In the following days, Meera would religiously come to Breach Candy during visiting hours, running out of excuses to get out of her home. In the past, she had suspected her family knew that something was brewing between her and the prince, but since neither of them were seen together or mentioned each other in public, her family had thought that the initial spark they’d seen between the two, especially at Pandit Bhairo’s concert, had faded over time.

One evening, she narrowly missed being spotted by her brother Kamal, who had come to visit their captain along with the other teammates. After a week, the trip from Bandra to Breach Candy had become unmanageable, so she shifted to her friend’s place in Mahalaxmi under the pretext of studying for an examination. Every evening, she would reach the hospital and call Penaru or Ranjit Singh – the only two people who knew about their relationship – to make sure that the coast was clear. She would sit in a corner of the café, away from the public eye, till other visitors had left, and then spend the remaining hours next to Abhimanyu’s bed. She kept talking to him, because she’d read somewhere that talking helped patients to recover faster. She chatted about what was going on in Bombay, with her family, things she’d noticed in the hospital, which nurses she thought had a crush on him. When she ran out of things to say, she’d borrow a newspaper from the hospital’s waiting room and read out every single article, from page one till the very end. At times, she would just look at him while he slept for hours, watching his serene face with the heavily bandaged eye, and wonder how her love could look so majestic even as he was drugged out on a hospital bed. The swelling on his nose had subsided to a normal size, albeit slightly crooked. She would admire his strong jawline as she made it a point to shave him every alternate day, knowing how particular Abhimanyu was about being perfectly groomed at all times. One evening, as she was preparing to leave for the day, a team of nurses along with the head doctor, Dr Shailesh Patel, entered the room.

‘Right, so I have been discussing the results of the surgery with our panel, and we need to take a few decisions in consultation with the next of kin. Are you …?’ Dr Patel looked at her and hesitated.

‘I am a close friend.’

‘Is there anyone from the family?’ the doctor quizzed, making Meera come to a rude realization about the reality of her so-called relationship with Abhimanyu. She tracked down Ranjit Singh, who convinced the doctor that he had full authority to take decisions on behalf of the royal family of Ranakpour.

‘Right, so, well. I am going to take you through our findings and lay out the options here. We were able remove the fragments. Here, let me show you,’ he said, placing Abhimanyu’s test results on a table in the room. What followed were long, incomprehensible medical terms and data that boggled Meera. ‘As is the case with rare closed head injuries, there’s a chance the patient might have traumatic neuropathy. This condition is seen in 2.5 per cent of mid-facial injuries and 2.5 per cent of closed-head injuries,’ Dr Patel said, pointing to the milky white areas of a dark X-ray report a nurse had held up against the light.