Yours Accidentally by Madhur Nevatia Read Free Book Online Page A

that.”
He stretched out his hand instinctively towards her but she jumped up abruptly
before their hands could meet.
    “Need to
stretch my legs,” Sameera said.
    Gautam
looked puzzled but Tanya gave him a reassuring smile.
    Sanjay and
Tanya wanted all of them to head to the newest pub in town.
    “Gautam,
will you be able to manage?” Sameera asked.
    “If you
stand by him, he can manage any task in this world, Sameera,” Sanjay said
grinning broadly.
    Gautam did not
want to disappoint his friend. “My leg is much better and Sameera is with us if
anything goes wrong. So let’s go.”
    Once again,
he offered Sameera his hand but withdrew it quickly as he remembered her recent
reaction. Why was she so averse to his touch?
     
    ***
     
    After ages,
Gautam felt completely relaxed as if a load had been lifted off him. The fact
that Sameera was sitting next to him made him happy. He wanted to live in the
present, determined not to let his insecurity convert him into the rude monster
he was habitually becoming.
    Sameera
glanced at Gautam. With his edginess gone, he looked very different but, could
she reciprocate? She felt warm in the face as she recalled how he had tried to
hold her hand, looking straight into her eyes. She liked him, and it made her
nervous.
    She was lost
in her thoughts as thousands of images from her past flashed by.
     
    ≈

 
    FOURTEEN
     
     
    People were
always surprised that an attractive girl like her was single and did not even
have a boyfriend. It was not for lack of suitors; ever since she could
remember, she had been showered with male attention. There was no denying that even
as a child she was stunningly beautiful. As a teenager, she would get
innumerable Valentine Days cards. While she always laughed off the attention, her
mother became increasingly more protective. Sameera had her own fair share of
crushes and finally, in grade nine, she fell in love for the first time, with
Pavan, the new boy in class who treated her as a friend. With him, she could
wear anything without worrying about hemlines or necklines. By then, her
friends had also experienced their magical first kiss; she too longed to kiss
Pavan.
    Just when
things were beginning to look sunny with Pavan, disaster struck.
    One evening,
as she left her tuition class, she was cornered by a bunch of guys staring at
her menacingly. Her head felt light, her throat was parched, and no matter how
hard she tried, she couldn’t scream. The boy who finally stepped up to her was
from her class. His hand was heavily bandaged; he shoved a letter into her
hands. Consumed by teenage jealousy, it was his love letter to her, written in
blood. She was terrified.
    Absolutely
petrified, her mother packed her off to a prestigious, girls’ only boarding
school in Dehradun. Sameera resented the move very much. Why was she penalized
for someone else’s actions? She missed her mother, her best friend Tanya and
Pavan. She longed for freedom and set her eyes on studying in one of the top US
universities as the ticket to that freedom. Sameera’s mother was unwilling to
send her to the USA and all her persuasions were in vain. It was only when she
got into Cornell that her mother finally relented.
    Sameera was
ecstatic at the opportunities opening up before her.
    Just when
her bags were packed and she was ready to go, life brought in another twist in
the tale. Her mother met with a horrifying accident with a fifty-fifty chance
of survival. She had already lost her father and the thought of losing her
mother was too much for Sameera. She stayed by her side day and night, refusing
to leave even for a night’s sleep at home. Her mother showed equal resilience
and determination, and together they fought the crisis to return home after
more than a month in the hospital. Despite protests from everyone close to her,
she put her admission on hold and helped her mother inch back to normalcy.
    She would
work closely with the physiotherapist and was fascinated by