But he had split it. He had turned the question into a promise.
“Then I’ll carry the ‘can’t’ for both of us. Until you can borrow some back.”
She froze. Not because the words were unfamiliar—they were her mother tongue, Hindi, the language of her childhood—but because of how he said them. Not as a statement. As an anchor.
Main hoon. Na. — I am here. Period. Don’t argue. main hoon. na
“ Main hoon, ” he replied. “ Na. ”
“Go back, Arjun,” she whispered. “You can’t fix this.”
And that, for tonight, was a kind of miracle. But he had split it
He didn’t rush to hug her. He didn’t say everything will be okay . He simply took off his jacket—wet, torn, useless—and laid it over her shoulders.
“You can’t know.”
“I’m not here to fix you, Kavya.”
She turned fully now, eyes red and swollen. “You never said.”
“I’m not asking you to stay for hope,” he said. “Or for family. Or for some future that might get better. I’m asking you to stay because right now, in this broken second, I am here . And that has to be enough for the next ten seconds. Then we do ten more.”
Kavya had called him at 11 p.m., voice fractured and low. “Arjun, I think I’m going to do it. Tonight. I just wanted someone to know why.” Then a click. Then silence. He had run twelve kilometers through broken streets and sleeping colonies, his lungs burning, because his scooter had chosen that precise evening to die. Until you can borrow some back