Silent Love

| 26 |

Shehnaaz

“You did what?” His all too familiar voice greeted my ears. I grimaced upon detecting the tone of his voice. This was precisely what I was worried about.

“I've actually had lunch with her.” I winced further while uttering the words for I knew all too well how they were going to mess with his head.

“Are you kidding me?” His voice was borderline angry. Hearing him, I slowly began to grow worried for myself. Shit, what have I done?

I lauded my decision to have walked away from Deepika’s hearing range before I called him from the balcony in her flat I didn’t know what I'd do if they had heard his shriek from the phone. It would have been very awkward and difficult to maintain my composure in our course of conversation.

“Sidharth, please don’t be angry with me,” I muttered, feebly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

I heard him sigh from the other end, and after a few seconds pause, he replied, “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to use that tone. And ’m not angry with you.” After another pause, he pried. “Tell me what happened.”

Nodding to myself, I recalled my encounter with her earlier in the day whilst I narrated it to him, “I had bumped into Mansi in the hospital today. She had come to talk with Dr.Khanna. She wanted the medical reports as she intended to start seeing another doctor for her mother, and since I was on her case, Dr.Khanna had asked me to help her out with the proceedings. And one thing led to another, and she asked me if I could go to lunch with her.”

“And what did you say? How did she seem while she made that request?”

“Well, she didn’t sound like she was requesting me. I think she assumed I wouldn’t have a problem with having a meal with her since it was already lunchtime. I denied her request
at the beginning but she was just... highly insisting me on it. I was worried that if I still didn’t give in, she’d grow suspicious of me so I thought let’s just get this over with.”

“What did she want to do with you?” He asked and I realised that he was, in fact, channeling his annoyance at her.

“Nothing in particular. We started off by discussing her mother’s prognosis. I had asked her why she wanted to start seeing another doctor but she seemed a little annoyed with my prying so I quickly apologized for it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t even the slightest bit intimidated by her because I was. Maybe that’s driving me to say this but I think she has an ulterior motive behind lunching with me.”

I heard him reel in a deep breath. “Of course, she does.” His voice was so cold that it almost pricked my hair on my skin to stand erect. Gone was his cheerful tone I grew so fond of. Now my least favourite one had returned. “Did you talk about anything else of significance?”

“She asked me about you.”

“What about me?”

“They were all peculiar questions. She asked me if you treat me well, and if you’re happy with the marriage. I mean, if it were someone else in her place, I’m sure I would’ve asked her to piss off.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I didn’t, don’t worry.” I sighed, “She asked me to tell you to have fun in Mumbai. I omitted ”

“No..” He growled in frustration, “You told her that I’m in Mumbai?”

I frowned, “yes.”

“Shehnaaz, what the fuck?” I heard him release a frustrated sigh from the other end. “Why would you do that?”

I was at a loss of words to explain my circumstance. Didn't he just declare that he wasn’t angry with me? Yelling at me doesn’t exactly prove it. “You’d rather she knew it from some other source? I was sitting right there. If I had lied ”