Word Count: 3k

Khanak is yet to complete her file, yet to prepare the presentation for the evening and still she hasn’t started working on it.

She isn’t procrastinating, no. She just can’t find it in herself to look at the laptop when away at the corner-most cabin sits him, ear busy with a call and hands continuously typing on the laptop.

There is nothing going on in her mind except the thought of him looking up and catching her staring, except the urge to replay the last conversation they had and make her heart understand that one day they’ll be together again, nothing except trying to convince herself that today isn’t that day.

Just not today.

It's all a lie.

He isn’t coming back.

Maybe he needs to start afresh, doesn’t want to get back into a relationship that had become so toxic at one point, that had made him toxic. It’s understandable, of course it is but Khanak doesn’t understand. All she understands is the urge simmering in her to walk up to him, tell him that she is still waiting and that she can’t go on without him.

It hurts her when he ignores her existence like he never held her hands, her heart breaks when he takes the name of everyone present in the room but when it comes to her, he addresses her with an ‘excuse me’, it ruins her when she tries to talk to him, and he looks up at her with a hint of remembrance of their time together before it disappears as does he.

Yes, she knows that he had done some mistakes, something for which their time apart was necessary. She too had thought that maybe her love for him had lessened because of that, but it was only to realize that no, her love for him could never diminish. She is ready to give him as many chances as he wants, as much time as he needs, just on the condition that he comes back to her.

It doesn’t feel like that anymore.

He feels like her past, her present but not her future.

*

“Lakshay, may I have your few seconds please.”

Khanak doesn’t knock when she enters his office, doesn’t shy away seeing one of her colleagues already sitting in front of him. The former looks at her blankly or tries to look nonchalant, but she can see the slight surprise in his eyes, while the latter doesn’t even bother hiding his gasp.

“Khanak, you can’t call him by his name. He is your seni –”

“Maybe you’re not aware but I got a promotion two days ago. So, it is you who can’t address me so casually. Ethically, but I don’t mind.” Khanak gives the guy a tight smile.

“Oh. Wow. I mean congrats,” the guy says already getting up from the chair probably to congratulate her, but she doesn’t think before she is sitting down on the same chair, the person sitting opposite the table unable to contain his surprise… Shock.

He sits up straight and clears his throat. “Actually, Gaurav and I were in a middle of an important discu –”

“Oh no, it’s alright, sir. I am sure there are many more important issues than you guiding me through a break up.” Gaurav chuckles while Khanak’s breath comes out slowly, lips unable to contain the bitter smile.

“If you would excuse me, sir, ma’am.”

And so, they are left alone, staring at each other before Khanak starts.

“Break up expert, huh? Going successfully through it, are you? Would you mind giving me a few tips as well?” Khanak is unable to morph the sharp bitterness that seeps into her voice with the ending words, making Lakshay yet again look blankly at her.

“May I remind you, Miss Khanak, this is an office and if you don’t have anything related to work to discuss with me then –”

“Of course, because you talking about break ups with Gaurav was completely professional.” She interrupts, glaring and the man shuts up with a guilty look on his face, averting his gaze.
She doesn’t want it to happen, but her stare softens as she continues looking at him. The tilt of the same face she had held so many times in her hands.

“Laksh,” she sighs.  “Do you even remember the reason of our breakup? It wasn’t because we didn’t love each other, it was almost the opposite. It – It wasn’t even a breakup in the first place. You told me not to voice it out, don’t you remember? Laksh… You don’t need to behave like this with me, like you hate me, or worse, like you don’t even know me. I am not a stranger to you, am I?” Khanak asks, unable to stop the desperate tone that overcomes her voice and sees as the man sitting opposite her tightens his hold on the pen in his hand, inhaling deeply.

“Miss Kh –”

Khanak barely stops herself from screaming out loud.

“ –anak, I don’t think this is the right place to talk about our personal lives, I am sure we can find some other day to give this conversa –”

A bitter laugh escapes Khanak’s mouth as she shakes her head to herself. “Really? Some other day? Are you really going to ignore that your secret of talking about your personal life in the office has just been revealed by Gaurav.”

Lakshay raises a brow. “Who says it was about my personal life?”

Khanak frowns. “What do you mean? Of course, it was about you. The separation. We –” Her eyes widens as another thought penetrates her mind. “Unless… unless you got into another –”

Lakshay rolls his eyes before putting the pen on the table. “I didn’t get into any other relationship. You were my first....” He says and looks away as he continues, a determined undertone to his voice. “- And last. I don’t plan on getting into any relationship ever again.”
Khanak opens her mouth but gets interrupted.

“Or getting back into any relationship for that matter. Now if you will excuse me.”

But Khanak can’t. She wants answers. What does he mean by the statement? What about them?

“But what about us?” She is left asking to herself because in the room stands her, alone, the reason for her solitude walking away without looking back.

*
“Khanak,”

“Raghav sir.”

Khanak acknowledges the man’s presence and also of the man standing five feet away from them, busy talking to the new intern. The floor is empty except for them, it being a Saturday, but her new position comes with new responsibilities while the interns religiously have to suffer.

“Sir, why are you standing, please have a seat.” She says, her gaze unable to tear away from the scene in her periphery where Lakshay stands outside her cabin, conversing with the intern without so much as a look in her direction.

“What a pleasant welcome, didn’t think my favorite person in the office would want me in here so much.” She hears a vague reply and averts her gaze only to find her boss sitting beside her instead of sitting opposite her.

“S-Sir, is there anything specific you wanted?” she asks, moving away her own chair, maintaining a good six feet distance between them. Though before she can hear the answer to the question, her gaze is yet again searching for that certain someone who is no more outside her office.

She panics, and unknowing to herself, stands up, eyes desperately searching the figure.

It is only when she feels a grip on her hand does she focus on the present situation and yanks back her hand when she finds Raghav holding it.
She frowns.

“S-Sir?” she questions but when the man keeps on staring at her, a weird look on his face, she doesn’t stay quiet.

“Sir, I think you should go.” She glares at him not so subtly but the guy opposite him is not easy to back down.

“And why should I?” he quirks up an eyebrow as he asks, settling in the chair even more comfortably.

Khanak fists her hand. “Then don’t. I’ll go myself.” She says, and just as she’s about to step around the desk, she’s yet again held back by a grip. This time tighter than before.

She grits her teeth. “What do you think you are doing?” she asks, trying to get out of the hold. The man doesn’t budge.
She feels panic rising in her chest for a whole another reason this time, her eyes scanning the outside yet again.

“You’re constantly looking outside. Is it the blinds that is holding you back?” The guy asks with a smirk making Khanak cringe in disgust.

“Are you out of your mind? Leave my hand before I shout. You’re going to regret this!”

The guy doesn’t show any sign of remorse and just grins some more.

“Shout, huh? Where was this public announcement, this anger when I gave you the promotion right into your hands?”

What?

“What? What do you mean? I earned that promotion. You didn’t give me anything!”

The man has the audacity to laugh.

“Aww, that’s a cute misconception you’ve got there. It had nothing to do with your abilities, darling, at least not as an HR.”

Khanak yet again struggles against the hold, her nose flaring and blood boiling.

“Leave my hand right now!”

“You don’t have an answer, do you? You want this job –”

A knock on the door interrupts Raghav, and before he has the chance to remove his hand from over hers, the door opens, unveiling a calm looking Lakshay standing there until his gaze falls on Khanak’s clasped wrist and then flits to her distressed face.

He doesn’t say anything to Raghav, just walks into the room, pulls his hand away from Khanak’s and before he has the chance to say anything, punches right in his face.

“What the f-”

Lakshay punches him again, this time making him fall to the ground.

“Stop it!” Khanak demands before he has the chance to hit him more, making the man avert his gaze where it was settled on Raghav to her.

“But Khanak, he –”

“Even if he did and said something that he shouldn’t have, I’ll handle it. You don’t have to do that for me.” She says, angry.

A round of applause breaks the silence in the room.

“What. An. Act, Khanak. What an act you put up.” He says eyeing Lakshay before settling his gaze on her, letting out a menacing chuckle. “This was all your plan, huh? Setting me up. Making me the perpetrator. Seducing and then making him –”

“Seduce you? You?” Khanak grits through her teeth, unable to move forward from the accusation, gaze hardening.
Raghav still has the audacity to let out a chuckle. “Stop acting so innocent, Khanak. Don’t act like you don’t know what that means. It was all you were doing with me past few months. You used to talk on the phone with me, used to laugh while doing so, and –”

Raghav is interrupted yet again. Not by any fist, or physical obstruction but after listening to her laugh. Laugh as she does with her eyes burning, a menacing undertone to it.

“Now I get it.” She says, suddenly pausing her laugh, her teeth gritting together.

“Now I know who the culprit is. It’s you. It’s because of you and the people like you that other people, husbands of women, their boyfriends become so possessive. Is it a crime talking to your colleague while laughing, should a woman in a relationship be afraid to do so? No! It is the people like you who make her feel ashamed of doing so, make her feel like she is cheating just because that is what is in your mind. People with mindsets like yours have ruined relationships. It has ruined my relationship. People like you think that women only interact with their superiors to get promotion, something that they would readily sell their body for. Not a hint. You don’t have a hint of respect for women, do you?” she smiles coldly. “I pity your family. Your sister, your wife.”

“You –”

“The resignation will be mailed to you, with a warning from the police.” She says and gathers her belonging before storming out of the room.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a few workers outside the office.
She doesn’t bother giving them an explanation and goes out of the building.

She only has a moment to hiss in pain when her wrist is held yet again and she is turned around.

“Khanak, are –”

“Leave my hand.” She instructs and Lakshay is quick to retract it making her cradle her wrist, now looking at the bruise with blurry eyes.

Oh no, not now. She can’t cry now, can’t lower down her defenses.  She doesn’t want him to see her like this, not anymore.

“I’m sorry, are you – are you ok? Should we go to the doctor? I have first aid in my car. Let me –”

“There’s no we anymore, Lakshay. You’ve made it quite clear to me. And now I have understood it.” She says, her voice seeming strange to her own ears.

She doesn’t know why she is so angry, on Lakshay out of all people. It should be Raghav she should be angry on! He did wrong to her. But Lakshay…
But Lakshay too had doubted her once, hadn’t he? Had took her laugh to be something not so innocent. But again, wasn’t that the reason for their separation? The separation that she desperately wants to undo now. Hadn’t he repented enough? Hadn’t he punished himself and her in the process?
Would she not give him a second chance?

Oh, she would. She will. But he wouldn’t take it.

Maybe that’s what is making her angry.

She misses him like crazy and he does not.

She doesn’t want him to talk to her because of some unfortunate occurrence. Doesn’t want his care only on specific occasions, want it all the time. Along with his smiles, his touch, his love.

She wants him back, will want him always, but he doesn’t.

“Khanak, I –”

“It’s Miss Khanak to you.” She reminds him and rushes after that because even if she stays a second more, she’ll break down. And she has had enough of that. Earlier, she was suffocating with all the questions Lakshay posed, his doubts, his insecurities and now she’s dying because of this emptiness in her heart, her insecurities. All her.

“Goodbye, Laksh.”

*
The windows thudding make a cacophony in the empty house, startling Khanak out of her sleep where she had been languidly laying on the couch.

She groggily picks herself up, absentmindedly hissing in pain when her bandage clad wrist knocks against the table,  and walks barefooted around the house to shut the windows.

It is only when she passes through the mirror hung up in the corridor does she take a good look at herself, face adorned with dried up tear tracks, hair a mess and black circles under her eyes.

There are goosebumps on her arms from the coldness that has enveloped her empty house and her heart.

Maybe this is what hopelessness looks like after all. Months ago when Lakshay had gone away from her life was through the same doorway. He took everything away with him, except for the hope simmering in her heart. Hope that one day everything will be alright, one day they will be united again. But today, after all she’s said, all that’s happened, she can feel the hope dying. She doesn’t think that she’ll see Khanak and Lakshay together on a wedding card, she doesn’t think that she’ll walk back to him, or he will come running to her.

Last time it was Lakshay who had tried to end things and this time it’s her. Tried because will it ever truly end? Will she ever stop loving him, stop longing for him, stop foreseeing a future together? She won’t. But will she dare to hope?

She won’t.

Khanak doesn’t realize for how much time she keeps standing in front of that mirror, tearing up, staring at her scattered self. It is only through a loud knock on her door that she is able to come out of that trance.

Lightening bursts through the sky as does the now incessant knocking on the door. Taking hold of herself, she peeps through the door hole only to find… Lakshay?

He stands there, drenched, head hung low, both his hands resting on the door. He is breathing heavily as if having run a marathon.

Did he run here?

It is only when he raises his head does she sees his red rimmed eyes and realizes that the water on his face is not only from the rain.

She wipes her own tears and is quick to open up the door. The man seems startled as the surface beneath his hands moves, but immediately gets a grip on himself.

“L-Lakshay? What are you –”
Khanak doesn’t get the time to question him on his state before he walks inside the house, closes the door behind him and takes her in his arms.
He staggers and so does Khanak, finding purchase on the wall behind her, hands still in the air while Lakshay nestles his face closer into her neck, droplets from his hair now resting on her skin.

She swallows thickly, unable to understand what to do, standing there shell shocked, unmoving.

Should she ask him what he is doing here? Or should she push him away? Should she hold him just as tightly and live her dream or should she tell him to let go, not wanting to get hurt again?

Surprisingly, she doesn’t get the chance to do any of that as the man pulls away, his hands tracing up to her arms and neck before he cups her face, bringing it close to his.

Khanak is unable to stop him. She doesn’t want to but he stops anyways.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for today, I’m sorry for all the times I have hurt you.” He murmurs in between their tangled breaths, thumb tracing up and down her cheeks, involuntarily wiping away the tear tracks. His voice breaks as he says again, “I wanted to reach out to you today, wanted to stop you. I wanted to that everytime you came in front of me. I’m sorry for behaving like I didn't. I'm sorry but I have missed you. So much.”

The words hit home.

It was all she wanted to hear and now that she has them, she sees no reason to stop herself from falling back into his life, his arms, holding him tightly to make for the time they have lost.

Lakshay embraces her back immediately, all the while caressing her hair. “I’m sorry I acted like a stranger to you. Sorry that I made you feel miserable but that was all to reign myself in. I couldn’t – I still can’t… Khanak, it’s impossible for me to get you out of my heart yet alone my life. Hell, I was in that office just because you were there. Had I known that bastard’s intentions earlier, I would have ….”

He stops.

He doesn’t say anything after that.

But when his shoulders start shaking in her vicinity, Khanak knows exactly why he has stopped.

“It’s ok, Laksh.…”

“It’s not ok, Khanak, It’s not. I have hurt you a lot. I have not been any different from him, have I? I – I don’t deserve this.” He says and starts to pull back but it’s Khanak who stops him from doing that.

He sighs but doesn’t complain.

“It’s all my fault, it has always been my fault. But I can’t get away from you. I’d die.”
He says and it’s for the first time in months that Khanak let’s a smile surface on her face that she hides in his shoulder because of course she feels the same.

“Let’s be friends, Khanak.”

What.

“What?” Her hold immediately loosens on his back, as she breathes out the question, too afraid to pull back completely.

“Will you be my friend, please? I – I know after what happened between us we can’t go back to how we were –”

Why?

“I am getting better, I think I am but still, I’d not want you to be my experimental subject. I would hate to put you through something like that again. Please, be my friend.”

It is Khanak pulls away this time, albeit Lakshay’s effort of stopping her from doing so
He looks like he’d cry any moment.

“No.” Khanak answers, nonetheless. “I’ll not be your friend, never!”

The words have him tripping on his feet, and if not for Khanak he would have fallen face first on the floor.
“What are you doing, Laksh? Get a grip on yourself.” Khanak reprimands even though that is advice she should be giving to herself right now.

“S-Sorry, I should have expected that.” He says then, a trembling smile on his face as he raises his hand to brush against her cheek where she is sitting in front of him. “Of course, you wouldn’t want a friend like me.”

Khanak shakes her head. “No, no. That’s not what I meant. Don’t you understand, Laksh?” She says, looking at him helplessly. “You say we can’t go back to how we were because of our history but we can become friends? Can we? I don’t think so.”

“But why? What are we supposed to do then? How am I supposed to get you back without making it feel like imprisonment?” he cups her face.  “Break up? Going successfully through it, that’s what you said today, Khanak. But, it was nothing like that. Gaurav told me that he was going to break up with the person he loved just because he felt like it and I said it would ruin his life. Losing someone for some trivial reason would ruin him. But ours was not a trivial reason. I made you miserable. It was because of me that there couldn’t be a ‘we’ today.”

Khanak wants to deny that, to tell him that it’s all wrong. It is not like that anymore. It wasn’t like that even back then. Their love just needed some improvement, some efforts, not separation. But she knows he wouldn’t understand. He still blames himself for everything that happened to her, to them. He is still terrified of himself, scared of the plight he would put her through once again.

“But I can’t continue living like this... without you in my life. I just want to see you in front of me. Khanak, I swear I’ll not interfere. You can talk to anyone, you can love anyone, you should love someone, someone else who is not me, someone who will make you happy. I’ll see it all without so much as a complaint. I’ll know my limits. I just want to keep you… keep you safe.” He says, the tenderest smile on his face as he looks into her eyes, his own welled up.

“You’re so... you’re so delicate, like a treasure. I just want to - want to stay around you. Please….”

Khanak can’t listen to all of that, his incessant pleas without breaking down anymore, can’t make him beg, can’t make him hopeless like she had felt today.

And so she nods.

She agrees to go into his life and get him back in hers. With limits. As friends.

So instead of falling into his embrace, she shakes his hands and even though it breaks her heart, the blinding smile that she gets in return mends it all.

"Friends."

"Friends."

It’s all going to be ok one day; she thinks and waits.

To be continued...