Chapter 6B
"Who is the girl you were having lunch with yesterday?" He
heard Lavanya ask from corner of this room.
"Is there anything you need Lavanya? If there isn't, please
go," he replied ignoring her question. Lavanya tightened her grip on cellphone.
"This is your new assignment," Lavanya slammed a file on his
table. "Don't f**k up," she added in a tone intended to intimidate him. He
picked up the file ignoring her warning.
"Aman is the client?" Arnav asked Lavanya's retreating back.
"They have been our longest clients Arnav. I thought you
knew?"
"They are?" Arnav was surprised. Lavanya nodded distractedly.
"You introduced me to Aman as your friend when we were
dating. Did you forget?" She asked browsing through her emails on blackberry.
"What does he want?" Arnav asked. Lavanya looked up from her
phone and glanced at his chair. "We can discuss this now if you wish to," Arnav
said gently, noting displeasure in her features. Their on and off relationship over
the years had only given them immense mood swings whenever they were in same
room.
"Aman wants to have an expo of sorts where young economists,
students pursuing their masters in finance or even bachelors can attend - learn
and present basically. He wants to expand trading sector of his company,"
Lavanya said sitting opposite to him.
"I thought he had enough resources to do this on his own.
Why would he need us for this?"
"I don't ask that question to our customers Arnav. It's bad
for business," she grinned. He chuckled at that. "He wants to meet you and
discuss it personally." Lavanya added. Arnav looked up from the file and stared
blankly. "Yes, it's weird. Their PR department handled visits and payment and
he never really got involved directly. This time he wants to." She said
standing up.
"Do you know anything?" He asked her hoping to be equipped
before he met Aman.
"Nothing Arnav. When I asked our contact, he said that this
was something Aman was personally driving and he would talk only to you. Since
you guys know each other very well I didn't bother to dig deeper," she said. "Aman
is expecting you in fifteen minutes. Don't be late." She said and walked out of
his office without waiting for a response. He pressed his temple with both his
palms and wished the mild headache to go away.
"Arnav?" Lavanya called him. He looked up and saw her
standing by the door. "When you are
there, say hello to Asha for me, okay?" Lavanya smiled and closed the door
leaving him alone with the files.
His small headache blew to a fully-fledged migraine at the prospect
of meeting Asha.
******
"What are you doing here?" Khushi asked looking up from
stack of files. Arnav was standing at her cubicle's entrance.
"I just finished a meeting with Aman given how this company -
your company is our client." He said.
"Which means I am your God," she said leaning back on the
chair. He smiled weakly at that and groaned. "Is everything okay?" She asked
him noticing his discomfort.
"Migraine," he sighed collapsing on the extra chair in her
cubicle. "And I am anti medication," he said leaning forward banging his head
on table rhythmically.
"Masochistic much?" She commented at his state.
"I don't like being dependent on anything or anyone. They
never end well," he said closing his eyes. "And meeting Asha only made it worse,"
he grumbled resting his head on his arms. She didn't know why meeting Aman's
sister - his half-sister worsened his headache.
She had realized quite late that, on the night when Arnav
had spoken about his family, he had kept Asha completely out of it; he hadn't
even mentioned her name during narration. Only when she heard few women talking
about their CEO's sister's presence in office that day, she had it deduced.
Arnav closed his eyes giving into intense headache and slowly
relaxed his facial muscles.
"Let's go home," he said not opening his eyes. He said it as
if it was the most natural thing to do and also the most frequent when in
reality it was neither. She looked at his face ' the slight arch of his
eyebrows, tensed cheeks and eyes heavy with memories.
He looked vulnerable in this state but the grip on her palm
was strong. It was this involuntary hand holding action which had rendered her speechless.
She squeezed his palm gently and retracted.
"Give me twenty
minutes," she said straightening her back and getting back to work. He hummed
in response.
She didn't find the strength in her to tell him that she didn't
live in his building anymore.
"I wonder what made her come back to India after all these
years of being away. It took me months to move on but I finally could get away
from clutches of confusion and a faint notion of...love, I think. I am not sure
if my emotions were as strong as love but there was something...tangible," he
said, his voice hoarse. Khushi's hands stilled at his revelation. "I used to get severe migraines whenever... my
heart hurt. Have you ever heard of this kind of dichotomy?"
"Are you talking about Asha?" She asked, tremble in her
voice. The implication of his words were huge - no, ginormous.
Arnav, however seemed to have dropped into some sort of
limbo where his reality concave-d and spit out another variant of himself.
"Did you know that she is Aman's mother's friend's daughter?
Pretty long winded isn't it?"
"Are you convincing yourself that she isn't your sister?"
Khushi asked with a heavy voice.
"She just came to live with them Khushi because her parents
died in an accident. She isn't Aman's sister. She isn't my father's daughter. Hell,
she isn't even a blood relative of mine. But why does the prospect of me loving
her sound so...wrong?" He had opened
his eyes and was looking straight into hers.
"You never told her how you feel about her, did you?" Khushi
asked, already knowing the answer.
"I couldn't. How could I? My father and my step mother treated
her like his own daughter. Aman treated her like his own sister. She isn't even
legally adopted for f**ks sake. And I was just confused; was she my sister merely
by association or just a girl who lived with my step family after loss of her
own family? It was truly f**ked up." He still held her gaze and showed a part
of himself which he had never shown to anyone before.
"And your heart hurts now after seeing her," Khushi finished
for him.
"Wait. What?" He shot up and straightened his back, all
traces of dopiness gone from his face. "How did you arrive at that conclusion?"
She looked at him for one full moment.
"You just said that you get migraine when you have
heartache," she rallied.
"I said I 'used' to get. And that was when I was a teen. Past
tense. Eons ago." He replied little peeved at her implication.
"Then why do you have migraine now?"
"Because I played 'Assassins Creed' video game till four AM
this morning." He said as if he was explaining to a three year old.
"Oh."
"Yes."
"I thought..." She trailed.
"I know. But I am not. Really, I am not."
"Glad to hear that."
"Why?" He asked his interest spiking.
"None of your business," she said primly stuffing all her
things in her bag. "Let's go home," she said before he could continue his
questioning. He swallowed a smile at her discomfort and followed her out.
To be continued.
Edited by CynicalNoob - 11 years ago
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