cooler. As he took out his jacket, his eyes fell on Miss. D's diary which he had kept securely in the rack.

He noticed the diary everyday, yet opened it seldom. He had almost memorized everything in there making it not so necessary for him to revisit the pages. But somehow that day, he felt like taking it out to have a glance at her handwriting. He sat down on his bed skimming through the pages. He knew everything written there by heart. Still, he wanted to read her words "I am in love with him."

After starring at them for a moment, he closed the diary, left it on his pillow so as to read it again that night and left for jogging.

As he jogged all along the beach, he remembered her more than ever. It felt a little weird to him as a gut instinct that something was going to happen kept piping into his mind. At his usual time, he sat down on the wall, facing the sea.

He couldn't comprehend what felt so different or why he was so immersed in her remembrance. He squeezed his eyes close and thought, "She is happy somewhere. She is still out there somewhere. Don't think about her. Don't think about all this." He sat down with his eyes closed, hands stiff by his side, resting on the wall.

"Hello Mr. J," the voice he loved the most washed over him.

Arjun shook his head chuckling, eyes still closed, at the hallucination he was having. Hearing her voice when she wasn't exactly there was a definitive hallucination.

"Mr. J," he heard her voice again.

He opened his eyes, chuckling and turned to the direction where Miss. D used to sit way in the past. She appeared to him sitting there again, a soft smile on her face.

He gave a short laugh and said to her image, "This is ridiculous. I don't know why lately I keep getting these hallucinations of you. This is really good, to remember you. But hallucinations are not really good for my mental health. If I keep talking to the winds like this, or to myself, everyone will think that I am insane."

"I am not a hallucination Mr. J," the image of Miss. D said. She was looking wistfully at him, a little sad despite the smile on her face.

Arjun laughed. "Oh my! This is getting out of my hands. I must really be insanely in love with you."

"I really am not a hallucination Mr.J," the image of Miss. D said earnestly, looking at him fondly and raised her hand up.

Arjun stared at her image in disbelief. Slowly, he raised his right hand and uncertainly touched her hand with his index finger, as lightly as possible.

She felt real. He could really touch her.

He drew away his hand in shock and then again slowly extended it, took her hand into his, feeling her smooth skin.

"Miss. D?" he asked in a total shock.

"Yes," she smiled softly and nodded.

Arjun didn't speak anything. He just stared at her, sinking in the fact that she was really sitting near him, that he was finally holding her hand.

"After a few moments, with a ragged breath, his voice raspy, he said, "You came back."

She gave a miserable smile and said slowly, "I had to. I am so sorry Mr. J."

Arjun didn't speak up.

"I am really sorry," she continued. "I was really stupid and foolish. I was... a complete idiot."

"What are you saying?" Arjun asked, a smile coming at last.

"I hurt you, didn't I? I must have hurt you so terribly," she asked, her eyes moistening.

Arjun stared her in bewilderment.

"I thought it was just a fling for you, that everything would slowly change afterwards. I thought that maybe after some days, we will face the toughness of having unknown and unkempt relationships in the past. I don't know why, but... but I felt that things would go the same way as they had happened in my past. I knew I shouldn't compare you to others and that you wouldn't hurt me. But, I was scared and traumatized. And it was an insecurity that I might not be up to your liking outside of this beach which..." she babbled on when Arjun interrupted her with a "Sshh... Sshh..."

She stopped and looked at him, afraid that he might be angry with her. Unlike her imagination, he smiled affectionately, squeezed her hand and said, "I know. I know everything, how much you thought about it all, the big conscience struggles you had, everything. Your trauma and insecurities, everything. And I can understand that. You don't have to explain anymore."

She was confused.

He glanced at her perplexed expression and admitted, "That day when you departed, you left your diary here, right? I read everything in it. I have been reading it every time I am alone, since two years." He looked embarrassed.

"I thought I had lost it on the way somewhere," she gasped. "You read it? God, this is so embarrassing. All the stuff I wrote, it must seem so silly to you." She covered her face with her both hands trying to hide her embarrassment.

"No," Arjun said as he pried her hands away from her face and looked at her intensely. "No, it wasn't silly or embarrassing at all. It helped it see everything clearly. Imagine if I didn't have that with me. I would have been so confused and broken. I could get to know you even better because I had your journal with me. I admit it isn't a great idea to read someone's diary, and I am sorry if it makes you feel awkward. But, I just had to. And it saved me."

She looked at him sheepishly and asked, "So, you know everything?"

"Yes. So, you don't have to explain anything," he assured her.

"And you are not angry with me? For whatever that had happened with me in my past?" she asked cautiously.

Arjun shook his head. "You wouldn't have expected it or wanted an of it to happen," he said. "Although, you could have just told me about it."

"I didn't think you would have wanted to hear any of that. I was scared you would hate me."

"I never will. I realized I just can never hate you. Never at all."

He looked at her so earnestly that for a moment Miss. D was lost in his gaze.

She recovered and then said, "I just came to seek your forgiveness."

"For what?"

"I don't know exactly for what. Maybe because I thought I shouldn't have hurt you at all, and made you think more about me. That was bad."

"So, you came back just for that?" Arjun got up from the wall and stood facing her.

Immediately, she too followed him and stood facing him, feeling unsure and afraid.

"I mean, I left you right here and thought you would forget everything, that you would forget me after some days. I just assumed you would get out of that whole situation once I go away. But you didn't. You still think about me and you still..." she halted abruptly and then squeezed her eyes close. She sighed, opened her eyes and said, "Two years... Two years is really long. I didn't expect this to be so..."

"Still the same?" Mr. J completed the line.

Miss. D nodded slowly.

"I told you it would always be the same," Mr. J reminded her.

"Yeah. I realized it very late," she admitted.

"So, is that all?" he asked.

Miss. D shook her head.

"Then? What made you come back?" he asked her.

"I read about you..."

"In that business magazine?" he asked in between.

"Yes," she replied.

Mr. J laughed. Miss. D looked at him uncertainly.

"Everyone except me had bothered to read it," he said laughing. "I never realized that I had become a complete 'You' till I read that interview. And I didn't even think about it when I was talking to that reporter. When I saw the printed interview in that magazine myself, I somehow understood that it wasn't me anymore."

Miss. D smiled and said, "Well, I was already feeling very low for what had happened. And that article made me even more miserable."

"Where were you all along?" he asked, curious and longing.

She bent her head, thinking and said, "I was in town for a week after that and then went off to my aunt's place in Hyderabad. It was around the time I graduated. I got a job in Bangalore and left there. I have been working in Bangalore these two years. I came home, here, for a vacation two days ago and saw that magazine on my brother's table. And I saw your photo and interview in it. I couldn't stop myself from reading it. And after reading everything, I just couldn't stay sitting idly. "

"Why did you exactly come back?" he asked her fondly.

"To make sure that all was not lost," she said, raising her head and looking at him expectantly.

He gave a faint smile and said, "Well, I lost something."

Miss. D's face drained of its colour.

He grinned and said, "My feeling that I was hallucinating your return. That's what I lost."

Miss. D laughed out of relief and Arjun joined her. But it prolonged to be a laughter of happiness. Arjun took her face into his hands and said, "It would always be the same."

She nodded.

"You could have just told me everything. We could have sorted it out. We wouldn't have had to waste two years," he said in that laughter.

"I know. I have always been the crazy girl," she laughed it off.

"Wait, you are still my Miss. D, right? Or has someone asked you out already?" he asked, panicking.

"Miss. D," she assured him and then added, "But I would love to ask you out, if it's okay with you."

He chuckled and said, "Great! I would love that. By the way, now that we are really together, can I know your name? At least now? I know it starts with 'A'"

She laughed briefly and replied, "Advika."

"What does that mean" he asked in confusion.

"Advika means 'Unique, One and Only'. It is Sanskrit," she replied, slipping her hands round his neck, grinning at him.

"Well, it is totally apt for you. You are the one and only Miss. D, my Miss. D. Just the one for me," he said, pulling her into his arms.

Amidst the throng of morning joggers, two truly bonded souls were holding onto each other as if their whole world was in their arms.