Do Love Lasts?

chapter 11

“All you ever are is disappointed in me.”

━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━

Author’s POV

It was the weekend and as promised, Ananya decided to make the treats for Gautham. Since she has wasted all the required resources with the inedible cookies, she needs to go buy the ingredients. The biggest challenge is to do it without raising any suspicion among the family. 

Of course, she could have openly done her things and say the cookies are for her friends. However, that’s a risk she’s not willing to take. She’s worried and constantly overthinking what would happen if anyone found out she’s doing this for Gautham. She doesn't want anyone to misunderstand the situation.

She understands that Gautham is only her friend and nothing more, but it wouldn’t be the same thing to her family. Of course, having male friends is normal. In her case, it’s a hard to believe story. Ananya was never the one to mingle around casually with someone from the opposite gender. Plus, she rarely made the effort to make new friends. She was only stuck by the same old three people in her life. 

As the first step of her plan, Ananya cornered her niece in the living room, who was watching television. “Vithya, I promised you ice cream, didn’t I?” Ananya smiled brightly, hoping to trick her niece.

“We already went last week. You brought me and Hari.” Thivya spoke with her eyes fixated on the cartoon. 

Ananya’s smile faded in disappointment at how her niece cleverly dodged it. “We-we can bring Arun and Meera this time. Go get your brothers as well.” 

Thivya looked at her aunt suspiciously. Sure, her aunt likes to bring them out to have fun. However, on most occasions it’s them as a group urging her to go out, it’s never the other way around. 

“Adi Anna went to play football. I will get the others.” Thivya told her aunt and left to find her brother and cousins.

Five of them always go out together with Ananya. Now, the number has gone down to four, without Adithya. Ananya was missing the leader of the small group. She knew one day her eldest nephew will choose to go out with his friends rather than with his siblings. She didn’t expect it would happen this soon. 

It is true what they say, children grow up in a blink of an eye. 

.

.

At the store

The kids trailed behind Ananya, as she was looking up and down the shelf searching for the ingredients. She has successfully bought their silence with some toys. They each picked something fun, and Hari being Hari got himself a rubik's cube, for the fourth time as he kept losing it every time he got a new one. 

Ananya accidentally came across a packet of raisins on the shelf. The mere packet of dried fruit flashed a memory in her mind. It was the moment when Gautham fed her a piece of it, in the restaurant. Her fingers unconsciously went to her lips, reminiscing that moment. 

She recalled back the tension she felt in that short time; how she ate that raisin from the fork he was holding, whilst holding his tantalizing gaze. Instead of being grossed by the weird taste of raisin, she missed the sweetness of it.

“Atthai, how long do we have to wait here?” Thivya’s voice woke Ananya up. 

She quickly recovered herself from the daydream. Ananya picked the needed things quickly and moved to the next aisle, far from the raisins. And the memories that it evoked.

In order to make the plan foolproof, she bought some other stuff that was totally irrelevant for her cause. She spent fifteen minutes loitering around for random buys, she checked out the items at the counter and left for home.