Chapter 1

No time to die.

Paul Newman, unbuttoning.

A love story should be epic, he said.

One of us has to die for that, I thought. Who better than him to kill me? Here he is, standing in front of me, asking me to take my shirt off and wear his in exchange. I want to shut him up with a kiss. I feel flushed like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill.

Why? I ask.

Because I am going to a party and my shirt is dirty, he says.

A gust of wind blows in my face. I am not convinced but I want to believe what he just said. He wants me. Up till now, only I wanted him. It would never have occurred to me that he would want me some day. And today, when I am leaving, he is missing me already.

We are both wearing exactly the same black shirt. His looks spotty but it fits his chiseled body better than my loose fit.

No, am not stripping in public, I say, shy that sitting on this crowded bench on the railway platform I should flaunt my unfit body to stun the approaching train.

He shrugs and smiles because he is not easily defeated. We are interrupted by the train’s bells and whistles. It will stop here for only a minute. We have to be quick.

We enter the compartment and find my seat. It is time for goodbye. Not in the traditional way, when a woman and man kiss. A goodbye kiss is like a postal stamp for the goods being shipped that will return one day because it was addressed to the sender. I don’t know why I thought of that sentence. My mind is distracted.

He steps out and looks at me through the window grille. That gorgeous face cropped with shiny curls and a smile that is launching this very train is worth a black shirt. I have the sudden urge to remove it and toss it at him. The shirt is now an umbrella of cute thoughts.

I know he wants to wear me as much as I want to wear him.

But longing will keep us alive. Possessing each other through the shirt might complete us and bring this story to an abrupt happy end. It won’t be epic anymore. We have to be separated for that. That is how love stories become legendary.

I sit back and suck grape juice from a tetra pack. That feeling is just beginning to be realised. He loves me. I have seen his handsome face smiling and waving at me as it fades in the distance. He has not said it but I have felt it. If I have to die, let this separation from my lover kill me. The juice box begins to shrink. It is dead from the inside.

Unknown model, unbuttoning.