I wish I could

Chapter 8

Those six days. If I think about them now, I would say that they passed like six minutes. Both of us, Alan and me barely ate and barely slept. And maybe because of our hard work only, we were able to complete everything till Friday afternoon itself. I wanted to go straight to my flat but I was too exhausted to do that. So both of us decided to just sleep for the rest of the day. Next day, we straight away went to Jane to submit our work. I must say she was astounded to see that we had managed to complete it in that extremely short time period. And as I had guessed she was just testing both of us, whether we could handle the pressure or not and try to complete our work till the deadline. But we had completed it up to her satisfaction and that was the good part.

“I’m amazed that both of you have completed this project. I was thinking that you’ll show up here with disappointed faces and then beg me for more time. And then I’d give you another week but you both did it. Really nice.” She said and both of us sighed in relief.

We both had managed to save our jobs.

“So now, since you’ve completed this month-long project in just six days, you can have a two-week rest and now you can catch up with your studies and I expect to see both of you on November 19th when the BBC council discusses this project and your work on it.” As soon as these words left her mouth, I mentally screamed with joy. Finally, I was going to have some time to devote to college and Steve.

Those six days without him felt like six years. He did call every single day and once came up over Alan’s place to see me but Alan didn’t like him being there or calling me again and again as I used to get very distracted when he was around or whenever he called. Although Alan never said anything but I knew. He never says everything that’s on his mind but one can easily see everything on his face. So I thought it would be perfect if I go back to my flat and then surprise him. So I rushed over to my flat and after catching up with Vanessa, I went over to the third floor to Steve’s room. I wanted to knock and then go but I thought it won’t make for a good surprise. So I just opened the door anyway.

The first thing my eyes saw was Ella. Ella sleeping on Steve’s bed. What the hell is she doing here? And this was enough to set my blood boiling. And I just wanted to throw her off his bed right away. Phil was also sleeping on his bed and there was no sign of Steve anywhere in the room. I called him and found that his phone was ringing in the room itself.

Just as I was about to leave his room, he showed up. He was also surprised to see me standing in his room.

“Zara, you came back already? Wow! I missed you baby.” He said taking me into his arms.

“What is she doing up here? And that too on your bed?” I could have answered him but that girl was always there to ruin my plans.

“All of them went to the club last night also and I had some work to do so I stayed here and she showed up here to get me to the club. I couldn’t go due to my work and she refused to leave without me. And she was completely wasted when she came here so she ended up sleeping here while I was busy with my work.” He explained and I nodded.

Of course, why would she go anywhere else when you were here?

“Okay, so tell me. I have a hundred questions for you. How was the project? Completed yet or not. And you were supposed to show up at Jane’s office today, right? What did she say? What happened?”

“Can we please go somewhere else and talk about it all. I also want to tell you many things. But not here, please.” I said.

“Alright. Jazz café, maybe?” He asked and a smile appeared on my face.

Jazz café by then had become our favorite place in London. We had first met there only.

“Yeah, right. Let’s go there.”