MaNan ~Inevitably Together~

55• |Ceaseless altercations|

Driving towards Cabir's apartment had never felt so nerve-wracking because not every time Nandini met Manik there after a week or two.

Yes, two weeks had passed since the day that Manik walked out to catch a break from constant humiliation at his own house, courtesy his mother-in-law.

The first week passed cruelly slow because Nandini spent all those days hoping that Manik would come back while she heard her father try and persuade her mother to apologise to Manik but Avantika refused to bend. According to Avantika, she hadn't chased Manik out and it was his house to come back to so no one has to beg him to return. Nandini lost the will to even talk to her mother about this because it was obviously a dead end.

In the meanwhile, Manik did face tough times because for months now, he had forgotten how to live without Nandini but he also knew that he had to just so the last shred of his self-respect stays intact. His and Nandini's everyday phone calls at night helped him a great deal and the meeting at the restaurant twice in a week was a cherry on top.

Eventually, Manik had learnt to power through this but Nandini couldn't, given how the second week had passed for her. Viren and Avantika were constantly quarrelling at home and at the office no one seemed to even acknowledge the fact that she was ripped off all of her projects. She spoke to Manik every night but she couldn't bring herself to tell him about all the negative stuff because she felt that they only spoke for an hour in a day and she did not wish to spoil that time for them by talking about all these crappy events. She obviously failed to understand the drill because the point of talking to each other every night was to share with each other about everything that was going on.

Manik didn't have much going on for him except for his work which was right on track leaving him with nothing to share about other than the fact that how much he missed her, which he did not fail to express.

Nandini, on the other hand, kept herself from telling Manik about anything thus piling up a lot of shit inside her head. As every day rolled, it kept getting harder for her to maintain her calm since everything felt like it was getting out of hand.

As of now, Nandini was heading to Cabir's apartment for the get-together he had arranged for everyone which Nandini knew was solely for Manik and her to stay close to each other for a night. Cabir had arranged this because he could see the widening rift between the couple which Manik wasn't even aware of yet. Cabir understood that his best friend might need some knocking sense into his head, hence, the whole idea of tonight's get-together.

Nandini parked her car in a corner before getting out. She grabbed the bags with take-out dinner for everyone because Cabir had asked her to pick up dinner for everyone. She stood facing her car trying to contemplate that how was she going to take everything upstairs, lock the car, open the lift gate, all by herself. She had to begin somewhere so she picked up two bags and held it by her elbows and then carried the other two in her hand. She kicked the door shut and groaned since she conveniently forgot to get her phone from inside.

Nonetheless, she decided to get these bags upstairs and then she'll come back again to get her mobile. She was about to turn around to head to the building only to gasp out loud as she felt someone sliding their hands around her waist. She took a minute to realise that the person was taking the bags near her elbows to help her. She calmed down in a minute only to feel her breath get stuck in her throat because, she sensed the person leaving a long kiss on her cheek from the back.

If she thought that with time, she'd get used to their intimate encounters that it wouldn't startle her then she was highly mistaken because Manik managed to knock her out of her senses every single time.

"God, I miss you!" Manik mumbled that on her ears after pecking her cheek. This guy was definitely going to be the death of her.

"I do too!" she managed to whisper it back to him.