Shades Of Purple

Chapter 34 - A stronger person

PIHA'S POV:
[Three days later]
28th March

"Dr Piha, are you free after this? As in, I was planning on going shopping, and given that I don't have any friends or contacts in Pune, I wanted to ask you and Sanjana Chechi (elder sister in Malayalam), if you both could accompany me today. Please, pretty please," Jessica says and flashes me puppy eyes.

Shopping??

In my dreams.

I don't even remember the last time I bought clothes. I look at my outfit underneath the white coat, a white sweatshirt and a black denim skirt.

It doesn't look ugly, but I need new clothes for sure.

It's usually Di who selects clothes for me, as she says my fashion sense is trash. Not that I disagree.

Jessica is a college student, which means her choice of clothes should be great, and talking about Sanjana ma'am, she dresses so well every day. Be it a formal or casual look, she slays it.

Coming out of my trance, I look at Jessica, who mumbles another 'please'. Giggling, I say- "Okay, okay, I will come. But I have one condition."

She jumps in excitement and I steady her holding by the shoulder. She chuckles and says- "I knew you would come. Tell me your condition, bet, whatever. I'm ready to do anything you say."

I let out a laugh and say, scratching the back of my neck- "You know, I have a horrible fashion sense. So it wo-would be great if both of you could help me with shopping."

I flash her a nervous smile and feel my cheeks redden in embarrassment. She chuckles and replies- "That's what friends are for, right Dr Piha? I will select everything for you, Okay? You're so pretty, anything would look good upon you. I'm so excited."

She continues behaving like a teenager.

Wait.

Did she just call us friends? My lips part and I blink a few times.

She'll call me an Idiot if I ask her the same, right? But it wouldn't be nice if I call her a friend of mine, without her permission or something.

Should I ask Di? No, she would call me a weirdo.

I know.

Ansh.

I giggle to myself and I open my phone.

As he told me, their team meeting should be over by 8:30 PM, which is 6 PM here, and given that it is 5:55 PM right now, maybe I should text him. He'll reply soon, I hope so.

Opening our chat, I type-

You : Hey Ansh. Okay, I know there are still a few minutes to go till your meeting's over. Just wanted to text you prior to that. Guess we won't be able to talk now like we decided as we were planning on going shopping.

I attach a sad-faced emoji and I happen to look that way too because obviously, I want to talk to him now, but then I can't reject Jessica too, given that she's very excited.

Well, it's been almost fifteen minutes since Jessica's and my shift was over. This happens to be the third call of this week for me and tomorrow afternoon, around 2:30 we have the next call, which will be for 16 hours, again. I hope it's the last one for this week as it's already been a hectic one.