Strings Of Love

Chapter 36

Shehnaaz looked at her phone, there was a text from Sidharth she saw through the notification bar instead of reading the chat that had been pending since yesterday, she knew it was another movie suggestion.

"Pagal ho jaungi mai ek din." She thought about him, a friend, a best friend she knew fairly well. They have been through some stuff together, well mostly him, he had been with her through her hard times more than she had. And under these circumstances, there was no reason she couldn't still be friends with him since she had a crush on him. It depended mostly on her, their friendship. She could manage to be friends with him, more or less the way she was before, without her romantic feelings getting in the way and staying in close contact with him did not prevent her from moving on with her life and finding someone else to love; then things would have been fine.

That was the problem, she had tried dating other people and it didn't work out. She even made sure she met other guys to provide herself with ample opportunity to fall in love elsewhere. Because hanging out only with the guy she had a crush on was a bad idea. She made sure she had accepted Sidharth's no for an answer and respected his decision, not going around and hoping that he would change his mind. It was not that it would never happen but it was a rare thing and waiting for it was a rather extremely stupid thing to do. That would not only prove to be potentially destructive both for her love-life and for her friendship as well. She somewhere accepted  that it was always going to be a friendship and could never be anything more than that. As far as she had seen and heard from people, good friendships could survive if everything else was taken care of. She thought she would get over this crush someday but when they got to spend time together, she couldn't help falling for him. 

Anyway, the good thing was that things weren't unnecessarily awkward. She wasn't ashamed of her feelings for him, nor was there any reason he needed to feel ashamed for not feeling the same way. Sometimes the chemistry worked out and sometimes it didn't, there was no shame in that.

"Kaha khoyi hui hai madam? Ja aunty bula rahi hai!" Vicky told her, she was in the kitchen decorating a cake.

"Hm." She nodded.

"Bulaya aap ne aunty." She asked Mary.

"Ha, ye le tere Diwali ka bonus aur 24th ko Sprinkles aana hai, first half me, aur rangoli banani hai." Mary replied. Shehnaaz giggled, nodding her head.

"Bindu ghar ja rahi hai isliye jaldi chhuti mang rahi hai kal, tu toh nahi ja rahi na?" Mary asked.

"Nahi aunty." She shook her head, not having any plans this Diwali. Her family was out of question and sister out of touch. While going back into the kitchen she thought if she should call Amrit, for how long were they going to be like this.

"Yeh le tere Sidharth ke cupcakes ready hai, pack kar de." Bindu broke her out of her thoughts and gave her a tray full of choco chip cupcakes.

"Kuch zyada nahi bol rahi tu?" Shehnaaz turned to her friend, raising her brows sharply.

Sidharth on the other hand was getting Diwali gifts distributed among his employees. "Sir, mai jau? Dhanteras ki liye kuch lene jana hai." His secretary, Diya asked.

"Ha, ha jao. Apna packet le liya?" He replied.

"Nahi sir." She shook her head.

"Lelo, aao." He said, walking towards the boxes and picking out one for her.

"Happy Diwali sir and thank you." She smiled, taking it from him.

"Happy Diwali to you too." He smiled back.

"Jaldi aane bola tha Mom ne! Kaha hai tu? Mere cupcakes lana mat bhoolna!" Preeti called him, a lil later.

"Arey gifts dilwa raha tha, time lag gaya. Nikal raha hu." He replied, wrapping up his work to leave for his mother's place not before stopping at Sprinkles.