Yours, truly - Part 7

Recap: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

For the first time in the day, her eyes were fixed on him without a blink. He sensed she must be furious with a feeling of being manipulated, but he knew he would never do that to anyone, her in particular. By now he'd figured out there will not be those magical bells, showers from sky or anything else that will tell him he needs to stop making this about her but make it about them. He would rather he bring it under control.

Giving his mom a hard smile and trying to look only at Anjali, "Anjali, this is my mom. Gautham's mom and she are childhood friends. Mom, this is Anjali. And no, we just met, haven't had a chance to speak to her yet. Why don't you go find aunty, she was missing you all day? I'll talk to you after dinner" and nudged her away from the podium still with his eyes pleading guilty to Anjali. She looked blank, not cold, not perplexed, but just blank as a wall indeed. When his mom was out of an arm's distance, he quickly grabbed Anjali’s and before he could say anything, she hurried "I had a good time today, but thank god for getting this done in a day! I have to take the first flight out in the morning, so thanks for the company. Nice meeting you. Now if you may..", smiled bright and got herself out of his space and excused herself from others. Shreya didn't want to stop her but just managed to get dinner delivered to her room.

She couldn't get herself to sleep, mainly because she didn’t want to miss the shuttle to the airport, and maybe because this time she had hoped to not hide from the reality when it happens. She wanted to go back upstairs to catch a glimpse of the ocean at night, but what if he was expecting her to be there. Or what if he didn't and she went anyways and it was all in her head, but there would at least be a view to clear the mind. She fought hard for an hour but finally managed to sneak upstairs for the view, with or without him. She was leaving in the morning and didn't plan on coming back again just for its serenity.

He heard someone stepping up the stairs and almost instantly knew it was her. He didn’t want to assume she was looking for him and wanted her to enjoy the calmness of the ocean alone, like he did for the last two hours. With nowhere to hide, he turned around and started walking to give her space.