Silver Lining | Grooms #3

XI. No Refund

By far, it had been the longest week of Esha's life.

She had woken up the following morning when her alarms went off starting from 5 am so she could get to work at 7. She had walked out to find Nikhil on the couch. Hearing the creak of the door when she had opened it, he had woken up. She had been surprised that he hadn't gone to his place, and when he had asked how she felt, he had also told her he'd sent Camille a message from her phone informing that she wasn't feeling well. She wanted to scold him for making that decision for her, but he hadn't given her a chance, telling her she would probably receive Camille's call any second when Camille would wake up and read it.

She made a mental note to put a passcode on her phone - everyone always told her but she never bothered. And that was also because no one ever took the liberty to send a message from her phone.

True to it, she had received her call ten minutes later, when she had decided to try and not go off at him because of his kindness last night when she wasn't feeling well. She had made him tea and had thus decided that was where they were even now – that she didn't need to feel as if she owed him a favor for that.

He had understood as well that she had been trying to control her tongue, so he had accepted the offer for tea and without any more words exchanged, had left.

Esha had thought about telling Camille that after waking up, she felt better, but she didn't think she was in the right frame of mind to go back to work after last night. She needed time to reel from it, make sense of it. So, when Camille offered to allow her to take a sick day, Esha accepted it with gratitude and thanked her, offering Camille in return that if she could do anything from home, she was free to email it to her.

Camille hadn't.

That had left her with roughly 24 hours to do nothing, but think.

Friday, when she reported to work, she was hoping for things to go back to the way they were before the trip.

But, Camille wanted to know every detail of the trip. Esha tried her to best to stick to the description of the sites, since that was work related, but every now and then, Camille tried to ask about Nikhil. For instance. "So how was Nick, you know, outside of business attires and meetings?"

"Clothes don't change how people act." Esha commented, believing that, for she had seen it with Arjun. No matter what clothes he wore, an branded suit or a casual shirt from a normal shop with no brand, he was the same person.

"Well, what was his personality like then?"

"I wasn't there to focus on that, Camille." Esha tried to steer the conversation away from him, "Anyway, I have to write up a report on the trip. I'll see you later."

Esha opened a blank word document and started to type it up. Camille, however, didn't leave the cubicle. She assessed for the next two minutes, before concluding.

"You're different."

"I thought you left." Esha commented, looking up and finding her still there.

"Nope, now if I can just figure out what is different about you..."

"The difference is that unlike you, when I come to work, I come to work, not to gossip and waste time like yours truly."

Camille shrugged, "Well, atleast your sarcasm and witty comments are intact."

"Just go, Camille. I've got tons to do since I took a day off yesterday. I don't intend on having to stay past my work hours today."

It was their last day working, before the office was closing for Christmas. It was going to reopen on Tuesday, the 27th, and then close for one day again, New Year, before going back to normal hours.