~ CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT ~
The rest of the day passed by rather uneventfully. Manik had given Nandini some work to do which she completed without much of a hassle. But that was it. No conversations. No nothing. Though he tried to catch a glimpse of her eyes to see what was in there, it proved to be fruitless. She had successfully shut herself down to the world. Especially to him. She never even bothered to look at him. And even if she did, her expression remained as plain and serene as the surface of a calm body of water.
By the end of the day, when the team had dispersed to get back home, Manik bumped into her once again. This time, in the elevator. They were not alone. Cabir and Mukti were there too. But the moment Nandini saw him, she pretended that he didn't even exist and that stung him fiercely. Her cold and brazen outlook was killing him. It was as if nothing had happened at all! He wanted her to look at him. React. Kick and scream. Slap the shit out of him. But she didn't even give a flying f**k. And that was driving him crazy. There were no signs of progress. The closure that he badly wanted seemed to be light years away.
Manik observed her out of the corner of his eyes whilst he engaged himself in a casual talk with Cabir only to get her attention. He fumed as he realized that she was happily engrossed with her phone. In Nandini's world, the element called as Manik had long gone extinct. Not even a second was spared to glance over at him and that made his sweaty hands wring in utter frustration but that was all he could do. He just couldn't figure out how to sort things out.
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Night at Manik's apartment... Unlike other nights where he chose to work out or chill in front of the TV, Manik was deeply engrossed on his laptop, checking out Nandini's Facebook profile for clues to tackle her case. But there was nothing special other than the "slap-in -the-face" quotes she had posted recently. One of them went like this...
"I was smiling yesterday, I'm smiling today and I'll smile tomorrow. It's simply because life is too short to cry for anything that's worthless."
Worthless. Worthless!!! Manik just stared at the screen as each and every word stung him with the unbearable need to protest. He couldn't help but think that this quote was tailored just for him. Yes! She had put this up just for him! To slap him. Virtually at least. But he so wished that she would actually slap him. At least, he'd feel a bit better. But right now, he wanted to scream out that he never meant to put her or anybody else through all that trouble. He so badly wanted to ease up this uncomfortable air of bitter hatred. It was killing him. But with the way things were going, it seemed that he had a lot of hard work to do.
He was now browsing through her old albums. She seems to like animals very much, thought Manik as he went through a set of pictures grouped under "PETA Charity Event." Clearly, she was a volunteer and went that extra mile to reach out to those mute creatures in distress. Manik felt the rocky walls of his heart soften up. "The girl has a heart of gold..." the words of the shopkeeper echoed in his head once again.
A particular picture under "Hostel Days" caught his attention. Nandini and her roommates were wrapped in thick heavy woollens as they grinned and posed for the camera. Each of them had a cup of hot steaming coffee in their hands. Coffee... The very thought of it gave him nightmares. Coming to think of it, he hasn't had a decent cup of coffee for many days at a stretch. And surprisingly, he wasn't missing his beloved cuppa any longer. Was his desperate need for caffeine getting replaced with something else?
"Spending Christmas holidays with friends at my hostel in Bangalore. It's so damn cold and it's just the way I like it. Wish it would snow! One of my biggest fantasies ever! Siiiggh!"
Fantasy, eh? Manik smirked and continued to go through her profile when something caught his attention. "Whoa..." he said under his breath. "Hang on a minute..." At that moment, Nandini's Facebook wall was beginning to get spammed by her friends. One after the other. Hastily, he accessed Nandini's details on the HR information system and cross checked it with her Facebook account details. "Hmm... okayyy?" Manik had a victorious smile on his face. But it didn't last for long.
DING-DONG! The doorbell wiped the cheesy smirk off his face in an instant. He glanced at his watch. 9:00 PM. "Who is it now?" he muttered as he hurried to the door and peeked through the peephole. What greeted his eyes made him tingle with an uneasy feeling of displeasure. Soha... She wasn't exactly something he wanted to deal with right now. Manik quietly stood away from the door and rolled his tongue around in his gums. "Why did she come here now...?" he whispered to himself as he shifted uncomfortably on his feet. At the second bell, he was compelled to open up the door to her with a deep sigh.
She greeted him with crossed arms and a cold, steely stare.
"Hey..." Manik's voice was barely audible as he spoke. "What a surprise..." he added in a dull, flat tone.
"Can I come in?" she asked quietly through pursed lips. Manik's closed, unwelcoming stance was disturbing indeed. The way he stood at the entrance with the door half open seemed like he didn't really want to let her in. It took her question to bring him back to his senses, make him realize that he was blocking up the doorway.
"Shh...ure!" he said more cheerfully and swung the door wide open. "Why not? Come in." She made her way in with her arms still crossed whilst Manik rolled his eyes and shut the door. "So tell me, what's happening?" he asked as he tried to sound more relaxed.
"Nothing special," she sighed in a low, depressed voice as she strolled around the living room and set a couple of misplaced things in their place. "Just dropped in to check whether you're dead or alive."
At first, Manik was surprised but then he shrugged it off with a defensive chuckle.
"No," said Soha in a stern voice. "Don't laugh. I'm serious."
Manik shook his head, smiled dryly and scratched his chin.
"Manik," she said firmly. "I'm serious."
"Yeah," he answered with a smirk, lowered his head and rubbed the nape of his neck. "I know."
"Really?" she questioned with her steely gaze boring into him.
Manik took a quick, shallow breath. "You know what?" he began. "I think that you're stressed. So let me get you something to drink."
Manik headed to kitchen but Soha held him back.
"You're right Manik," she replied in a quaky voice. "I am stressed. And do you know why?"
He rolled his eyes, clearly not interested in delving into the details. "Why?" he sighed in exasperation.
"Because of how you've been behaving lately," she answered as she grew increasingly hyper and emotional. "You're... acting weird. You don't answer my calls or reply to my messages anymore. What... is wrong with you? Why are you doing like this? Why are you avoiding me?"
Soha was breathless and as she spoke. She trembled as she struggled to contain the tsunami of emotions that were threatening to sweep over the threshold of control.
Meanwhile, her bombardment of questions had left Manik speechless. "It's..." he paused momentarily and looked away as he groped around for the words to tell her. "I'm not avoiding you," he replied with a low sigh, his eyes still darting around the room. "Actually... it's just all this work."
"Work!" Soha wasn't ready to buy any of his explanations. She was desperate for closure. "Really Manik? What work? Every time I tell you something, it's just work. Office. This. That. If something's troubling you so much then why don't you just talk about it?"
"See look Soha," began Manik with growing frustration. "Let's just stop this right now. Because I'm really not in the mood for this." He prepared to head for the kitchen. But she stopped him again.
"So you just want to keep running," she spat bitterly.
"For the time being, yeah," he replied with the sole intention of brushing her off. Having managed to shut her up, he shrugged her off gently and bustled to the kitchen. He was visibly agitated as he absentmindedly poured out two glasses of chilled fruit juice.
As he headed back to the living room with the glasses, Soha's extremely distressed figure made him stop in his tracks. He fidgeted uncomfortably on the spot for a moment and watched her quietly as she sat huddled on the chair, sniffled and flicked off a couple of tears. Without a word, he shuffled to her and pushed a glass into her hesitating hands before settling down. As he took a nervous sip from his glass, he watched her from the corner of his eyes and noticed that she was still upset and hadn't made any move to consume the drink. He was tempted to ask her "are you okay?" but restrained himself as it seemed inappropriate. Not to mention, an absolutely dumb question. Of course, she wasn't okay.
"Umm..." Manik was desperate to break the uncomfortable silence. "You still haven't had your drink."
Clearly distressed and uninterested in his "drink", she slammed the glass onto the table and shot to her feet. "I got to go," she mumbled and hurried to the front door with high expectations of a sweet, cuddly Manik running around in circles after her. But nothing happened. She stopped abruptly in disbelief and turned around to see him gaping at her.
"I don't believe this," she muttered in painful disbelief. "You didn't even try to stop me?"
Manik was speechless. Coming to think of it, he didn't. But why?
He buried his face and wrung out the creases on his forehead in deep agitation. Clearly, this situation wasn't going to well.
"At least... you could have tried to stop me," she said breathlessly as the tears continued to build in her eyes. "Did you even try to find out why I was worried?"
Manik sighed and looked up. "I thought you already told me," he answered in a bored tone.
"And what did you do about it?" she grilled.
"What do you want me to do about it?" he shot back irritably.
Hurt and angry at his heartless attitude, Soha glowered at him with speechless disbelief. "Nothing," she snarled through clenched teeth. Without another word, she stormed out of his apartment, making sure to slam the door extra loud on her way out.
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By mid-day, the pace of work in the HR department had reached full throttle. As soon as Mukherjee made his entry, Manik tagged along with him to his cabin and shut themselves up.
In the meantime, Nandini, who had been out on an errand in the other departments, returned with a couple of signed documents securely tucked under her arm. Cabir, who was engaged on a phone call and pacing up and down the lounge didn't fail to flash a smile and a wave at her. "Bro, it's close to afternoon," he could be heard saying to the fellow on the other line. "Where's the stuff? Please. Please just get it done fast. Thank you so much."
*******************
Just as Nandini walked in, Mukherjee stepped out of his cabin along with Manik. "All of you gather for a meeting in the conference room," he announced in an official tone before turning his attention to Nandini. "Nandini... You can stay back. We'll call you when it's time."
Nandini was flustered. Meeting? Stay back? Call you... when it's time? Oh God... something's not right. "Okay sir," she gulped down the huge lump in her throat. She settled down on her chair as she watched the rest of the team head to the conference room.
"Got the documents signed?" Manik popped up all of a sudden and startled the wits out of her.
"Y-yes..." she gasped and fumbled with the papers before surrendering it to him. He shot her a quick glare before bustling off to the conference room. This fellow has definitely plotted something against me. That look he just gave!
The next couple of minutes were pure torture. No matter what she did... how much ever she tried to engage herself on her mails and other work, she just couldn't stop her mind from floating away to the glass-walled conference room. From the corner of her eyes, she could see her colleagues seated around the oval table with grim expressions plastered all over their faces as Mukherjee dictated his terms and conditions to them. There was an air of uneasiness that made Nandini feel very jittery. That look on their faces, the unusual deadly quietness and Mukherjee's serious tone earlier gave her a really dreadful feeling. In spite of her distress, she managed to comfort herself. Just stay calm, she told herself. It probably doesn't have anything to do with you. Anyways, you'd resigned. Maybe that's why they didn't call you in. They're probably just having another one of their usual confidential meetings.
Her eyes drifted off to the tall, chiselled frame of Manik that fitted perfectly into the chair he was on. He was too tall for the average heighted chair that his legs were stretched out lazily under the table. And then, for some weird reason, her heart started to race. He looks unusually hot today, she thought to herself, but what's the use? He's such a sorry excuse of a man. Navya was right. 99% of the good looking ones are jerks. They can't be trusted. Goddamn faggots.
But then, her mind was invaded by quick contradicting flashbacks.
The day she had to sort out the issues with the cheques, she came to learn that Manik had lied to Hashmi. He had told him that it was a mistake from his end. Why? Was he ashamed to confess about the way I boiled his nuts or was he trying to protect me... or both?
The day when the mishap happened at the mall... what was he doing there? I could understand that he saved me from falling once... but twice? Was he hanging around just to help me down? But why?
That day he knocked me down at the door... I swear he kept shooting quick glances at the cut on my forehead. That look on his face then... was he actually concerned?
That day in the stairwell... he was rough. Did he... kiss me? Or was I just dreaming? Try as she may, she just couldn't bring together the pieces of that day. There were large chunks that she just couldn't remember. Most of it seemed like some dream.
But he did seem to get a bit soft at the hospital. Her mind is flooded with vague memories of the time when she threw up in bed and he helped her to feel better with gentle strokes to the back. So what... that's no big deal.
It took her a while to realize that a set of eyes were boring into hers. Manik's. She had been so lost in her thoughts all this while that she didn't realize that she had been staring at him like an idiot all this while. Shit. Shit. SHIT.
He smirked at her wickedly and made her quickly look away. If you think that I'm still into you, then let me tell you Mr. Manik Malhotra, you have never been so wrong in your whole pathetic life. I hate you. Get that straight. I hate you to the core. And nothing's going to change it. Nothing.
"Nandini..." Cabir's voice from close quarters startled the living daylights out of her.
"Oh dear Lord," she gasped with a hand held over her heaving chest.
"Gosh, I didn't mean to scare you," he smirked at her. "By the way, Mukherjee's calling you in."
"Me?" asked Nandini nervously.
"Yeah," replied Cabir grimly.
Nandini slowly rose to her feet and headed to the conference room. She grew increasingly nervous as she became aware of the entire department staring at her as she approached them. God... I wonder what's wrong, she wondered as she walked through the door.
"Come in Nandini," said Mukherjee in his booming voice. "Please sit."
Cautiously, she settled down onto one of the empty chairs and made it squeak like a banshee. She jumped a bit but forced herself to stay. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Manik smother a smile with a quick brush of his finger over his smirking lips. Now I'm damn sure, she thought fretfully, this dumbo has certainly done something to mess up my life. Hasn't he had enough?
"We're very sorry Nandini," began Mukherjee. "And it's extremely sad that we were forced to take this step in such a short notice. But it was essential."
Nandini could feel her heart grow heavy and her throat growing lumpy. Her eyes began to sting with tears but she fought to hold it back. Yes... Manik has definitely done something to screw up my life. But calm down girl. Face it. Don't break. Even this shall pass by. Hang in there. Don't worry. Just relax.
"You must understand that such kind of situations will not be ignored or tolerated," Mukherjee went on in a grim tone. "So once again... we are extremely sorry that this step had to be taken." He now turned his attention to Manik. "Manik..." he said in a low voice.
Manik nodded, bent over, pulled out something from under the table and passed it over to Mukherjee.
Here it comes girl, thought Nandini and clenched her hands into a tight fist. Your termination letter. Be brave. Be strong.
She held her breath as she prepared for the worst.
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