To Love Or Not To Love| A FEATURED STORY

Chapter 9

Anya woke up with a start the next morning and realised that she was not at her house. She had a throbbing headache and found two painkillers next to a large glass of orange juice on the side table. She was calmly looking around when Ajay came in, after a brief knock.

He was in his jogger shorts, running shoes, a small towel around his neck and a sweat-drenched tank top that provocatively clung to his flat-abs. She surveyed him from head to toe with slightly rounded eyes and was dumbstruck at the smoking-hot vision before her.

He smiled, "Good Morning, Anya. How are you?"

She quickly recovered from her trance, "Not so good. I didn't know you brought me to your place."

Ajay brushed it aside, took the chair next to the bed and looked into her eyes.

"Everybody has bad days, Anya. That's fine but what you did last night was reckless. You put yourself in danger, and I don't want to think of what could've happened to you had you not bumped into me."

She put her head down in shame. It was honestly a risky thing to do. In this instance, she was grateful to Ajay but soon perceived, that it was partly because of him that she exceeded the drinking.

He was in no place to reproof her like this. Her headache and hunger added to her irritation and made way to fury.

"Well! Thank you. But you shouldn't have bothered, you know. I would've been just fine."

Her bitter words put him on high alert as he cocked his head to look more closely at her. She avoided eye contact and was trying to get her things to leave the place.

"Of course, I bothered. I'm your friend Anya."

She scorned, "Yeah, you are the epitome of a great friendship."

When Ajay tried to interrupt, she stalled him with a raised hand and continued, "A friend who doesn't acknowledge in public, a friend who doesn't return calls except for occasional messages. A friend who doesn't make eye contact when we meet outside of work."

She took a deep breath and continued in a dangerously low voice, "What is this, Ajay? What are you trying here? Is this really what friendship in your vocabulary is? It is as if you are shielding me as a secret mistress, you know, which is degrading."

"We both know that I'm not!"

They stared at each other, she was accusing him, and he was defensive.

"Ajay, really thank you for helping me out last night, but I've had enough. We must end this farce this moment and move on. Let's not meet again."

"What's that got to do with last night?" he asked.

"Everything!"

She got down the bed and moved out of the room. She didn't spare Karthik a second glance when she had left him. Yet, she hovered next to the door for a few seconds giving Ajay a chance to speak, keeping her pride aside. When he did not choose to answer, she resolved not to look back.

Ajay only looked out of the window and let her leave.

*****

It was nearly four months since her walkout from Ajay's apartment. Life just moved on, and she tried to cope up with all the dramatic changes. As soon as she reached her place that day, she broke down a little and cried herself to sleep.

She woke up refreshed and decided to put everything behind her.

Grieving about Karthik made sense since she invested close to six years of her life, but whatever relationship she had with Ajay was not something worth her time. She did admit to having developed a crush on him. It was just a crush which led nowhere.