Kayla Lewis

Kayla paced nervously in her hostel room. The news of John lying unconscious for three

days had just reached her. It wasn't the first time she had received such a call. When they

were dating, she was used to going to the hospital, picking him up and cleaning up his shit.

But the last such call was two years back. Today, she had suppressed the impulse to drop

everything and visit him. He wouldn't want to see me, she argued. Do I want to see him?

Two years had passed since the last time they had talked.

Kayla dialled the number.

'Hello, Methodist Hospital? Can I talk to the doctor of a patient admitted there? The name is

John David.'

'Hold on,' the voice from the other side said. The waiting sound piped up.

'Hello? This is Maria Edward.'

Two summers before this one, Kayla was a second-year student and John was a year

senior to her. It wasn't until a few friends pointed it out that Kayla realized she was

constantly being stared at by a senior. It was none other than the swearing, belligerent,

infamous, drunkard of a senior with a penchant for getting into trouble—John David.

Kayla hadn't noticed his stealthy moves earlier, but slowly she started to spot him

everywhere. She hadn't made much of him earlier and thought of him as one of the many

roadside ruffians from the mechanical department. Little did the rich daddy's girl know that

he was going to change her life forever. Forever began on the day Kayla was sitting idly in

the library, looking blankly outside the window …

Kayla looked at the open grounds of Managment colleges and felt disconnected.

Two years had passed since she had started studying Accounting and felt more

disillusioned with every day that passed. She wasn't meant for Schrödinger equations and

Fourier transforms, like many others studying with her. While many had resigned themselves

to their fate as Accounting for life, Kayla still believed she would be something more. At least

she hoped. People with money can always do that—hope, change careers, do crazy

expensive things, and call themselves travellers after buying travel packages to posh

Foreign countries and staying in beautiful resorts. Though Kayla had never been that type;

she was just directionless.

Her latest direction was to turn to writing. She had always been a voracious reader. From

Sweet Valley High, the Hardy Boys, Enid Blyton when she was young, to David Baldacci,

Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks when she got older, to the heavier works of authors like

William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson she had read it all. She picked out a corner in the library

and started to read from the page she had folded the day before. It was the latest book by

Nicholas Sparks. Like every other girl, she had spent countless nights crying to his books,

even though she steadfastly maintained that she wasn't into romance novels and that she had

never been a fan of Indian authors and their amateurish love stories set in engineering colleges.

'Hi,'she heard a voice from behind her.

She turned around to see the guy who had been following her around college for the last

few days, standing just over her shoulder. Her first feeling was of revulsion. His hair was

tousled carelessly, his clothes looked like he hadn't changed in days and his four-day beard

just looked annoying. He wasn't that tall; maybe 5'10" or 5'11" or even taller, she couldn't

tell because he was well-built for his frame. She imagined an Indian Vin Diesel. Not her

type; she liked leaner men. Like Edward Norton. Like Imran Khan. Maybe a little darker.

'Yes?'

'Do you mind if I sit there?' he asked, and pointed to the seat next to Kayla.

Kayla hesitated and he took the seat before she could respond to the question. Rude, she

thought. She liked that.

'I have read that book,' he said. 'It's just like the last one. The girl dies and everyone

cries. All his books are the same book. I don't know why girls still like him. They're so

predictable.'

'I didn't need to know that,' Kayla retorted. She started reading, mindlessly. She forgot

which paragraph she was on. It didn't matter. A little later, she said, 'Even if it's the same

book, the people are different and so are the emotions. It's an entirely new experience every

time. You wouldn't understand. I don't expect you to.'

'As a matter of fact, I do. That is why I read all of them. Well, initially I just read one

because I saw you reading it and thought we would have something to talk about. I ended up

reading all of them,' he claimed.

'You're such a girl!'she giggled.

He nodded approvingly. She wouldn't have guessed that the guy who sat next to her

shared the same taste for books as hers. She would learn later that he didn't. John had

always been more interested in books that took him beyond the realm of the obvious. He

read books people hadn't heard about. A memoir of a serial killer. An out-of-print trilogy

about a deranged doctor. And more.

Her eyes roved around nervously as an uneasy silence hung between them. He looked

sturdy, the veins in his forearms were consistently thick and they disappeared inside his Tshirt, which fit him snuggly. He was undeniably muscular. He smelled very strongly of

cologne, as if he had tried to look presentable at the last moment. He could have shaved, at

least!

'John,' he said and stuck his hand out.

'Kayla,'she said and left his hand hanging mid-air. He retracted it, blushing. He didn't

meet her eye. She could tell he was nervous. His legs shook. Kayla started reading again

The same paragraph, over and over. John sat there looking at her, and at his palms,

rubbing them together, looking here and there, shifting his feet and fidgeting with his phone.

'I have been following you,' he said, finally.

'I have been told that,' Kayla responded.

'For two years …'

Two years? Creep! Or … really sweet? John had turned beetroot red. He couldn't

meet her eyes. Instead, he gazed at his own weathered palms. He looked vulnerable,

embarrassed and needy. Maybe even a little high. Kayla let a little smile slip. John

caught that and blushed a little more.

'So, tell me, what do you read?' Kayla asked. Two years? John smiled, and his eyes lit up like the fourth of July. Quite frankly, his choice in

books scared her.

They dated for eight months. They had come a long way from the time they had first met in

the library and had talked about books, his waning obsession with weight training, her

growing dissatisfaction with her career choice, his problems with his parents, her loving

sisters, and last but not the least, his enduring fixation with her.

John was never the perfect boyfriend. Her friends hated him with all their heart, but

not as much as her sisters. Kayla was tall—almost 5'5"—and never had a hair out of place.

One could imagine a news presenter for an idea of what she looked like. Her clothes,

understated, were always perfectly matched. She wasn't fond of bright colours and never

aimed to stand out. She aimed to soothe. Her fair skin, the defined nose and the confident

walk meant business. She wasn't a pushover.

John was abrasive. He was quarrelsome. He was possessive. It took Kayla one

month to realize that John was beyond obsessive, almost to the point of being

schizophrenic. He drank too much, he smoked too much, and he loved her too much. He had

waited two years to tell her he loved her. He swore he would spend a lifetime doing it.

Sometimes, it was sweet. It looked to her like he cared; on other occasions, she was scared.

Not scared that they would break up and never see each other again, but scared of what he

would do to her. Within a month, she had changed into someone she didn't recognize any

more.

At first, Kayla used to like the little tabs John kept on her. He used to get jealous at

the mention of her ex-boyfriends, fume at her for spending more time with her friends, chide

her for staying out till late, and ask her to not to drink in his absence. Kayla found it

thoughtful. Who wouldn't? John made her feel wanted. Loved. No matter what the time

of day, no matter what he was doing, one call from her and he would go running to her. He

never let go of her hand, hugged her whenever she needed it, and made love to her like no

one else had. Kayla felt like she was enveloped in a protective bubble wrap, something that

would absorb anything with the potential to harm her. But soon, the bubble wrap would

become suffocating

Kayla loved John with whatever she had. Their relationship wasn't one of the two hormone-charged-college-students type, but of two mature people who saw themselves

together for the rest of their lives. When they lay on the open grounds of their college late in

the evening, his rough, gym-scarred fingers wrapped around hers, she felt complete. As

evenings turned into nights, nights into days, and days back into evenings, their love for each

other grew.

Kayla learnt to overlook John's little flaws. John always said Kayla had none.

Kayla always smiled, even when she felt pushed to the edge by her control-freak boyfriend.

'Do you think this will last?' Kayla said as John wrapped his hand around hers in a

movie hall.

'How can it not?' John said, and brushed her ears with his lips. He had done that

many times since the first occasion, but Kayla still felt the chills run down her spine like the

first time. John wasn't Kayla's first boyfriend. But he was the one she would remember

forever; she was sure of that. His touch, the things he said in her ear whenever they were in

the back alley of the dark library, the lingering feeling of his hands on her bare stomach, his

loving fingers on her creamy inner thighs, the wet, gentle touch of his tongue on her ears …

she would never get over them.

'You're the best thing that has ever happened to me,' John said as soon as an action

sequence ended in the movie and there was silence. The conviction in his voice was very

unsettling; it often made her wonder what would happen if, God forbid, they ever broke up.

'And still you can't quit drinking and smoking for me?'

'I have cut it down a lot.'

'You need a cigarette every hour, John,'she said. 'You will kill yourself.'

'I am trying. It will take time. You just can't let it go overnight,' John retorted

irritably. Kayla never liked to talk about his drinking problem. She loved him, so she had to.

But she had had enough. The steroids he took as bodybuilding supplements, the weeds

the never-ending cigarettes … his addictions kept piling up. She didn't know where to

begin.

'If you loved me enough, you would have stopped by now.'

'I have stopped taking steroids,' he defended himself.

'That's because it's been months since you have been to the gym. I don't like to see you

destroy yourself. I hope you understand that. I have nothing to gain out of restricting you

from your addictions. It's just that I don't want anything to happen to you.'

'Nothing is going to happen to me. Okay, fine,' he said. 'You stop talking to Lucas I will

stop smoking. That's a fair deal?'

'What? How's that even connected?'

'You're addicted to Lucas. I am addicted to my cigarettes. You leave him, I'll quit

smoking. I am not comfortable with you being friends with your ex-boyfriend and you're not

comfortable with my smoking habit. It sounds fair to me.'

'You talk to chelsea too, John. I have never pointed my finger at that.

'Fine, I will stop talking to her. I never call her anyway. But you do call Lucas. There are

times you put my call on hold to pick up his. Sometimes you talk till the dead of night or

early morning. What do I make of all this? If you need more friends, why not someone else?

Why do you have to be friends with your ex-boyfriend, of all people?' John accused.

It wasn't the first time John was being paranoid about Kayla still being friends with

Lucas—her best friend for the longest time and a boyfriend for two years.

'You're being childish. I have told you a million times that there is nothing between us.

He is just a friend and will always be,' Kayla asserted. She thought about all the times

John had got drunk and harped on about how he hated Lucas with every cell in his body.

'I don't think so. Why don't you just accept that you still have feelings for him?' He

shrugged, trying to act as if he didn't care. Kayla knew he did. It didn't take long for

John to change from being nonchalant about something to start breaking things.

'I don't. He is a friend. I've known him for fifteen years. How can I just stop talking to

him?'

'Why can't you? He dumped you. He was dating someone else while he was still dating

you. I don't understand how you can forgive him. Don't you have a speck of self-respect? I

just don't like the fact that you have forgiven him so easily. How could he do that to you? He

doesn't even respect you,' John grumbled.

The movie ended and they exited the movie hall. Kayla felt odd as John walked in

front of her and didn't even hold the door open. Clearly, he wasn't pleased.

'Our relationship was not working. I don't blame him,'she reasoned.

'You don't blame him? You spent days crying for him.'

'I spent days crying because he left. I felt alone and lonely. Not because I missed him as a

boyfriend but because I missed him as a friend. I had no one to go to.'

'And now that you have me, you still miss him? How does that work? You have a

boyfriend. You shouldn't need him,' John argued as they entered a coffee Cafe. All this

time he walked three steps ahead of her, not meeting her eye and behaving like they weren't

together.

The waiter promptly rushed towards them and John swatted him away rudely. The

shocked waiter lingered on.

'Water,' Kayla indicated to the waiter. 'And a cappuccino for him.'

John picked up the menu and acted as if the conversation was over.

'He means nothing to me. Believe me. He is just a friend. And it doesn't matter if I talk to

him. I love you and nothing changes that.'

'Well. I am fine. Whatever. You talk to him, you sleep with him. I don't care.'

'That's just unfair.'

'Whatever,' John said. 'Can we not talk about this?'

John didn't bring up the topic again that evening. The rest of the evening, he was rude

to her. They went back to his friend's flat and slept there. John was rough with her that

night. For a change, they weren't making love, they were having sex. There were no intermittent, passionate love-yous exchanged during the course. There were just grunts and

groans. It was almost like he wanted to hurt her physically. He didn't hug her to sleep. Kayla

hoped he would be okay the next day, but it only became worse.

The next evening, John was drunk out of his wits again. Old Monk. Smirnoff. Chivas

Regal. Nail-polish remover. Iodex. He called Kayla and told her, 'You love him, I love this!

I will never quit drinking or smoking!' He called her names, abused her family and Lucas,

and disconnected the call. Later that night, John's friends called her to give her the

address of the hospital he was admitted to. He had passed out and was frothing at the mouth.

Kajal filled out the paperwork in the hospital the next day and got him back to the hostel. It

was the first time she'd had to bring him back from the hospital that month. Within that

month, it happened thrice. Each subsequent time, it was worse. By now, Kayla was used to

his druken tantrums. The abuses, the name-calling, the threats—she had become used to

everything. It was the price for true love, she told herself. There wasn't a fourth time.

A few days later, he crossed a line he shouldn't have. Her patience was tested, and she

didn't think she had the strength to carry on. She vowed she would never go back to him.

Kayla lay with her head on the pillow, her thoughts going back to every time John had

said they would last and that he would never hurt her. She believed in him. It was all lies.

The memories of the day they had broken up were imprinted on her brain, and she knew

she would never forget what had happened.

That day, Kayla's phone had been lying unattended and he had seen pictures and text

messages that were more than a year old. He had not reacted at first. But as the night

progressed, he started to get drunk. And angry. He hadn't talked much. Shot after shot was

downed. His eyes were bloodshot. Later that night, after an argument, he had struck Kayla on

her face while he cried and howled like an animal. Everyone, friends of both John and

Kayla, had watched helplessly as she fell and hit the chair, reeling from the impact of his

heavy hand on her face. He had locked himself in a room. All his friends had banged on the

door relentlessly, scared that he might overdose inside. Kayla had pleaded with him to open

the door. He had let her inside. There were no words exchanged. For the first time,

John had forced himself on her. He had paid no regard to her cries and pounded her

with disdain. He had treated her worse than a whore and violated her repeatedly. Once

done, he had rolled over, drunk from the bottle of vodka, and passed out. A crying Kayla had

left the flat and gone back home. She had texted John telling him they were over and he

was dead to her. For the next six days, he had kept calling her. With every missed call,

Kayla's temper had risen. Her decision to stay away from him had strengthened. Tired and

angry, she had told him that she had never loved him and that she was thinking of getting

back with Lucas. The calls had stopped immediately.

Again, she had no one to talk to. After fiddling with her phone for hours, she dialled Lucas's number. You have me; you don't need him, John used to tell her. Lies. 'Hi, Lucas,' Kajal said, fighting her tears.