ArHi FF! Freeloop Chapter 9A, Page 40, 09/Sep - Page 19

part 6 a
nice part dear...

part 6 B
awesome part dear...
cont soon...

I had read this part up till the part where Khushi says "give me 20 minutes" and then something happened and I left it at that and forgot that I had to complete it.

Just read all the parts of your story, really good. different and intriguing.

Chapter 7A:

"Don't you have any preplanned social interaction to keep?"

"I cancelled them all." Arnav grinned.

"It must be my lucky day!" She exclaimed dramatically. Arnav laughed.

"I know this place where you get really good idly. And the coconut chutney they serve along with it out of this world," Arnav said pressing the elevator button. Khushi stared at him. "What?" He asked her when he caught her staring.

"I didn't…you know…" She stuttered. "It's nothing," she shrugged.

Arnav gave him a pointed a look. "I didn't expect you to appreciate a common south Indian snack. I thought you would recommend some exotic place," she said sheepishly. Arnav laughed at that.

"Care to share the joke?" They heard a voice say behind them.

Arnav's laughter died. Khushi looked from Arnav to Asha, who was standing few feet away from them, a pleasant smile on her face.

"Can I borrow Arnav for the evening Khushi?" Asha asked, rather assumed a positive response since she had already borrowed his arms and linked it with hers. "It's just that we haven't met in a long time and I would like to catch up," she said leaning on his shoulders.

An empty elevator arrived at the moment with doors opening with a 'ding'. Arnav looked at Khushi who was studiously ignoring him. He could see that she was conflicted; her eyes were on the elevator door while her feet were rooted on the spot. Asha was talking in his ears and his eyes were fixed on Khushi.

"Have a nice evening," Khushi said not looking at him and walked into the elevator. Arnav walked away without looking at Khushi.

*****

She collapsed on the bed, face down and screamed into the pillow. Every encounter with Arnav till date had left her with an unfathomable feeling incompleteness as each time he had left her in a kettle of tangled emotions. Today was no different.

She had moved out of Payal's apartment the day she was offered a job in Amalgamated Co., the company run by Aman. Arnav, again, had helped her find this place through the vast network of his acquaintances. It was a decent sized studio apartment and fully furnished. She had heard him over the phone when he was talking with an acquaintance to find a place for rent in or around his apartment complex. She didn't know what to make of that but hadn't found the nerve to ask him about that.

Was it a streak of protectiveness in him which made him hover around her sometimes in public? He could easily afford a car but he took the bus with her. He mentioned it in passing that he didn't like driving too much. She never dug for more information further.

She was afraid if she did, he would tell her the truth – in all entirety of it; like he had spilled his attraction to Asha few hours ago.

She knew that Arnav was socially active and probably had a girlfriend somewhere. Yet she was looking forward to spend few hours this evening talking about random things for a change. The conversations between them were never simple and she didn't introspect to find out why. She was happily ignoring their kiss and he didn't seem too enthusiastic about talking about it either. They had ignored that aspect of their interaction and neatly shoved it under the carpet. Their individual lives were already messy enough.

It wasn't like she was afraid of the truth. Probably she was, to a small extent. But it wasn't only that.

Truth had a strange way of influencing a person to retrospect, introspect and make way for change.

Like now, for example, she was feeling extremely miffed with the woman who was spending time with Arnav.

To be continued.

Note to all readers:

Thank you so much for the attention you have been giving this story. Though many of you aren't aware that the writer CynicalNoob is actually a character in the story - The Noob and the thoughtful, the story and the character CN is now evolving out of the confines of the story already.

The ride has been wonderful till now and I hope you will continue to come here to read and critique and discuss.

Thanks a lot to everyone who has commented and liked the story. It feels great to be acknowledged.

Keep reading!

S

Am loving where you're taking this! But seriously Arnav is pretty screwed, which isn't a problem, but he seems to be screwing up Khushi who he's busy pouring his heart out to.

This Arnav's really pathetic ( sorry if that's too strong a word but I had to confess how I truly felt)... Ok, he likes Asha deeply and he's willing to spend some time with her since he's meeting her after ages, I get that... But the least he could have done was to say a 'sorry' to Khushi, was it that difficult? ... He shared his sorrows with her and found a good and patient listener in her, so apologising to Khushi for not being able to come with her wouldn't hurt... I genuinely felt bad for Khushi... (phew, hope you don't mind my rant CN, just had to get this anger out of my system...) P.s. S, Why did you have to admit that this CN was actually a character of your story? I was having fun reading the comments of people who were clueless about this fact ;-)

thanx 4 da pm frnd