Fitting Out

Chapter 5 - A Pain Awaits (someone)

"Navya, do you have the deck ready for our 11AM?"

"Yep, just a few more changes and I'll email it to you", I call out over my shoulder, realising that Tarun isn't even waiting for an answer; he yelled across the room just to remind me of the meeting. Assistants are a gift.

My response to his unnecessary rhetorical question makes Arushi whip around her chair and roll over to me, presumably with today's News Around Our World & Other Forecasts. I guess you could call her my office best friend. We never really interacted much at college, except for bumping into each other's instagram DMs from time to time. We came to work knowing only each other, and since she lives with family here I was spared the fate of sharing a rented room. She's one of those people who can't stand quiet, and get immediately suspicious of anyone sitting still for more than thirty seconds. She also tends to be chatty and snarky when nervous, which is almost always. And as I sit two empty desktops away from her at work, I get to be on the receiving end of it.

"Listen, I saw Tarun the other day going out with the new girl," she begins. "I was at the movies with my cousin when I saw them. My cousin said she could do better. I said I think he can. Of course, I mean, I don't want to judge or anything, but surely being assistant to the manager of the wily-fresher-slash-date comes with certain rules?"

"What kind of rules?" I suggest, not looking away from the computer.

"You know, there needs to exist some form of control. You can't just date people you work with, someone needs to draw a line. And I'm not just saying that because of my previous experiences" - she likes to think she's mysterious - "But I guess it would be okay if they were already dating or something, which might be the case here. Would you still be with Aarav if you'd both taken the campus offer?" She inches a little closer towards me.

I shift ever-so-slightly in my seat. "Debatable, considering we're not together anymore anyway."

"WHAT? You guys broke up?! When we were you going to tell me? Okay, breathe. This isn't good for my anxiety. Anyway, I don't have the time to talk about this right now, I have a review with Shashi that I'm extremely tense about." Her steady eye contact is immediately disposed of, as she picks up her notebooks and immediately puts them back, creating as much distance between us as I would've initially liked.

"Take care, talk soon!" She frolics in a skittish sort of way, and given the combination of her awkwardness around asking personal questions and the band-aid having been pulled off, I sigh with relief knowing that I won't have to talk about it later.

________________

I have waited for nearly twenty-four hours, and I can safely say now that it has passed.

Not to say it's passed through, which would imply that it existed at some point, but that it was already such a far-fetched probability that it has gone farther still.

Sure, when you date someone for nearly 8 years, which is more than a third of your life, you're supposed to feel something. Anything, really. After spending the first sixteen hours being sure that I was in denial, I can firmly say that I have never been more wrong in my life (a difficult thing for me to admit) and that I have so far given a near-comedic miss to the whole post-breakup experience.

Was it a long time coming? Nah, that's not it. I was pretty sure we'd last forever, minus the mushiness of the phrase. So was it one of those situations where we got so comfortable with each other that we.. forgot the other existed? Nope, that's cheesy and stupid. Although the time we spent together and the time he spent in my daily, active thoughts did curve decidedly downwards.

But I guess that's what you get when you were a bigger part of someone's vision board than their actual living, breathing life: writing over you becomes a lot easier.