LOVE

The alarm clock was now at rest on a bright Sunday morning after being snoozed off almost ten times. He opened his sleepy eyes as the clock showed half past ten. With some sleep still left in his eyes he glanced to the other side of the bed.

Olivia, his wife was still asleep by his side. He looked at her more carefully than he normally did and still couldn’t believe his luck that he was actually married to her. He put his hand to block the ray light that was falling directly on her eye to make her sleep comfortably. Just out of humor he removed it and the lines again formed on the cute little forehead of her. After fighting it for almost a minute, she finally gave in and turned over. The glittering sunlight was now directly shining on her hair and he started playing with the pile of golden silk. He loved to play with her hair to tease her. However she wanted to sleep a little more. Nick looked at the clock again, which showed almost eleven and it struck in his mind that he had a doctor’s appointment at one and he had to get ready for it. He made the breakfast and brought it to the bedroom. He didn’t normally do this, but didn’t want to disturb her sleep today. He slowly crawled into his side of the bed, put his arm around her and gently kissed her neck. “Morning sunshine” he whispered.

“Mmmmm” she sleepily muttered.

“Sleep, all you want! I will go to Doctor Martin all by myself today”, as he again kissed her slender neck. He simply loved kissing her neck, so beautiful and so delicate.

“I am up, I am up” she abruptly woke up with her face telling she had left her dream incomplete. But nothing was more important to her than Nick.

“Get ready soon love. Appointment is at one and we are going to be late”

“Just half an hour” she said and ran towards the bathroom.

Nick wasn’t that cheesy guy you might think he was. At least he wasn’t till sometime before. It was about a year before when both met for the first time at a mutual friend’s house. Slowly, their friendship grew and gradually, it turned into love, at least from Nick’s side. He was not the kind of guy who would have thought about falling in love and that too with a friend. He had his share of crushes but he also had a commitment phobia inside him, which was the reason he had been single almost all his life. But Olivia changed everything about him. He forgot all about his crushes and fell in love with her. When he purposed for the first time, she rejected because she wasn’t ready for a commitment. But thankfully, soon enough she too realized that her heart beat only for him. After a while, they both were married. To an outsider, their story was no less than a fairytale.

It was just a half hour remaining for the doctor’s appointment and while she was still getting ready, he was ready. Nick actually liked getting ready before time so as to see Olivia getting ready, the way she played with her wet hair, Nick couldn’t help smile at that. Frankly, Nick thought that he never really wanted to go see a doctor for a mild problem in breathing; she could be really bossy sometimes. But he knew she just cared for him too much to let anything go.

 A little scared Nick with Olivia entered the building and went straight towards the doctor’s chambers. While Olivia thought it would be better for her to wait outside, Nick wanted her inside with him, but didn’t say so. Nick carefully opened the door with a slight creak in the end, loud enough for the doctor to hear it and turned around.

“Welcome Nick, I was expecting you.” Doctor said.

“Sorry sir for being late. I hope my reports came back??” he said trying to apologize to the doctor for being a little late.

“Yes they have, but I think you should sit down first” said the doctor with a stone cold expression, careful not to give anything away.

“Is everything all right, doctor??” said Nick sensing something ominous in the doctor’s face

“Nick, your reports came back this morning, and I am afraid you have Cancer.” Doctor said, again with a poker face.

“Wha-wha-wh-what??” He was shocked. Here he was scared of taking an extra pill or something and the doctor was telling him that he had the most dangerous disease in the world.

“Yes, you have a final stage lung cancer, which I am afraid doesn’t give much time for you to live. You were having trouble not because you had some infection, but because your lungs are now too weak. I am really sorry.” Again the stone face.

The feelings going on in Nick’s mind were hard to explain. He had just married the girl he loved; he had many dreams, aspirations for himself and his love. He dreamt of starting a family soon. He dreamt of going round the world; visit his favorite city, Paris. But now everything seemed very distant. He wasn’t nervous at this point; in fact he didn’t feel anything at all.

“How much time do I have” was all he could mutter.

“About four may be, if we are really lucky, five. But you would start having serious complications from second month itself and probably would be on a ventilator for the last month.” Doctor didn’t really want to keep him in any allusion.

He didn’t have anything to say. Even if he did, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He was, after all, dying…

While he was getting up from the chair, he felt dizzy and tired to find some kind of support, but it was too late and he fell hard on the ground. The doctor stood up to help him but he refused and started trying to get up. After trying really hard, he could finally manage to get to his feet and somehow with all the courage left inside, he started to walk out of the door.

While walking out he heard Olivia chuckling about something at what the receptionist had just said. He somehow opened the door and Olivia came running towards him and hugged him.

“Hey honey, what did the doctor say?? Is everything all right?? And why are you sweating so much? Is the A/C not working inside the room??”

He smiled. Just listening to her voice made him feel better, just a touch of her flesh made him able to stand up on his feet, just the warmth of her body made him wish to live. But he had to face the facts. He was dying and he couldn’t deny the bitter truth. A silent tear rolled down his eye when he hugged Olivia lost in a dilemma whether to break the news.

Olivia spoke up again as she hugged him tightly, “And by the way don’t you forget we have to go shopping today, alright? I want you to look absolutely stunning when we visit my mum’s house this week. After all she should also know that she married her daughter to a perfect man”

Nick released the embrace, held her face and kissed her forehead. He looked directly into her eyes and it made him realize how happy she was. He said to himself, “I will tell her soon, not now, just not yet”.

While driving back to the house, Nick was still trying to figure out the way he would tell Olivia. Nick himself was lost in uncertainity.

“…… happened. Isn’t it weird baby??” she asked something. “Nick” she called out figuring out the fact that he wasn’t listening. “You always do this, here I am talking and you don’t even find it important enough to listen properly. I hate you.” She frowned saying the last line.

Nick smiled, knowing the fact she lied about the last part. He was about to say something when he noticed beads of tension on Olivia’s forehead, he found it cute. Finally he decided he would not say anything. He put up his left hand on Olivia’s head and lightly stroked it as if he was telling her that she acts immature sometimes and he still adores it.

It was a few days after that Sunday that Nick started to have a little more trouble in breathing. This time he was kind of fine with it because he knew it was actually going to get far worse in a few weeks. Olivia had been pushing him to get a second opinion about his breathing problems as according to her Dr. Martin didn’t give any medicines. Nick gave a sad smile every time Olivia nagged him about it as she didn’t know at that time that there was no medicine in the world that could save him.

Dealing with the fact that you are going to die within a few weeks is harder than imagination, but for him the bigger problem was how he was going to tell Olivia about it. Nick didn’t drink, he never actually drank his entire life, he practically hated the people who drank but this was either the pressure of claws of death slowly moving towards him or that Olivia would be left alone after him which made him enter a bar for the first time in his life. He ordered a Cuba Libre and sat in a relatively quiet corner of the bar. He held the glass in his hand and after almost 15 minutes of studying it for no reason he finally took one sip. It felt as if someone has burned his inside. He could actually feel the rum going down, burning everything it touched. Somehow he finished the first sip, the sour taste still lingered in his mouth but the burning had stopped, at least for now.  For some inexplicable reason he suddenly had an urge to take another sip even after knowing that it was going to burn again. He drank the whole glass in the next five minutes. It burned like hell but he wanted more. He ordered the bartender to serve him another glass. Before he was finished that night Nick drank 17 glasses of Cuba Libre. His chest was still burning but just enough that he knew he was done for today. He walked up, a little shaky but still better than most and strolled right out of the bar. He checked his pocket for his phone and after finally finding it he fumbled to unlock the main screen. After some desperate attempts, he finally was successful and saw what he anticipated. Olivia left 112 texts and 145 calls. He now started feeling a little guilty on what she might have been going through but still somewhere at the back of his mind he thought that this was going to be her life after he was gone. NO, he firmly said to himself, she deserves to know. He got into his car and drove straight to his house.

It was raining cats and dogs all the way home and while he was parking his car in the driveway he saw Olivia opening the door and running towards him, not caring about the rain. He got out of the car by the time Olivia reached him, soaking wet by now and she almost jumped over him hugged him tighter than she had ever hugged him before.  The time he had not been replying had been the worst time of her life and she wanted to make sure he was fine.

Suddenly, almost simultaneously they started crying, Olivia because she was too deeply worried about him and Nick because he couldn’t keep it in him any longer. Even though it was raining heavily, they both could see each other crying helplessly. Olivia tried stopping herself but she was too overwhelmed by an unknown emotion that she couldn’t stop. Same was the case with him, he tried speaking something but every time he tried opening his mouth but something choked his words.

After about 15 minutes, Olivia finally found the courage to loosen up and see the face of Nick. She saw immense sadness, something she had never seen before. She could see that something had happened to him, or something was about to, something so dreadful that Nick couldn’t gather up the courage to talk to Olivia about it.

He looked at her face, so shining, so bright and so beautiful. He looked in her almond shaped eyes which were now painfully swollen because of the crying.

With all the courage he had left after fighting off the disease that was going to kill him, he looked straight into the eyes he once fell in love with and just said, “I am dying baby. I am dying and I can’t do anything about it.”

It had now been exactly 4 months and 11 days since doctor had broken the news of Cancer to Nick, and it had been about 4 months since Nick broke this news out to Olivia. She had almost been numb for a few hours of Nick telling her that, but she soon realized that Nick needed her right now. They had consulted every doctor they could find and none of them offered any hope.

Nick had been shifted to a ventilator from the last five days. Olivia had been exceptionally strong in front of Nick, but he could see the sadness sprawled right across her face. The once lovely face of Olivia was now just a shadow of what she once had been, these past four months made her look more than a decade older then she really was, and Nick, he was just left a ghost of the man he once was. Weighing a little over 40 kilograms in his last medical checkup, he didn’t have enough strength to even stand on his own feet. He had to be carried out everywhere on a wheelchair.

At the routine 9.30 pm checkup doctor had given Nick a sedative injection as he had trouble sleeping the previous night. Just after the doctor left, suddenly Nick coughed out so hard that it seemed like he choked on something. Olivia came running towards him trying to pacify him. She started to turn around to get a nurse or someone to attend him but he held her hand and tried saying something but couldn’t get out the words. Olivia knew that he wanted her to stay with him. She hugged him tightly and Nick, even though he couldn’t breathe felt as if he was going to live, at least for now. He finally went into blissful sleep.

Nick and his older cousin were sitting at someone else’s funeral. The chairs had been lined up as if a huge amount of people were expected to show up. He looked at himself and he looked normal, exceptionally normal. While the service was still going, his cousin stood up and said, “Nicky I think I am going to go now. This stuff is really boring. Are you coming?”

 “You go, I will catch you later” Nick answered.

“Okay, but don’t be too late, I will be waiting.” He said and walked out.

Nick suddenly realized there was something wrong with everything around him. He got up walking to pay respect to the person who was dead, saw a woman; even though she looked older he could see she was about the age of Nick himself sobbing helplessly. He went closer to the coffin. He saw himself, his own corpse, turned pale and lifeless.

Nick suddenly woke up coughing hard. He saw himself and everything around him and it struck him that what he was seeing was just a dream. The cousin he just met had been dead for almost a decade. He had only heard about such stories that someone close to you who is dead comes to take you with him. Suddenly Nick realized that his time had come. He was going to die soon, very soon. He looked at Olivia for a long time as if to register her memory forever with him.

Nick passed away the next day. At his funeral, a huge crowd of people were present to show last respects to the man they all loved. Such a number even amazed Olivia but she knew he was the man who was loved by everybody. When she finally returned home after everyone left, giving their condolences she was left alone in the house in which they wanted to grow their future together. She started to collect all of his belongings, which were practically everywhere in the house. Suddenly she stumbled upon his wallet. She opened it and among some cash and credit cards she found a picture of her and Nick together. She remembered the time when the picture was taken. They had gone on a holiday with some of their friends and she did something to offend him. Nick was still angry with her when this picture was taken and Olivia was actually giving him a sorry hug. On the back of the picture Nick had written, “I love you baby”.

 Olivia had made a promise to Nick that she wouldn’t cry after he died, and she herself wanted to celebrate his life, not cry remembering it. Even with her trying her best, a silent tear rolled down her check onto the picture exactly on Nick’s face. She lay down on the bed on the side where Nick used to sleep, buried her head deep inside Nick’s pillow, which was surprisingly still carried Nick’s fragrance and she slept. She had not slept properly for the last long four months, but now, she went into deep sleep, where she knew Olivia and Nick would always be together.