Free Till the Last Breath . . . by Durjoy Datta

make it any more difficult than it already is.’
    ‘Fine. By the way, you’re not leaving in a day or two. Yourliver is shot. Your treatment is going to be long. So it’s better if we became friends.’ She forced a smile on her face.
    ‘I don’t want to be friends with a kid. And mind your own business,’ he growled. He paused. Pihu waited for him to realize that they had met earlier. His eyes widened. ‘Aren’t you the—’
    ‘Pihu.’
    She stretched her hand out again for him to shake. Reluctantly, he shook it. Just then, her parents walked in with a few bags in their hands. Pihu felt Dushyant jerk his hand back and saw him bury his face in his pillow.
    Such beautiful eyes
, Pihu thought to herself.
Snap out of it! You pervert!
Lately, the urge to be with a guy had peaked. She didn’t want to die un-kissed. Being a good girl for nineteen years hadn’t yielded anything, maybe being bad would.
    ‘Are you comfortable?’ her mom asked. ‘Is the air conditioning okay? Are you cold?’
    ‘I am fine, Maa.’
    She clutched her mom’s weathered hands. Her mother sat next to her, patted her forehead and mumbled some terms of endearment she used to call her when she was a kid. Her father opened the bags, arranged the bottles, the books and a couple of framed photographs from the thirty-six-photos-a-reel days.
    ‘I wish I had a brother. I always missed a sibling,’ she said as her eyes fell on the picture in the photo frame. It was from the time they had gone on a ten-day vacation to Dwarka-Puri to celebrate her tenth board examination results. She would never forget those ten days of scrumptious food, parental pampering, sandy beaches and long walks.
    ‘Our world was complete when you were born,’ her mom said. ‘Plus, it’s such a problem raising young boys. Girls are like little angels.’ She ran her hand through Pihu’s hair. Pihu didn’t know if she had ever felt better.
    ‘Do you need to sleep?’ her father asked.
    ‘I think I will read for a bit,’ Pihu answered. She could sense Dushyant writhing uncomfortably in his bed. Was he in pain?
    ‘Which one?’ her dad asked.
    She pointed out to the book
Pathology of the Liver
by R.N.M. Macsween. Her dad handed over the book, which was thickly bound and cruelly heavy, and she opened the book from where she had stuck small yellow and red Post-its.
    ‘I will be outside if you need anything,’ her dad said.
    She nodded. Her mother took the couch and scrunched up to fit in. The room suddenly felt silent. The medical instrument beeped. Beep. Beep. The drips dripped. Drip. Drip. She rustled through the yellowed pages. There were diagrams and pictures. Her eyes widened. It was fascinating as well as disgusting. Dushyant was snoring now.
    Pihu read through the night. Near morning, she fell asleep.

8
Dushyant Roy
    It was a painful morning for Dushyant. The sedatives wore off and the pain escalated. He had rung the bell twice but he hadn’t been attended to. He clutched his stomach, rolled in his bed from side to side and whined. Had Pihu and her parents not been nearby, he would have screamed his lungs out. His guts were on fire.
    ‘Can you call someone?’ he heard Pihu say to her father. Her father promptly left and came back with a nurse.
    A transparent liquid was injected into his bloodstream and he felt immediate relief, followed by a spinning, whirling sensation in his head. As if he had just got off a merry-go-round. The nurse left just when he was about to ask her for more. His hand was stretched out, wanting more of the liquid that had just got him high as a kite. Slowly, his eyes closed and the boundaries between truth and fantasy began to blur. He heard the woman—Pihu’s mother—say to Pihu, ‘He used to drink and smoke. The nurse told me. He needs a liver transplant, but he has no donors. I don’t know why you chose this room. He will give you some infection.’
    ‘Maa, his disease is not contagious and it is too late for him to give me a