The Clingy Fiancee

Chapter Five

My heart felt exhausted, my eyes were drooping and all my muscles were screaming. I looked around me once again; it was so beautiful around here. I was standing near the longest suspension skybridge in A J Hackett Sochi Skypark, and I felt completely and utterly clueless about what to do. I had been roaming around, scouring the nearby towns and cities ever since I had landed here but I didn’t get any hint as to where Neil could be at the moment.

I had even arranged a meeting with the authorities here, and even they had said that their search team came up with nothing. They even tried to convince me countless times that there was no way he could possibly stay alive after such a great fall, but I refused to give up.

Just like the people back home, they too, had started thinking that I was insane.

I looked down, trying to gauge the height of the valley, and only ended up feeling slightly dizzy because of the height. I always had been the kind of person to just stop and take in the beauty of the little things around me, but everything felt dull and lifeless at the moment.

I could only imagine what Neil had been feeling when he had jumped from such a height. That crazy i***t; if he knew he wasn’t in the right mind, why did he have to take such a huge risk? As I kept looking at the trees and rivers lower down the valley, I could only wonder if the vast forests had trapped him, or it was the river that had taken him away.

I sighed deeply; losing hope wasn’t going to help me find him, and I had promised myself that I would return back to India with him by my side.

I didn’t care if he didn’t feel the same love for me anymore – at this point of time, him being alive was a blessing enough.

I hated the looks of pity that people around me were giving. If I hadn’t been so faint at heart, I would’ve had tried the bungee jump, too, but I just kept standing and observed the ones who were brave enough to try it. And all of them had heard me begging the instructor to give me some insight into what had happened that day.

He told me whatever he could remember, but that wasn’t enough.

It was just the first day and I was already tired. Maybe I should have had given myself a day to get rid of the jet lag, but I was in too much of a hurry. I didn’t want to lose time at all because I was sure as hell that I was already too late.

I kept thinking of ways to keep my hopes up. I was hoping that he had taken all the safety measures that had been taught to him when he had been training. Maybe if he had crashed down in the forests, he probably found out ways to survive and escape, but was lost now and had no means to communicate. He was an excellent diver and swimmer, too. I knew it because I had a good experience of swimming with him in the rivers.

The slightly sane part of me was reminding me that this was some six hundred or so feet, and he needed to be some kind of a superman to come out of it unscathed.

But I brushed that part of mine away. As long as I stuck to the insane part of me, I knew I would keep on hoping, and would end up finding something about him.

A tear trickled down my eye, then another, and again another. In a few moments, tears were streaming down my face steadily. I felt dizzy when I tried to watch below me, and a sob escaped me. Why in the hell did he have to be so careless? Did he even know the kind of agony he was putting me through? Did he even have an idea how hard it had been for me, for his family, and for everyone who has loved him? His employees were in a fix, they didn’t know what to do without their CEO. The acting CEO was ruining his hard work, and was after everything Neil ever had – including me.

That man had managed to make me feel violated without even touching me once and that was one reason I hated his guts. With the power he had at the moment, I knew he could ruin me, and that was one of the many reasons why I wanted my ex-fiancé back, healthy and alive.

Oh God, Neil, where are you?

“If you are thinking about committing suicide,” A slightly familiar voice said behind me, “Then I think you should perhaps reconsider your decision. You look like you have people waiting for you back home.” No matter how friendly the words seemed, the stranger managed to say them in a way that they sounded awfully curt, just like an order.

Whoever the stranger was, I was slightly annoyed with him. Here in Russia, with an accent that belonged to India, this man was trying to poke his nose in my business like a typical Indian, when he didn’t even know why I was here. Above all, his voice sounded so familiar, so much like Neil, that I wanted to turn around and sock him in the face.

For the sake of my remaining sanity, I didn’t turn around to answer that guy. There was no need to explain myself to strangers about why I was crying at a place where people usually squealed like pigs and had a lot of fun.

“I don’t mean to meddle in your business.” The same voice said again, and this time it came from somewhere closer, “It’s childish to ignore someone who’s trying to talk to you here. I have been noticing you for quite a while and you look like you are thinking of jumping all the way down there.” Again, his voice was completely blank of emotions, no empathy or warmth there. “Like I said, you have someone waiting back for you at home. Unlike me, you probably actually do have a home.”

No, I don’t. I had wanted to tell him, because I would find my home the moment I found Neil, and after that I was sure that everything would be fine. But the way this guy seemed to order me around was ticking me off, and I was not going to let him go without giving him a piece of my mind.

I wiped my tears angrily and turned around, “Who do you think you are, telling me…?”

I trailed off slowly.

For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It…how did it happen?

All the anger inside me slowly ebbed away and all that way left was the slow beats of my heart, because I was sure as hell that I had forgotten how to breathe.

Because the stranger standing in front of me was none other than Neil Singhania, the man who had stomped on my heart and had then jumped off such a height. The i***t, the man I wanted to kiss and slap hard at the same time. The same messy hair, those warm brown eyes, those thin, soft lips that I would have kissed anytime, anywhere, that wheat-ish skin, flushed cheeks and that slightly overgrown beard - the man was right there, looking like my Neil, and suddenly I didn't know what to do.

“Breathe.” He said, and in that one moment, all the breath left my body in a deep sigh.

I was just about to jump on him, wrap my arms around him just to make sure if he was really alive and not a figment of my imagination. But I stopped right in my tracks before I could finally let myself be happy.

There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes as he was looking at me. His eyes were cold, as if I was just some annoying little pest who had dampened his mood unnecessarily. He didn’t look at me as if there had been a time when he had loved me.

And what did he really mean when he had said that he didn’t have a home? Of course, he had a home, he had me, he had his parents, he had his friends, and he had his gazillion employees who were banking on him for so many years. He had a home, he had people who loved him, so what the f**k was he still doing in Russia?

A possible reason entered my mind, and fright slowly filled my veins.

“You were just going to say something, weren’t you?” He lifted an eyebrow at me, “Don’t stop on my account. Go ahead.”

I composed myself slightly, “Well, I don’t find a reason why I should explain myself to you. Who are you to tell me what to do and what not?”

His mouth lifted up into a small, wistful smile, “Well, even I don’t know who I am.”

No. No. No. No!

My heart dropped down to the pits of my abdomen in horror; I didn’t know what to hope for. If he had meant that line spiritually, then maybe he was just a lookalike of Neil. But if he had meant it literally, then…

Oh s**t, things were going to get more difficult than I had originally thought.

I probably wasn’t looking as horrified as I felt inside, because he mistook my horror as confusion. “If you still don’t understand what I mean to say,” He slowly shook his head, “Then let me tell you, I don’t remember who I was four months ago. All I know is that I had spent three months in coma and the last month in complete desperation to know where my home is. All I know about myself is that my name begins with the letter M.”

He shrugged slightly as if whatever he had just told me was just a small problem bugging him and if it would all be fine in a few days. I was now looking as him perplexed; why in the hell did he think that his name began with the letter M?

“How do you know that your name begins with ‘M’?” I asked him.

“This pendant around my neck.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt and held out a pendant that had the letter ‘M’ adorned with tiny, fake diamonds.

My eyes widened; if I even had a sliver of doubt before, I was now completely sure that this man was my Neil, and he had completely lost his memory. Around his neck was the pendant he had gifted me on our first date. And now I was not sure if I wanted to laugh and dance or cry in a corner.

Here, standing in front of me was the man who the world thought was dead, and he didn’t even know his own name. He remembered absolutely nothing, not even the love we shared and the moments we had spent together.