Manan - Hold My Hand

Chapter 35

They reached a restaurant cafe and took a seat at a table and ordered themselves some coffee and pizza.

Nandini kept playing with the rim of her cup thinking of ways to break him the news of her dating Manik.

Ishaan was staring at her while having his coffee and sighed putting it down.

"Tell me.",Ishaan said watching her nervous for a while and she looked at him.

Taking a deep breath she composed herself and nodded.

"That day after I left with Manik we talked about my sudden confession and everything. He said we can try and I agreed.",She said keeping it short and watched his reaction.

"Oh",he said surprised and went on to drinking his coffee.

"You are the first person to know about it. We haven't even told any of our friends. I just wanted you to know. ",Nandini said confused at his less of reaction. She had expected him to react more than that.

He put his cup down and smiled at her. She could see him hurt behind that smile.

" I am happy for you. Honestly I still hoped that maybe we could get together some day but I probably deserved it for not sorting out my mess before approaching you. It was not fair to still have feelings for someone and show interest towards you. Trust me like I told you before during the beach getaway I am happy to see you have found your happiness with someone even if it's not me. Guess I will stick to messing with him to calm my rejected self.",Ishaan said with a smile joking in the end making Nandini chuckle a little too.

" You deserve the best and I know you are going to find your happiness soon. I don't mind you messing with him but I am not sure about if it won't affect your business.",Nandini said smiling at him and he looked at her curious.

" He won't bring our personal thing into business. Will he?",Ishaan asked scared a little and Nandini just shrugged in reply.

There was a silence and she looked at him.

" Tell me about her. I want to know your story.",She asked him and he looked at her hesitating before giving in.

" What do you want to know?",he asked getting comfortable and she looked at him surprised he agreed.

"Everything. From the start.",She said a little excited and he smiled.

"Our parents were family friends. Her parents were killed in a robbery when she was young. She somehow survived that incident. My parents took her in and we were inseparable since then. We grew up together. We were best friends. We would share everything with each other. We even gave each other our first kiss. We had plans about going to the same college and you know getting married when we were young. I was in love with her for as far as I remember and I thought she had the same feelings for me. We never really dated officially but it was like known to everyone around us that we liked each other.",Ishaan started the story with a smile on his face as he recalled those memories. Nandini smiled hearing him talk so passionately about her.

"We met Shravan during high school and they became friends. It was okay for a while we three used to hangout together and were good. When we joined college she changed. She would not spend as much time with me as she did before. She would always visit Shravan during her free time. I tried talking to her but she would avoid it and give an excuse. We were doing our Masters and were interning in my father's company at the same time so I thought it was work stress.",Ishaan said with a small frown on his face and Nandini was confused at Sia's sudden change in behaviour towards him.

"I gave her the space but it was hard staying away from her. I was very serious about us. Even my parents knew how crazy I was for her. I decided to propose her and you know make it official. It was long due anyway. I had everything planned out according to her dream date. I learnt to cook for her and made the special dinner. I was excited about it. I don't know what went wrong that day. She said she doesn't like me and we can't be together. I thought she was joking at first but she said she was serious and I was too shocked to even ask anything. Before I could wrap my mind around anything she left. I followed her and saw her with Shravan. Watching her in his arms broke my heart. I was crazy in love with her. So this rejection didn't settle well for me. I tried very hard to stay sane but couldn't. Her rejection didn't hurt as much as seeing her with Shravan did. I felt as if he backstabbed me. He knew about us still he came in between us. Things would have been good if not for him. I was very angry and I knew I needed to get away from her. I told my father that I will leave abroad and handle the work there. Sia was not happy with that decision. You see we kind of made promises to each other that we will start our own company and work together. We had made all the plans but it was too tough for me. We had an argument when I saw her trying to act like everything was good between us and she didn't break my heart. I said some mean things to her and left. During this 3 years I didn't make any contact with her. The first year was tough. I would stalk her profile and seeing her happy and with Shravan would kill me. So I started focusing more on work. I just left her a message on her birthday every year. Dad called me back to handle work here and I thought I was ready to put the past behind. When we met after 3 years, I pretended like nothing happened with us. We got back to being friends and working together. I never apologized for hurting her,she never explained. We never talked about the past until recently at that weekend party.", Ishaan explained her the full story while Nandini listened to him talk without asking any question in between.