Till the Last Breath . . . Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 Kajal.
    Kajal 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,’ Kajal 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. Dushyant 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 T-shirt, 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!
    ‘Dushyant,’ he said and stuck his hand out.
    ‘Kajal,’ 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. Kajal started reading again. The same paragraph, over and over. Dushyant 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,’ Kajal responded.
    ‘For two years …’
    Two years? Creep! Or … really sweet?
Dushyant 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. Kajal let a little smile slip. Dushyant caught that and blushed a little more.
    ‘So, tell me, what do you read?’ Kajal asked.
Two years?
    Dushyant 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.
    Dushyant was never the perfect boyfriend. Her friends hated him with all their heart, but not as much as her sisters. Kajal 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.
    Dushyant was abrasive. He was quarrelsome. He was possessive. It took Kajal one month to realize that Dushyant was beyond obsessive, almost to the point of being schizophrenic. He drank too much, he smoked too much, and he