Poor Dalia had to sit through an advice session after what she commented at the end of the video call yesterday. I did try to explain to my family that we cannot blame a 5-year old for speaking like that because she's just a kid but perhaps we could do it to the full grown 32-year old idiot who fat shamed me like it was his job. But somehow most of them did not accept my point. They thought I was being too critical about the whole thing.

Shaheen dropped a message of apology to Ibrahim's mother but she received no response. Most of my family members were very upset over it but not me. I was happy that things ended the way it did.

However, Ibrahim's rude words kind of stuck with me. I felt like maybe no one will ever accept me the way I am. Nobody will truly love me with my extra pounds. Everyone around me demanded for a drastic transformation and it seemed like the only solution to my pain. But how was I to get there? I did not know.

All I knew was that weight loss was the one thing that stood between me and my future happiness. I went to bed last night thinking about it. I woke up this morning with the same thought in mind. And even as I reached office, I walked in with a heavy heart.

Luckily, Devi was on leave. So, there were no annoying questions. Thank God! Of course, during lunch hour I would have to face the other nosy coworkers but that was still better than having to answer them early in the morning.

"Alisha, can you come to the meeting room, please?" asked Paul as I sat down to work.

"Sure," I said and followed him. This was strange. What did he want to discuss so urgently?

"Take a seat," he said and started, "We have recruited four new members for our team. You need to train them."

New members? I suddenly remembered the blood donation day and what Roshan had predicted. Could it be those girls and guys we saw at HR? I hoped not.

"Oh okay," I replied.

"The mini-boardroom upstairs has been booked for the training and you will be working there the whole week, starting from today. You need not come to the department at all. You can even take the breaks at any time you want."

"Today?"

"Yeah today. Right now. Any problem?"

This plan sounded great. I welcomed it. I mean, being able to escape the marriage questions from my stupid coworkers for an entire week would be the best thing ever. But then I also had a small concern.

"What happens to my workload?" I asked.

"Oh that. I will take care of it. I will request the team not to allocate work for you during this week. You focus only on the training," said Paul with a smile.

Now, a person who did not know him well would have thought he was being very nice to me. After all, he was cutting me some slack. But I knew him better than that. He was what I would like to describe as a 'corporate snake', that is if there was a term like that. You know, those fake coworkers who pretended to be friendly with you in public but secretly hated you? He was one of them.

Although he tried to act extra sweet, there was always a hidden meaning behind his words.

My job was such that the more number of updates that I worked with, the higher amount of incentive I got paid. So, not working for an entire week meant that I would face a considerable loss of income. Paul probably had this in mind when he slotted me in for the training. I guess he wanted the extra money to go to his chamcha Roshan. After all, he was very fond of him and he hated me. Everyone knew that.

"What about my incentive? It will get affected, isn't it?" I asked.

"Just a week, Alisha. Don't worry about it. Besides, this kind of work would be good for your appraisal," he replied. As if he would even consider it. He always ignored the extra work that I did when it came to evaluating my performance.

"Even a week's amount means a lot to me, Paul," I replied with a fake smile.

"Okay then, how about you come in early or stay back till late every day until this training goes on? That's the only option I could give you."

"You know very well that I take the bus and I generally reach home by 7:00 every evening, right? How can I stay back till late then, Paul?"

"Alisha, this is the thing with you. You don't like to agree with anything that I say. I have given you the best options and yet you are expecting something more. I can't help you beyond this. Sort it out yourself. Just drop me an email once you decide on it. Now, go to the mini-boadroom," he said and walked out. He did not even wait for my response.

This was how all of them treated me. Like I was some scrap. I felt like I was the most useless person in the entire department even though I had the highest level of experience.

I was nothing but a loser, in both my personal life and my professional life.

I was mad at Paul. I was mad at myself for putting up with all this for seven years. I hated my job. I wanted change so badly. But I knew I couldn't even quit. Because who would want to recruit me, right?

Since, I had no option at all, I decided to go to the mini-boardroom and get on with the training. And so I did.

The moment I entered the place, I noticed just one thing. Roshan was right. It was the four of them who we met at HR that day.

Great. This day was getting worse.

I introduced myself, "Hi, I'm Alisha. I will be training you guys for the next five days. Could you please tell me your names? We can get started afterwards." I tried to plaster on a fake smile and pretend like everything was okay as much as possible.

"Hi. I'm Saranya."

"Hello. I'm Michelle."

"Hi. I'm Yohan."

I received three responses. All with wide smiles.

As I waited for the fourth one, I couldn't help but notice how annoying that sullen-faced idiot looked. He was using his phone like he wasn't even bothered about what was going on. Anger rose in me. I wasn't sure whether it was because of Paul's meeting or Ibrahim's comments or whether it was simply because of this imbecile's behavior but I was very angry. I felt like an old teacher trying to grab the attention of a disobedient student.

I opened my mouth to say something harsh to him when he finally spoke, "I'm Arham." No greeting. Not a hint of smile. His face was sour as ever. Idiot!

I ignored him and started the training.

All four of them were fast learners. They got the hang of things quicker than I expected. It was actually easier to train them than explain things to experienced Roshan.

Everything was going good except for the fact that sullen face had a condescending look the whole time, but I shut my eyes to it. That was none of my concern. I had just one task and I decided to focus only on that.

However, when we were in the middle of the training, something went wrong. The system screen froze and an error message appeared, "Please contact support."

It seemed like a minor issue so I thought perhaps I could fix it myself and IT help wouldn't be needed. Besides, I didn't want to look like a dinosaur without tech skills in front of the newcomers. So, I tried all the gimmicks that I knew, including what the IT guys generally recommended — rebooting. But somehow none of it seemed to work.

When I finally decided to make a phone call to the IT department, Yohan said, "Don't call IT akka. Arham bro says he can fix it."

I looked at Yohan with a smile of disapproval. This was the system that I had worked with for the past seven years. If I couldn't fix it, there was no way for a newbie to be able to do it. This was a joke. What did sullen face even think of himself? He was probably lying to show off to his colleagues.

Also, why wouldn't he say it himself? Why was he acting like Ibrahim — making someone else speak for him? He was so annoying and I couldn't even imagine having him around in the department from next week. Yikes!

"No, let IT come. Only they can fix it," I said nonchalantly.

Instead of Yohan it was sullen face that replied this time, "No, for real, I can do it. Let me try."

I shook my head. There was no way that I was going to agree with him on anything. I hated him so much.

"It seems to be a hard drive problem. Just try the CHKDSK command and it will be fine. You can do it yourself if you don't want me to," said sullen face again.

CH— what? Bogus term probably.

Okay, this was all an act. I knew that. He was using technical jargon to intimidate me. What an idiot!

I disregarded what he said and informed IT. While we waited for someone to come, I realized that sullen face was frowning at me. He was probably mad at me for not letting him ruin the system. Seeing him that way triggered me to wear a smile of victory on my face.

For once, I felt good about this day.

After a while, a guy from IT came and he pressed a few things on the computer. A black screen appeared and he started typing something. I was watching the whole process with a keen interest so that I could learn and do it myself next time. I started muttering the letters he typed under my breath to memorize it.

Guess what I said at last? CHKDSK. The same thing that sullen face was talking about earthier.

What the hell? No. No. This was so wrong.

Suddenly, I felt as if sullen face was laughing at me. I tried to pretend like I did not even notice it because I knew none of the other newbies would have bothered to stare at the screen. They were all busy talking.

But then Yohan said the obvious, "Oh! It's what you suggested bro." It looked like he was observing the process too. My bad!

"Yeah, CHKDSK. I knew it," replied sullen face with a certain sense of pride. My face turned red. I felt embarrassed.

"You guys knew it and you still called me?" asked the IT guy. He was adding to my humiliation.

I couldn't hide it anymore. I had to admit my mistake. So, I said, "Yeah, I felt it would be better for IT to do it. That's why I informed you."

The IT dude shook his head and said with a smile, "Oh come on. If there's anything that you guys can do yourself, please go ahead and do it. We have a lot of other important tasks to do."

Typical. The IT department was full of lazy guys. They had nothing much to do but they always made a fuss. I was sure they spent their entire shift by watching movies or playing games on their computers. They were definitely not doing any genius work.

After the IT guy left, since I needed some time to recover from this shame, I told the trainees that they could go for their lunch break. I promised to continue the training once they come back.

As they walked out, I grabbed my phone to text Zoya about what just happened. I didn't know whether she would even care about it but I just wanted to share it with someone. So, I turned on the internet and opened WhatsApp.

Before I typed my message, I realized that Zoya had already sent something to me. I started replying to her and what she said at the end was beyond a nightmare.

Zoya: I have news - good & bad 👀
Zoya: one about me & one about u 😐
Me: what? 🤔
Me: tell me yours first 😀
Zoya: I found a job...
Me: wow congratulations girl! 😍
Me: where and what's the position? 🤩
Zoya: Wait I will tell u all about it when u come home
Zoya: now listen to yours 😣
Me: go ahead 🧐
Zoya: Ibrahim wants to come home and see u 😭
Zoya: it looks like a 'yes' 💔
Zoya: everyone here are so excited 😡

My jaw dropped open. The stomach-tying-itself-into-knots feeling was back.

This day certainly couldn't get any worse.

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Thoughts on Arham/sullen face?
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