Strangers?Or Not? ONGOING

Chapter 13

This kept going for a while as I ate the little my dear friends had left for me. That's when he nudged my knee with his hand. I looked up at him, making sure no one would notice our exchange. I raised my eyebrows at him, silently asking him what's up. He gestured downwards, towards his outstretched hand under the table which was still near my knee.

It dawned on me what he wanted me to do and I put my left hand in his right, smiling back up at him. He grinned back at me and just like that, my heart was doing somersaults in my chest.

***

2021

I drove back home, distracted most of the time. So much so that I shut off the music too. I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the road otherwise. My mind kept going back to what had happened a while ago. I really didn't know what to do. All of this was so baffling. Besides, I had to interact with him tomorrow too. God, will it be awkward? Most probably. It was then that the guilt started sinking in. I should have listened to what he was saying instead of erupting on him. I should apologise to him tomorrow.

Ugh, this sucks so much.

I reached home really exhausted and all I wanted to do was collapse into bed. I quickly changed into comfier clothes, texting my mom and preparing to go to bed. Should I text him? No right? What will I say? I don't know. Should I mention the promise? Or pretend we're just strangers. Who also almost kissed.

I was scrolling through insta on my phone, still thinking whether or not I should text him. After a lot of contemplation, I decided on the former. I had his number since we'd made a WhatsApp group of us few friends. I opened his chat, typing out a message.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I backspaced the entire text immediately. It sounds too overfriendly.

"Are we still keeping the promise?"

No no, don't mention that.

"Hey, I hope you reached home okay. And I'm sorry about earlier"

Obviously he reached home okay. You only dropped him. How stupid is that?

"Hey, I'm really sorry about earlier. See you tomorrow"

Too desperate.

"I'm sorry about earlier. Good night"

I finally settled on that. Taking a deep breath in, I hit send. It was up for interpretation whether we're still keeping the promise or not and honestly, I didn't know how I felt about that. But mentioning it was definitely out of the question. His last seen was 15 minutes ago and I didn't know if he was still awake. He'll just reply tomorrow maybe. I thought to myself, shrugging it off.

Now that that was out of the way, I went to sleep.

***

The first thing I did the next morning was to see if he'd replied.

He hadn't.

He had, in fact, left me on seen.

Nice.

His last seen was half an hour ago. So no use expecting a reply either. I got out of bed, whipping myself a cup of coffee, and getting ready for office, trying not to think about him or why he didn't reply. Was he mad again?

Well, there's nothing I can do about that.

I thought to myself.

***