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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.
"Only if this wasn't a parking lot and that too of someone else's building, I would have demonstrated exactly how much I've missed you." Manik's comment managed to colour her cheeks with a dark shade of red.
"Don't say things like that!" Nandini said closing her eyes as she let her head linger on his chest for a bit. Manik pressed another kiss on the top of her head since it was too easy to do that because of their vast difference in height of which he was so thankful about in the moment.
"Let's go upstairs. Cabir must be waiting." Nandini suggested after five minutes of ecstasy passed.
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After Nandini's arrival at Cabir's apartment, Cabir decided to leave the couple alone for some time and left to pick up Navya from her place. Manik and Nandini got to spend time with each other after such a long time and it was only because of Cabir.
As of now, Nandini was in Cabir's kitchen preparing extra Rajma-chaval apart from the takeout dinner she had already picked up for everyone for two reasons- one was that she had promised Cabir during their trip to Pune that she'll make it for him the next time they hangout and also because it had been nearly two weeks since Manik had anything to eat that was prepared by her.
Manik, obviously, did not wish to miss even a single moment of their time so he stuck beside her in the kitchen. Nandini was finally happy after a long time to cook because she could do anything and everything without an utterly annoying Avantika on her trail.
"We're almost done with this project so Dhruv wants us to hand it over by this Saturday but I feel like something is missing. I don't exactly know what it is yet but it is something. This is the first project I'm working on after so many months and I just want it to be the best." Manik expressed about his work while he watched her pour out the rajma gravy into a serving bowl.
"Well, I don't know if it'd be the best or not but I'm sure that you've put in your hundred percent so they'll definitely love your work." Nandini replied and handed over the tray of juice to Manik while she picked up the plates and bowls for them to carry it out to the dining table.
And just like every other conversation they had that day even this one ended shortly. Manik kept bringing up various things to start a conversation about but Nandini restricted herself to a single reply and refused to share her part of the story about the same topic.
"Okay, that's enough!" Manik felt frustrated and thus couldn't hold himself back from yelling that alongside slamming the water bottle on the dining table. Nandini was startled due to his actions so she turned to face him with a surprised look on her face.
"Wh... What is enough?" Nandini questioned in a low voice.
"I know that leaving our house and leaving you alone there to deal with everything wasn't my best move but I thought we agreed that we'd make this work. Then why is it that you're so hell-bent on making it more difficult?" Manik interrogated with vexation evident on his face.
"Did I say something to tip you off?" Nandini questioned with confusion because she obviously did not feel like she had done anything that was wrong.
"That is the problem Nandini, that you DON'T say anything at all. You've stopped talking to.... No no no.... Let me rephrase that- you've stopped talking to me about things that actually matter or even make sense." he muttered with a little anger.
"Tha.... That's not exactly true!" Nandini's voice was so low that for a moment, Manik felt like he was imagining her say that.
"Hah... You're funny! Please, just please try and enlighten me about one thing that you shared with me of significant value that has happened to you in these last two weeks." Manik's tone almost edged into mockery before coming back on track.
"I... Well... Why are we fighting?" Nandini ended up asking a question for a question when she couldn't fathom appropriate sentences as a reply to his question.
"There you go with escaping a confrontation again." Manik remarked with an audible sigh.
"Fine! I admit it. It's been difficult for me to tell you things but it's only because this way of our living is too bizarre for me to adjust into." Nandini somehow managed to confess that because she felt too tired to put on the charade while being in his physical presence. It was too damn hard to not tell him stuff when he was right in front of her compared to that of when they only spoke over the phone.
"The trick to adjusting into this is simply tell each other everything whenever we speak. If you understand that then our issues might be solved." Manik stated simply which slightly aggravated Nandini. Talking to him about everything might feel like sharing the weight but it certainly wouldn't solve anything for her. Talking wasn't going to get her all her lost projects at work, neither was it going to make her mother bearable and neither was it going to make their physical separation feel less painful. Just talking wasn't going to even remotely solve any of these issues. Sometimes it requires more than mere talking to untangle the mess one has created.
"Speak for yourself. It might solve your problems but I don't think it is the same for me." Nandini stated trying to not let any expression show on her face, in an effectively cold voice.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Manik quizzed feeling a little offended by her tone.
"It means that I didn't talk to you because clearly I don't think that chatting with you about my problems over a phone call is going to help me in anyway." Nandini did not say anything too bad but her way of saying it was undoubtedly very hurtful.
"I cannot believe this is how you're turning all of it on me like everything was my fault alone!" Manik exclaimed with disbelief that Nandini didn't seem to care much about. She agreed that Manik was subject to a lot of humiliation by her mother that made him take this drastic step but she was the one who had to bear the consequences of his action. So, it did not seem fit for him to be complaining about everything to her while she had been enduring all that bullshit.
That exclamation was followed by a brief moment of silence and in the middle of it, sometime, the doorbell went off indicating the arrival of their friends which also meant that their private time was up which they had wasted away by choosing to end it with a nasty quarrel.
"I don't think that any of them needs to know about things between us so let's pretend like nothing's happened, at least, for the rest of tonight." Nandini asserted with a tone of finality to which Manik couldn't agree more so he silently nodded as a gesture of agreement.
Then, Nandini moved forward to open the door to have Cabir, Navya, Dhruv and Alya enter.
"The aroma of your food! I'm hungry already." Cabir said that as the first thing after they entered the apartment making Nandini smile and rest of them rolled their eyes at the foodie being a big-time foodie.
"It does smell amazing." Alya seconded Cabir with a smile and set the crate of beer bottles on the teapoy beside to the one that Dhruv just dropped.
"Mukti called an hour ago saying that she had locked up her studio so she will also be here any minute now. I'll get the movie plugged in. You guys set up the seating area." Manik suggestively said and skidded off to the guest bedroom (the one he was currently staying in) to get the pendrive.
"Please tell me your husband hasn't picked a horror film for us to watch?" Navya frowned while asking that to Nandini who just chuckled in response knowing that it was exactly what her husband might have been up to.
"I'm out then!" Navya whined and turned back to door intending to go back the way she came in only to be held back by Cabir who had clutched her wrist in his hold.
"Cut the scene, Madhubala! Your hero is here to protect you." Cabir said dramatically.
"Oh, I wanna puke!" Alya exclaimed at the ongoing drama.
"Why? Did Dhruv knock you up finally?" Cabir's blunt question earned himself a flying cushion aimed at him by Alya while the rest of them laughed at the bickering do duo while also settling on their places to watch the movie.
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"Now that Mukti is here..... Dhruv and I have some exciting news!" Alya grabbed everyone's attention towards herself and Dhruv. All of them were seated around the round coffee table after they ate their dinner. Manik was almost about to put the movie on, when Alya chipped in.
"You are actually pregnant?" Navya questioned with a shocked look making Cabir chuckle at that. Cabir made that joke a while ago and it still did not stop being funny to him but he knew that his girlfriend wasn't joking afterall.
"Navyaaa! No, I'm not pregnant. What is wrong with you two?" Alya whined while asking a rhetorical question to Navya and Cabir. The rest of them chuckled at the scene.
"Relax, babe. The news is that Alya and I got engaged, last night." Dhruv broke their news with a huge grin as he showed everyone the ring on Alya's finger that he might have given her after proposing to her. They expected their friends to break into cheer and congratulate them but what happened was exactly opposite of that.
It looked like Dhruv had dropped a bomb on all of them except for Nandini who smiled at them fondly. The rest of them directly averted their attention to Manik. No matter, how normal things had started to feel between the three of them, the fact remained that Dhruv and Alya had betrayed Manik's trust, in the past. So, this news couldn't possibly be just a happy occasion for the group. Even if they were happy for the couple, they felt like it was their moral obligation towards Manik to hold back from reacting before he does. Although, Nandini had no clue that this could affect Manik because she thought that if he had moved on with her and was comfortable around them, then there was nothing to be upset about this news.
"Congratulations, guys!" Nandini was the first one to say something and since she was sitting next to Alya, she even reached out to give her a hug. Others slipped out of the trance on hearing her voice and got up to congratulate the couple but Manik remained seated on the couch.
After sharing all the hugs, Dhruv and Alya looked over at Manik, expectedly. He realised that everyone awaited his reaction so he got up.
"Congratulations! I don't think I'm up for a movie. You guys continue, I'm going to turn in for the night." Manik muttered quickly in order to hide his disappointment at which he did a pretty bad job and disappeared into the guest bedroom of Cabir's apartment.
On Manik's abrupt exit, a hush fell over the living room, leaving everyone clueless of how to react to Manik's reaction.
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