Page 40 of 12 Years
‘Yeah, but—’ She stopped mid-sentence. ‘Wait, where are my clothes?’
‘Why? You look cute in my T-shirt. Come, sit. Coffee? Or tea?’
‘No, I need to go home.’
‘I know. But have something first. You can book an Uber later.’
‘I’d rather go now. Ow, I have a headache,’ she said, holding her head in her hands.
‘You’re hungover. Have some orange juice. It’ll help.’
‘Where are my clothes?’ she asked, ignoring me and going back into the bedroom. ‘Found them,’ she called out a second later.
I followed her into the bedroom.
‘Hey, I’m changing!’ she said when I walked in.
‘Sorry,’ I said and retreated to the living room.
She came out dressed after five minutes.
‘Juice?’ I said, offering her a glass.
‘My Uber is on its way,’ she said.
‘Oh, you booked one already?’ I said. ‘How far is it?’
‘Two minutes away. I’d better go down.’
‘Just have some juice before you leave, please.’
She took the glass of juice from me and gulped it all down in under ten seconds.
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled and quickly walked out the door.
‘You really are in a rush,’ I said as I took the lift with her.
‘I am.’
Outside, her Uber had arrived.
‘I had a great time with you yesterday. The whole thing. Aer. Bandstand. Home,’ I said.
‘Oh, thank you as well. Thanks for dinner,’ she said, getting into the cab.
‘I’ll see you soon?’
‘Let’s see,’ she said and zoomed off in her hired cab.
Let’s see—the two most cryptic words a woman can say. Ever.
Seven hours and forty-seven minutes. That’s how long it had been since Payal had not replied to my message. She hadn’t enabled the blue-tick feature on WhatsApp, so I couldn’t even tell if she had seen it. Why do people turn off the blue ticks anyway?
I had messaged her, ‘Was great seeing you. Hope you made it in time for lunch at your parents’?’
Innocent enough, right? So why the hell hadn’t she responded? Had she ‘ghosted’ me, a term her generation used all the time? What was happening? She’d been cuddlingwith me just hours ago. Now I was waiting for her reply like a death-row convict waiting for a pardon.
Should I message her again? But that would be double-texting—something only clingy people did. Was I being clingy? Why was I, a five-foot-eleven bulked-up man with a six-pack, feeling so powerless waiting for a tiny notification to pop up on my phone? This was exactly why I’d wanted to avoid relationships.Damn it, respond already, girl.
