Arranged Enough?

Chapter 2: Someone New

Neha's POV 

"Heyy, did you hear about the new chick in sales?" Sheetal comes to my desk and whispers. 

"I'm really busy right now Sheetal. Plus what is this language? Be respectful! What's this chick and all?" I personally feel that unless you get to know someone, you shouldn't use such demeaning words for them, yes, I consider 'chick' a demeaning word. Heck, even after you get to know them, you should just mind your own business and let them be. 

"Yeah? You're so busy that you can even let her steal away your future husband?" Well, this obviously catches my attention. 

"First of all, he's not my 'future husband' and he's a free bird, he can talk to anyone. The world is his oyster." The thought of him talking to a girl definitely interests me. But why should I care? It's his life, he can do whatever he wants. Besides that, it could just be a professional conversation between two colleagues. Not that it is any of my concern. 

"Fine! You keep filling your excel sheets and bam! After a few days she might start living next door to you!" Sheetal says and storms away to her seat. 

I start feeling a little weird about what Sheetal said. How would I feel when he gets married? I'll obviously go to his wedding, he's my immediate neighbour afterall and our parents have also become very good friends in such a short period of time. 

What would happen to our daily banters? I would like to admit, I have become habitual of his bullets of sarcasm. If he gets married, his full attention will be on his wife and it wouldn't be appropriate for us to have such childish interactions anymore. We aren't even friends. What are we?

Ughhh... whatever it is. I have a lot of work to do and I need to stop thinking about these stupid things. 

The work hours end soon and it is finally time to go home. I'll probably be able to tease him about the new girl. I smile to myself thinking about the sentences I can throw at him. 

"So, ready to go home with you knight in a shining armour?" Sheetal chirps. 

"You really need to stop reading smut. I need that ride back home to be as peaceful as a monastery." I say, trying really hard to act like the mention of this new girl isn't bothering me.

We say bye to each other and I walk towards the parking lot.

I reach that car and I'm about to open the door for the passenger's seat. Just then, I see someone's already seated in the front seat. I don't recognize that face.

Suddenly that nameless woman chirps, "Oh hi you must be Neha! I'm Pihu!  Sarthak will be back in a second. Actually I'm new to the city so he generously offered to drop me home."

Pihu! Huh! She's probably the mystery woman Sheetal was talking about today. Pihu, such a short name. He Pihu what's your nickname? Pi? Aaaaa Neha, even if it's just in your thoughts, why are you being so mean?

"Is everything okk?" Pihu says. And I realise that I hadn't even bothered to reply her. Heck! I was just spacing out! Aaa I still am spacing out!

"No no nothing's wrong, nice to meet you. I'm Neha, and you already know that lol!" I awkwardly say and leave to sit in the backseat, silently.

Just then Sarthak comes and sits in the driver's seat. He looks briefly in my direction but directs the beginning of a conversation towards the new girl. "I believe you've already met."

"Yes! In fact I heard a lot about Neha ma'am. Everyone was saying that she's very diligent." I smile at the praises but ma'am? Seriously? She didn't call me ma'am earlier, this pretentious bitch. Aaaa Neha stop being so mean!

"Yeah! Neha is one of the most professional people you'll meet here." Sarthak said. Wow, surprisingly, his tone wasn't sarcastic, for the first time in ages. I respond with just a smile again. 

Over the whole ride, both of them keep talking and talking and talking. And I just sit as quietly as ever, feeling left out, feeling like all the attention I was getting till this morning is now very quickly getting transferred to someone else.

After something that felt like a millennium, we finally reach pihu's house. She gets off the car and we say bye to her.

"Come to the front seat na!" Sarthak says.

"I don't like to occupy other people's seats." I retort.

"What do you mean?" He says, looking at my reflection in the rear view mirror.

"I mean, she was sitting there next to you. How can I dare to destroy the sanctity of that seat now?" I say, here comes the first sarcastic bomb of the ride.

"I don't understand what you are saying. It would have been fine even if you sat in front and she sat in the back." Yeah, of course.

And that's exactly what I say. "Yeah, of course." He doesn't say anything.

We reach home and I'm about to get off. But he locks the doors.

"What are you doing?" I ask raising an eyebrow.

"Why are you pissed?" He asks. Huh, I'm not pissed.

"I'm not." Umm, am I lying?

"Cut the crap Neha. You were clearly pissed the whole ride and then you even refused to sit in the front seat which you usually love." He turns to face me.

"You want to know the truth!? You, you annoy me, you piss me, your existence is the reason of all the problems in my life." Shit, what am I saying? Noooo! I don't mean it!!

Actual hurt was evident in his eyes. I want to tell him that I don't mean any of these things but no words manage to escape my mouth. It's not a fun banter we have daily.

"Let me tell you a truth now." He says, seeing right in my eyes.

"I don't know why you started throwing those sarcastic lines at me. Maybe because I had more similarities with your father than you ever did. When we moved next door, I wanted to be friends with you. But I don't know, you started hating me. And then I realised, the best way to keep talking to you was to give savage comebacks to whatever you said. And it was going good till now, wasn't it? But I guess you actually despise me. Trust me, I won't bother you from now on. And my car will never be parked in front of your gate." He says, as seriously as ever and I, just couldn't say anything.

I get off the car and go home. I go straight to my room and crash on my bed. Why? Why did I say all those mean things to him?

Academically speaking, he did have more similarities with my father than I ever did and could ever have. I was always... Jealous of him.

Oh my god, I tortured him so much. He was so nice to me at first. It was me, it was always me. I started talking like that to him.

And here's another chapterrrr! Thank you so much for 200 reads in less than 24 hours, it genuinely means a lot. Please like, comment, add the book to your reading list and follow me if you like this chapter and my books in general. The next chapter will be up tomorrow. Love you all <3