Unsuitable Proposal

Chapter 41: And Snap!

"Sue him!" Zainab barked from the other end. I was on phone with her. "Sue his ass, get money, take a vacation in Bali, and rub your cute pics with hot tourists in his face. He wants revenge, give him revenge!"

"I wish it was that easy." I chuckled. "Mrinalini says seduce him, and you say sue him. So conflicting."

"At least bitch slap him," Zainab quipped, making me laugh loudly. The cab driver threw me a glance from the rearview. It was sunny Friday morning and I had taken cab to my new office.

During the commute I decided to catch up with Zainab. Our talks led to me ranting about Antarang and his antics.

It had been only three days since I started working at Brillio and I was already at my wits end.

Antarang wasn't an outright bully. It was the passive-aggressive stuff he did that irked me. Singling me out to run errands for him, giving me the useless 'documentation' work, or shooting my opinions down in front of others. On the first glance these didn't seem big issues, many bad employers did that, but I knew Antarang was being intentionally bad only to me. My other co-workers didn't have same complaints.

As for Aman, I had crossed paths with him a couple of times, and all those times we ignored each other. It was quite sad, but better this way.

"Enough about my problems. I am already going to see Antarang, I don't want to sour my mood beforehand by talking about him," I said sullenly. "Tell me what's up with you. How's the college life treating you?"

Zainab had recently quit her job at Vision and had started pursuing MBA in one of the prestigious college of the country. She had cleared the entrance exams with flying colors. I had high hopes for my friend. She had always been bright and driven.

"Kashvi, your life right now is more dramatic than the daily soaps my Ammi watches," Zainab scoffed, "my boring college life shouldn't even be in the conversation right now. In fact, we should be scheming how to take down that god damn villain in your life."

I rolled my eyes. "Give me some normalcy Zainab, that god damn villain has taken it away from me."

Zainab told me about her college, classmates and professors. She complained about her roommate about how she was the messiest person she had ever come across. Then she complained about so much assignments and work. There was also a cultural event coming up that she had to volunteer in.

Listening to her I reminisced my own college days. I might not have been the most outgoing, social or memorable person among my peers, but I still looked back at the experience fondly. It was so much easier and better than the mess my life had become right now.

*******

Mona and Antarang seemed friendly. Too friendly. My eyes inadvertently kept moving from my laptop screen to watch Antarang and Mona in the conference room across, the see-through glass walls giving me uninterrupted view. The room was empty besides just two of them.

Antarang sat at head of the table with a lazy smile tugging on his lips, listening to whatever Mona was saying. She was standing right in the middle of his spread legs, her hips leaning against the table, and animatedly going on about something. A burning feeling unfurled inside me seeing them so close.

"How much do you want to bet that something's going on between the two?" Dheeraj, one of my colleagues, said. His desk was beside me.

I turned to him and find him looking at the conference room too.

"They work together, can't they share some laughs?" I retorted, oddly wanting to deny his claims.