Once Upon a University Campus

The One

Annika had been clutching Shivaay's arm ever since the revelation hit her. Maaya like Shivaay fell for Annika..She realised the futility and baselessness of her insecurities immediately. Should she hold herself guilty for having led on Maaya inadvertently by spending time with her at the party? But truth be told, she had genuinely liked Maaya's company and Maaya herself for the person she was and had assumed that Maaya was reciprocating similar sentiments. Should she blame herself for having found that Maaya happened to be the only woman in that party she could have had a meaningful conversation. Was it wrong on her part to have had a free conversation without knowing the sexual orientation of the person? She would not dance with a man she met for the first time the way she danced with Maaya or Payal for that matter. What would Shivaay be thinking of her when she was with Maaya all the time? Annika reeled under the burden of heavy thoughts. She tightened her grip on Shivaay's arm so much so that, Shivaay twitched. He gently pried open her grip, flung his arms on her shoulder and reassured her with a peck on her forehead. Resting against his heart, Annika found solace in his heartbeat.

It did not take her long to remember that not all love stories made it to the finish line. She was one of the lucky few but she had almost flung her lucky happy ending. She shuddered to think what might have been, had Shakti uncle not encouraged her to stand up for herself. A life without a man who meant so much to her, sure sounded like a nightmare.She clutched Shivaay's lapel to scrunch it without a care. She never wanted to repeat the same mistake, yet cautiously wanted to celebrate being one of the lucky few. Somehow staying close to Shivaay she wanted to make it clear that he was her happy ending, not Maaya not anyone else. Shivaay gently ran his hands over her back, half distracted with his emails. Annika felt slightly at ease but it was obvious that vacation mode Shivaay had turned off like a switch and he was back to work mode. She guessed it right that he would catch up on his work through the entire flight while she herself dozed.

"Mom.." Shivaay whispered softly, but Annika woke up nevertheless to find her head resting on his shoulder, her arm intertwined with his. Despite the uncomfortable posture, he had continued to work with his one free hand.

"I will do it right away...." Shivaay continued "Yes, Mom, Annika is with me." Shivaay looked at Annika fondly. "Hm.. will do it. You take care." Shivaay hung up on his mom. He turned to Annika and filled her in on the jist of the call.

"They are going to start work on our bedroom tomorrow. Mom reminded me to move my stuff from my closets.Our staff took care of the regular closets but the one with important stuff, I have to do it myself now that Mom is in Mumbai. Mom asked me to take your help. And she asked me to check with you if you needed any last minute changes to the plan. So Ms Trivedi, like it or not, you are coming with me." Shivaay grinned impishly.

Annika looked around and they were the last of the passengers onboard. They hurriedly disembarked and Mohan, who was waiting for them ferried them to Oberoi Mansion.

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Annika fetched those important files that Shivaay neatly arranged in a suitcase like box.

"This way it is fire and waterproof." Shivaay mentioned.

"Why are there so many hard copies ? Soft copies would be easier to store?" Annika commented to which Shivaay showed her an array of neatly cataloged flash drives.

"Sometimes we cannot help it." Shivaay shrugged. "Property papers, deeds and titles are not yet digitized entirely. Old tenders,work orders etc I have it scanned but we have to retain hard copies of the important ones. Everything can be simplified but then government works in its own inefficient way" Shivaay resecured a bundle of papers and placed it in the box.