Chapter-2

It had been exactly a week since he had fallen in coma. I remember

e out of the room, tears streaming down her swollen eyes, H-he won
red after several minutes and whispered something to Dad. I stared
, trying to figure out if this is one of those horror movies where
ops.
Mom looked into my eyes, Mom,

mom rushing m
t move, she stutte
into distance
everything st

I whispered.

H-he s in coma, Mom stuttered with such a look on her face that it almost made me wo
nder if this really was a horror movie and I was the heroine. Except I couldn t sa
ve Jay and make everything better. I couldn t be the hero in this tale.
When will he wake up?
her arm around me.

I said, hardly breathing. My world seemed to freeze. Mom put

We don t know, sweetie, she whispered. We don t know.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jay was same each day I visited him. Sometimes he was in a different position fr
om being poked by doctors, since this was about the biggest thing that happened
in the small town of Rajkot. It was such a huge case that cricket had even been
banned for a while due to Jay s injury. The umpire says he didn t know what happened
; maybe Jay had a brain tumour. I honestly didn t care what Jay s condition was, I j
ust hope he would wake up again.
Some people felt sorry for me, but the kind of sorry that I didn t really accept.
For example, my Language Teacher, Mrs. Mehta, suggested I write a story on my br
other.
Why would I want to do that? I asked her. Mrs. Mehta shrugged and I saw a worried
smile crawl up her face, like she regretted asking me.
Well...I m sure people will want to read your story, Raj. Maybe you could even subm
it it to a magazine- I felt my cheecks turning reddish but quickly my feelings we
nt from pride to anger.
Why do I need people to feel sorry for me!? I cried out. He's gonna be okay! In a f
ew days all this will be over! I know it will! Mrs. Mehta smiled at me in the way
where she didn t mean it.
I m sure it will, Raj, but people will still love to hear your storyin me at that very moment.

anguish filled

I said no means no! I told her sharply, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and
I felt my eyes well up with tears as they did every day when someone mentioned J
ay. Don t cry, don t cry, don t cry, I told myself over and over, But the tears peeked
out of my eyes anyways. I didn t turn back to face her.
When I came to the hospital that afternoon, I raced straight to Jay s room to visi
t him. Hey, I said breathlessly to him, all though I wasn t all that sure he could h
ear me. I wondered what he was thinking of. 'Could he see me?','Could he hear me
?' After a few minutes of telling Jay about how annoying Mrs. Mehta was, several
doctors raced into the room, clipboards practically jumping out of their gloved
hands.
Raj, please get out immediately,

One of the doctor with black hair told me. I was

so startled I didn t even ask why.After sitting for an hour and ten chewed off nai
ls later, they told me.
What the doctors told me was much, much, much scarier then telling me that Jay w
as in coma. They told me that Jay had a possibility of dying in a few weeks if h
is body dosen't respond on time. I d always known this was possible, but I didn t th
ink it was going to come to reality this soon. The horror movie I was watching o
r living in was getting much more worse.
The doctors also told me that Jay could now move on to living at home,still in c
oma of course. They thought maybe if he was around the environment he lived in,
he may be able to wake up faster and survive. I didn t think that he may be though,
I knew he would, He has to.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My life at school began to grow even worse. I now saw the school counselor daily
, and my grades began to fall. Mrs.Mehta kept on bugging me about writing a book
even more. No, I would tell her each time she begged. Finally, on the final straw
, I asked her:
WHY?
Mrs.Mehta s face fell due to sadness.
Well, she said, I
r. My sister told me
e feel better, but I
looked back to then
le

don t know if you know this or not, but my Mother died due to cance
to write my thoughts down and she told me this would make m
never listened. Now I regret I didn t. If I did, I could have
and see how my world has brightened. she said with a sad smi

I looked at Mrs.Mehta with sympathy.

Oh, I said quietly.
n her face.

I-I m sorry. I guess I ll try to write.

a genuine smile was formed o

You won t regret it! I nodded towards her and headed home, walking past the once-was
-cricket-field in the park. All the players who were once on the cricket team we
re now tossing a volley ball back and forth stared at me.
Hey, said a boy with his hair patted in oil. Tell your bro we say hi. I squinted at
him. Was he the one who caused my brother so much pain on the field? And he didn t
even apologize?
He couldn t hear me if I tried, I said coldly. Thanks to you, he's in a coma and may
even die. I couldn t believe I was saying this. The word s hardly seemed to be mine.
The boy with sticky oil hair nodded slowly.
I walked away.