This Time, Her Turn [Completed]

Chapter 31

It wasn't long before Geetha found Ramit back on the ground floor again, when he came to pack up and put his laptop inside. They were going to leave early that evening, in an hour or so.

She walked to him and said, "Stop being like this. I feel tired." She had to say it. How long was she going to waste her time, mentally tiring herself out and exhausting her mind?

Ramit stopped. "Then, who's stopping you? I am not."

His low voice and calm eyes got on her nerves and she barely understood. "Speak properly."

"Leave when it's no longer convenient. Leave whenever you want to."

She started counting sheep in her head. Oh, how she wanted to kick him and beat him up!

After a while she asked with the most pleasing tone, "Do you want to change that reply?"

"No. By the way, you should stop acting like this. Maybe that's what is tiring you out. You don't have to butter up my mom. Or me."

This time she was silent. She only replied at some point during their journey through a text. 'I never did that. I am not buttering you up. You've been calling it an act since the accident, but it is not.'

Sitting right next to her, Ramit ignored her and her text. When his phone lit up showing her name, he simply pressed a button to make the screen go dark and turned away from her to watch other vehicles zooming past them.

Unable to do much, she waited for them to be home.

As soon as they stepped in and closed the door, she said, "I am not buttering maa up! Even if I am, I will probably do it all my life!" Her face was aggrieved and her eyes misty. He had not just ignored her through the ride, he ignored her even during dinner they had with their friends just then.

"Really? Okay." He shrugged.

It was the first time she heard such a nonchalant response from him. Her fists clenched and her lips quivered. Moments passed. Unable to take it anymore she cried.

Flustered, he said, "Stop crying!"

"I won't!" she said, her words not very clear. She went into the bedroom and shut the door. She felt better when she kept her embarrassment to herself. After a serious session of crying, she calmed down.

As she lay facing the ceiling, she started assessing herself. Was she in fact just acting? She did not know. She never thought about it. She just loosened up and so, was herself around her mother-in-law. It was the same with him. She felt as if their friendship, which was put on hold, since they no longer met so frequently after he completed school, was back.

But it appeared insincere to him.

∼•∽

The next day, not a word was exchanged. She wanted to talk to him. But when she noticed him avoiding her, she decided not to push it and tried not to stand in front of him with a thick skin. She decided to go out for lunch.

Sun went down and came up with no improvement in their situation. Geetha's thought's weighed her down.

On their ride back, she spoke up. "Listen, I need to know if you'll be happy if we did indeed divorce."

Ramit clenched his jaw into a tight smile. "You really thought you're doing me a favour being with me all this time, didn't you?"

The chip in her brain burned away. "What?"

"I don't need your pity. I don't even need you, damn it!"

"I have no pity for you," she stated, although she did not understand what was wrong with that. "I am grateful."