Promised Love

27. Love is like Fire

Abhimanyu's POV

Sometime in the afternoon I had received a call from Shanaya. I had taken two deep breathes before picking it up because I had no idea why she was calling. It' had been more than a week since we'd broken up and that was the first time I had heard from her since.

"Hey..." I had said.

"I was going to text but then i thought what the hell, let me just Rip the band aid off right?" She laughed, "Anyway, I called to let you know that there are a few of your things in my house. Feel free to drop by and pick them up."

"I....yeah. Sure okay." I won't lie I hadn't expected her to say that. Knowing Shanaya I thought she was going to burn whatever stuff of mine she found in her place. But she surprised me.

The call had been brief and to the point and she had hung up in a jiffy. So now as I stood in front on her flat waiting for her to open the door, I was fidgeting with nerves. I haven't had many girlfriends in my life, let alone exes and out of the two exes I have apart from Shanaya, I've never met even either of them after our break up. So I have no idea how this works.

Shanaya opens the door dressed in her sleeping shorts and t shirt. Her face is bare of makeup.
"You're here." She states.

"Hi." I say awkwardly.

"Come in." She invites, "I've put all your things in a box over there." The box she is talking about is a small cardboard box sitting idly next to her sofa.
I walk towards it and pick it up without even bothering to check the items.

She raises an eyebrow, "You aren't going to check the contents?"

"No. I am good." I smile tightly. The more I stand in her apartment, the more flashes of the night we broke up start infiltrating my brain.
Shanaya crying. Blaming me for being a jerk, for never loving her.
Smeared mascara. The slap she had hit me with and then cried some more because she was embarrassed that she slapped me.

She shrugs, "Alright."

We stand in a painful silence for merely thirty seconds before I decide to just ask her. "How are you?"

"I've been better." She answers.
"You?"

"Same."

Her lips curve in a sad smile. "Listen...I wanted to apologise. For the other day. I am sorry I slapped you. I was just...I was-"

I jump to interrupt her. "It's okay. You don't have to. I deserved it. I've not been a great boyfriend to you the last couple of months and with everything I said that night....it was fair you'd be mad."

Another flash of that night crosses my mind. "I am sorry but I can't do this anymore. You deserve better than me, Shanaya." I had confessed to her that me and Saanvi had kissed and despite that she said she was ready to forgive me. But I couldn't forgive myself.

"Abhimanyu are you even listening to me. I said its okay. I don't care as long as you promise you love me. Just say it and we can move past it." She cried.

I shook my head. Knowing that my next words would crumble her.
"I....It's not right to you."

"Do you love me or not?" She asks again. Her eyes wide with alarm. Shanaya is smart and she understands why I am trying to skirt around the question but it's obvious she doesn't want to believe it.

"I do. But...but it's not like before...." I admit. Shanaya deserves better than me. She does.

Her laugh is bitter. "I knew it. I knew you were going to leave me for her. I knew it, dammit. I always knew it. You love her, don't you?"