The grey canvas

📌Chapter 12- seperated, for not more than few hours

Nitara:

"The first day of our livein! Don't you think we should celebrate it?" Kshitiz spoke to me in an over gleeous tone as he made himself comfortable on the couch.

"Whatever makes you happy." I replied. For the sake of courtesy. And yeah, added my trademark fake smile too.

"What happened? Why are you sulking?" Little touch of concern was there in his voice. Good that he noticed my frowns atleast!

"I am not sulking." I lied with a straight face.

"Is it so? Orrrrr....." he dragged the word purposely to irritate me more and stopped only when he saw my frustrated glares. "Or is it that you are missing Dev?" He completed his sentence.

Missing? Like hell Kshitiz! I can't even describe!!

I was here to make him jealous, to give him pains. But things have turned opposite. Here I am the one suffering while he is there at his home, enjoying his morning tea and painting his canvas grey!

No. Wait.. what about the tea? Who made it for him? Jamna?? But she is not allowed to right? Dev prefers his tea only from my hands!

Oh! Damn you Tara! You are still fussing over that cup of tea when you whole life is literally at stake?!! ...for god's sake Tara, GROW UP. Grow up and stop being impulsive. Its not going to take you anywhere....
I chided myself and focussed upon Kshitiz. He was expectedly looking at me for an answer, inspite of knowing that my real answer was just meant to fuel up his angers and make him feel worthless about himself!

"I am not missing him." I lied again. In a clear voice. So that he couldn't catch my pretence.

But I failed.

"You can stop lying. I won't judge you if you accept the truth." He smiled meekly.

"Why will I miss him Kshitiz? Who was he??" I said as if Dev existed nowhere in my priority list.

"He was the man whom you lived with in the past three years!" Kshitiz replied.

"Correction. We didn't live together. We lived in seperate rooms and met only for breakfast and dinner.. we were more like strangers and you know that."

"Are you explaining me or yourself?" He gave a sheepish look that left me mortified for two good minutes.

He was right, whom was I fooling? Him or me??

"Aren't we wasting time Kshitiz? You were supposed to plan something for celebrating this day, remembered?" I went back to my acting mood and faked an excitement.

"You're changing the topic!" He accused me calmly.

"No. I am just going back to the original topic." I replied innocently and flickered my puppy eyes.

"Fine. I give up. So now tell, what do you wanna do? Hangout somewhere and then go for shopping and lunch? What say?? I am already free for the day."
He had taken a leave in my honour!

"No. I was thinking that.. why not celebrate it at home itself? Watch a movie and have good food? We can order something from the nearby restuarant or if you say I can do the cooking for you." I offered him the deal so that I could get a little time in staying away from him, out of his sight.

Tolerating this man for the next 24hours had already started giving me jitters!

"I am not Dev that I won't allow you to cook in my kitchen. You can do whatever you want to. Cooking.. baking..experimenting... but today, lets just simply order something." He suggested and I nodded mindlessly. Dev's name and the kitchen memories related to him, had turned my world upside down for a moment. Kshitiz's next question brought me back to reality. "Indian or chinese??" He asked.