The alarm went off at 7:30 AM and my hand lazily moved towards it. My eyelids were too heavy. The wetness of the pillow brought me back to my senses. I slowly pushed up myself and strode heavily towards the mirror.

My eyes, they were red. I opened the faucet and sprinkled water on my face before wiping them with a towel. I looked back into the mirror once again. The vision slowly became hazy and drop by drop, tears started to blot the towel which I was holding in my hands.

I’ve considered love and marriage to be the purest of all relationships. But not anymore, after Sruti broke our two year old love. And the reason she gave was, “Nothing.” People fall in love and breakup, under the weirdest of circumstances.

Perhaps, she’s found some one better or her parents might have objected, or she thinks I am not good enough for her or perhaps… But her decision left me alone and infirm, broken and shattered.

The last time I met her, “Let’s not break this. If I committed a mistake, please forgive me,” I fell on my knees and with folded hands, I pleaded. My knees saddled with the onus of my body and my heart’s encumbered by the burden of her volition. There was no remorse or reprieve in her eyes. She was so keen and bent upon breaking it. They say true love always ends in a tragedy. And perhaps, it’s the same with me too.

Does anyone know the pain which a guy with undergoes when his heart breaks? Ask a guy who’s been through it and he’ll tell you.

In the most fertile part of a man’s life, if he’s broken, it would futilely take a lifetime for him to heal his heart and repair his own life. All my friends slowly started to climb up the ladder; I was still left behind, drowned in those memories of hers.

Night after night, I cried and cried. I asked God only one thing. What mistake did I do, that I’ve been put through these harder times? And of course they were never answered.

For all the love I gave her she in turn returned despondency. Though I’ll try to forget her, but will never forgive her, I always affirmed myself. Unlike many guys, I never cursed her though. I never scolded or snapped at her even when she said that word which broke me down. I just walked away from the place with my eyes filled with tears. That much I loved her!

I inconspicuously convalesced from the hurt in a few months. I started to live for myself and not thinking about her. I buried those memories into my mind’s abysmal depths until last July when they resurfaced.

I was driving along the Jubilee Hills road near Apollo hospital when I saw a girl pillion riding a bike with her guy, clung to him. Wait a minute, she’s Sruti?

And I raced my car towards them. When I drove almost parallel, I realized that she wasn’t Sruti. Her face still seemed to haunt me, I thought and I shifted to one gear lower and buzzed away, switching my view from the road ahead, to them in the rear view mirror, occasionally.

There was a screeching sound, when I looked back. The couple fell off the bike. I immediately pulled over and ran towards them. Neither of them donned a helmet and they lay on the road in a pool of blood. The girl seemed badly injured and bled profusely.

We rushed them to the nearby Apollo hospital. The doctors worked on them. One by one, the kind people who accompanied me in bringing them to the hospital started to leave and I was the lone one who sat in the corridor with my fingers crossed and tears in my eyes. A few minutes later their parents arrived.

The guy was still amnesic though he’s declared out of danger. The girl was in a comatose state. For weeks altogether, she lay still on her bed. Day after day, I still came to see her. Just because she looked like Sruti? I never had any idea.

Her parents were present sometimes and sometimes her brother. I could understand the pain they underwent seeing her condition. She never moved. She never blinked her eyes, they were always open. She never spoke. Medically, it’s called Persistent Vegetative state. The only movement she every made was that of her chest, rising and falling and that too cos’ she’s assisted by the life supporting systems.

Whenever I saw her, tears flowed through my eyes fortuitously. I could still see her pushing those few tufts of flowing hair that blocked her vision and the way she clung to guy infront of her. The smiling face could no more be seen.

Yes. The doctors have declared her brain dead. She’s in the vegetative state from which she would never recover. They conveyed the same to her parents who’d finally given the consent to remove her from the life supporting ventilator.

It was more than six weeks since the accident happened. Sreya (that’s her name) still lay on the bed unaware of things happening around her. As the doctors removed the tubes and wires that supported her till date, I saw the entire thing beyond the glass doors, the movement of her chest slowly ebbed. And life came to a standstill.

It was inexplicably painful. Her parents were atleast happy to see her pain gone. I really wished she were alive. How can God do this to her? At such a young age, she would’ve never asked for it. I burst into tears of bereavement. I finally bade to Sreya as the hospital staff handed over her body to her parents.

That night I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. This time too, I cried. But for a different reason. And I was reminded of Sruti. What if she’s there in Sreya’s place? The very thought made my heart feeble.

Man, I still love her so much, I still cried. I could still feel the pain in my heart. Tears still gushed through the lacrimal glands as spasmodic bouts of grief raided my face. I just couldn’t hold back my tribulation.

Forgive her God. I love her so much. I’ll be healed in a few months if not years, for the hurt she’s inflicted on me. But if such a thing happens to her, what will happen to her parents? Above all, she meant so much to me. Will I be ever able to bear that fact? I am atleast happy cos I know that she’s fine elsewhere.

Just because she broke a small heart, it doesn’t mean she’ll have to undergo such a thing. Phew, I guess I am overseeing a lot of things. I slowly closed my eyes. I’ve forgiven her.

She may not know what love is. She may not know how much I loved her beyond each and everything, but I still love her and still pray for her family, her happiness, her life to this very day and till I would breathe my last…