Treaded Miles : Her Story [On Hold]

Chapter 9

I bit on my lip, debating whether to disturb him or not. He was working and I knew he didn't like getting interrupted in his studies. His mother had told me that. It was then I learnt why he probably decided to shift his stuff into another room. 

He might not want me to disturb him and he might not want to disturb me too at the same time. He stayed awake till late, his schedule was chaotic and his timings were infrequent. He often came home late after I had gone to sleep and he left the house before I woke up. 

He must've understood that in order to keep up with his schedule, my own routine was being compromised. But, somewhere in my heart, I knew the brooding nature and workload weren't the only reason behind his indifferent attitude. We didn't give time to one another. We hardly talked, much less touched our naughty bits. There was nothing romantic and pink between us like the other newlyweds. 

It felt like we both ran our lives individually, like we were pushed under the load of responsibilities and we had begun to ignore one another's presence in the middle of fulfilling those duties. But, it was important to break the ice. I was here for him. I needed to take the burden off his shoulders. 

Through the small gap in the door, I saw him reading the reports with uttermost concentration that he didn't even notice me. I was lingering on the door for about a whole minute now and he didn't even sense my presence. As much as it hurt me, it also encouraged me to make my own place in his life so that he'd get close to me and share his heart. 

"Hey, may I come in?" With a smile, I softly knocked on the door and he looked up. The flawless smoothness of his forehead tore into a couple of frown lines. "Yes?"

Despite noticing that he didn't invite me in, I gingerly set a foot inside and tried to initiate a conversation. "Um, what are you doing?" 

He gazed at me for a second with a taut expression, "Work!" 

"Oh!" I blinked. Pressing my lips together, I tried to find another way to talk to him. I didn't know how to activate an 'on' mode in him when he was seemingly cutting all the initiatives with his curt replies. But, I tried again. "I was thinking … uh, going grocery shopping. I saw we are running short on some of the essentials. So, will that be fine? I mean, um, we should go buy those things."

"Reena will take care of that." He gave me another succinct reply and bent his head in the report again. 

"Why?" I banged my eyebrows together, slightly offended that he was still relying on the maid. "When I'm here, why does she need to take care of these kinds of things? I will handle it."

"Okay!" He didn't argue and continued to do his work. I stayed there and toyed with a pen kept over his book. His gaze quickly flickered on my hand from above the paper for a brief second before it went back to reading. "Do you have something else to say?" 

"Yes!" I cleared my throat. My mouth kept watering in nervousness. I didn't know why his presence always overwhelmed me. I couldn't get a grip on my emotions. Fear, excitement, anticipation and longing; all of it made me tipsy. I would always fumble and twiddle with my thumbs in front of him. 

"What?" He demanded and I rolled my tongue in my mouth before pasting a big smile on my face. "It's been two weeks since we came here. I have a lot of stuff to buy. I was also thinking of adding some aesthetic touches on the drawing hall, and…"

"Pratiksha!" He stopped me, closing his eyes and dropping the report on the table like he was drained of energy. "Your point, please!"