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Friendship

Tara Sahay

    Cold. Even though we’re sitting right in the middle of the desert. I can see the sun sinking into the sand dunes, which explains the chill rapidly descending on us. Shivering, I pull my jacket tighter around me and check the time. 10 minutes more. There’s something sad yet unearthly beautiful about this place. The ancient village of Kuldhara.
    According to legend, the village was abandoned overnight, 200 years ago, when a Rajput king demanded to marry a Brahmin girl. The people of Kuldhara refused, and fearing what the king might do next, they abandoned their village in a single night, settling down somewhere far from here. And this is where Arjun wants to meet.
    I start to pace up and down, wondering what he wants and why he’d choose a place this far from the city, why he’d want to meet at all. It’s been five months since we stopped talking, and—
    My thoughts are interrupted by Ishaan, who finally explodes with, “Will you calm down? Stop pacing. It’s making me anxious.” I stop and look at him. Tall, dark, and in jeans with a jacket identical to mine, Ishaan’s sprawled on the grass just outside the ruins. We didn’t come here together. Both of us were called here by Arjun, who asked for our help, sent us an address and a time. We both came, though neither of us knows why.
    I haven’t talked to Ishaan or Arjun in months, ever since... and I stop that thought quickly as tears start forming in my eyes again. It’s too painful to think about it and I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. Noticing this, Ishaan walks silently over and wraps his arms around me. “It’s okay, It’s okay. God, I’m so sorry,” he says and he looks alarmed as I pull away and start sobbing even more hysterically. “You let her die, both of you just watched and let her die!” I scream at him. “It was an accident!” He yells back at me, and then we are screaming, terrible, terrible things at each other as flashes from that horrible night invade my mind once again. The outskirts of Jaipur that I visit in my nightmares: the truck hits Kiara—I hear my own scream, too far away to help, but they weren’t. Arjun and Ishaan weren’t, and the ambulance sirens are wailing, but they’re too late—
    I collapse on the ground. I can hear Ishaan sobbing and whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I want to reach out to him and tell him it’s going to be okay, but I can’t because the words won’t come out and suddenly, we can’t breathe as the ruins start to shift.
    I look up and my heart nearly stops, because standing covered in blood in front of us is Kiara. Ishaan screams and I back away. And then Kiara starts to speak, and Ishaan begins to cry, for her voice was always so beautiful and he’d loved her but never got the chance to tell her. She tells us how Arjun went looking for the bus-driver and got himself killed and then Arjun walks out with a knife wound in his stomach. Kiara reaches out to me. “Remember when we would promise each other to be friends forever? Come with us. We won’t hurt you,” she says to me, and I readily take her hand and fling myself into Arjun’s arms because I’ve missed him and loved him for so long. Ishaan gets up and runs, even with Kiara calling after him to come back, to not leave her alone again.
    “Am I dead?” I ask Arjun as Kiara stares after Ishaan hopelessly. “I’m not sure. Does it matter?” He asks me. “No. I’m just happy to have you two be back.” And in a strange way, I am, as the hell I felt within finally settles down and I realize I’m back among friends again and there wasn’t anything to leave behind anyway, just pain. To Kiara, I say, “Don’t worry. We’ll get Ishaan back too. After all, we did say together forever.” And we stand among the ghosts from 200 years ago. Together forever.

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