Final Question

He asked, "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing", she replied as usual shaking her head. Her beautiful large eyes looked at him but she appeared lost elsewhere. He held her palm in his, caressed it for a while and looked at her again gathering his strength to speak but his words got stuck somewhere deep in his throat. He gulped air and fought hard to speak

"I am sorry." He blurted as he exhaled the air. 

"Am really sorry, Naina." He said aloud again in an apologetic voice.

"Since long I wanted to say this but just didn't have the courage to say it." He looked at her for her reaction but her eyes though stuck on his face seemed distant.

"Hunn....", she replied suddenly waking up from her reverie. Her eyes fluttered.

"Are you, Ok." He asked as he squeezed her hand gently.

"Yaa,...It's ok, no need to be sorry", she replied without any expression. He felt light as he heard those words though they were mere words. A heavy load was off his chest instantly. He looked at her and again  tried to gather his strength to ask his final question. A question that had troubled him ever since he had heard her first say. And each time she had repeated it to him with a teasing smile, it had stabbed his heart.

"Naina, I am sorry. I know, this is not the right time to ask but if you won't answer this question it will keep haunting me until death." He said.

"Ya, say", she replied in a concerned voice.

"Please......please tell me why you used to say that you wanted me to die first." He looked at her for an answer as if his life depended on that answer.

"Is that the reason why you had left....?" She asked him instead, looking straight into his eyes for the first time in the last fifteen minutes. He avoided her questioning eyes but the question which had tormented him long convulsed inside.

"Naina, please. There isn't much time left and I want you to answer before....." He pleaded.

"Till now I couldn't find a convincing answer to that question. Every girl says that she would like to die first and wishes her guy to live longer than her but why you always said that you wanted me to die first. Didn't you ever love me?" She looked at him with sympathy and smiled faintly. Each passing moment tortured his soul as he felt that the answer was drifting away from him.

After a pause she replied. "That's coz i didn't want you to feel the pain of dying a lonely death. I wanted to die later only to hold you in my arms when you would breathe your last. So, that you wouldn't feel alone, loveless and......"

     Even before she had completed her sentence suddenly her breath became fast. Her face contorted in pain and the machine attached to her heart began to beep loud. 

He stood up in an alarm and kept looking at her as the once calm eyes began to glisten with tears and she struggled to breathe....

     An attendant rushed to the room and shouted for the nurse. A couple of nurses with a doctor immediately barged into the room. They asked him to leave as they hovered around her in panic.

     He stood outside the room looking inside through the glass. He felt angry at his great loss. He punched the wall in anger and frustration as he had failed to understand what he had been seeking all his life.