Soulmates ✓

20 | Not Only In Grief

Her flu persists for a couple of days. Ryan calls in a doctor - an elderly lady with a happy face who doesn't miss the chance to say, "Your man is doing a great job in taking care of you."

Shay feels too weak to argue but does she truly hate the idea of having Ryan as her man?

The next two days, she spends the day either sleeping or watching Ryan walk around the house with an earpiece and laptop. When he is not working or attending meetings, he is either checking her temperature, running her a hot shower or forcing fluids. Her menu is brought down to fruits and soup which she swears not to touch for a month once she is out of this misery.

At least she now has her pajamas to wear, not that Shay had any complaints wearing his shirts with his lingering scent. But she doesn't want to behave like a total creep, so she agrees when Ryan offers to bring her things from her apartment. At first, the idea of Ryan going through her dresser doesn't seem very comfortable, but she is too nonfunctional to care about hiding her collection of sexy dresses and undergarments from him.

However, when she finally gains some strength on the third day and goes through her sleeping bag, her jaw almost drops, and her cheeks turn red. Because there, among her pajamas and comparatively average-looking clothes, she finds her black lacy underwear. Not just the one he saw the first time he visited her apartment but each one in her collection. He sure has some fascination over it, but he doesn't show it openly.

She wonders how long he will keep it to himself.

Ryan spends the days working from home, but doesn't allow her to open her office laptop, not even when she offers to take two servings of his vegetable soup, which she has started to despise abso-fucking-lutely.

But there are other things about him that she has started to like and even love. Like the times when he combs her hair because her limbs are too shaky to do so and the way he binds them into a very ugly looking braid, and when he holds her at night because the damn nightmare won't let her rest. She loves when he places goodnight kisses on her forehead and loves to watch him sleep on the couch beside the bed.

By the morning of the fourth day, she feels healthy enough to take a long relaxing bath before Ryan wakes up and sputters around the house doing laundry. She seems more lively here in his apartment than she ever was on her own. The realization dawns upon her that this isn't her permanent habitat. She has to return to her apartment sooner, if not later. But does that fill her heart with dread? Absolutely, yes. Because she knows she doesn't want to return to the same vicious cycle of grief.

Shay gives an early morning call to her mother in India. The difference in IST and EST timings has started getting on her nerves lately. Most mornings, she has to host meetings with the clients, and when she gets back home after work, it's too late to Facetime her parents. Weekends are their only family bonding time.

"You look so pale, Shay." Her mother has those angry lines of distress on her forehead. "Are you not eating well lately?"

"I caught the flu, and before you lecture me for not telling you, it's cured now, and I'm sorry." Shay looks at her mother on the screen apologetically. She shouldn't have withheld it from her. The look on her mother's face clearly shows her mom may book the next flight to New York, burst into her apartment, and either hug her and cry or beat the shit out of her. At this moment, she's weak enough to defend herself against either one of them.

"I'm glad that Arnab is there to take care of you." Her mother says with a sigh. Shay has to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"Ma, about that,"—she looks down at her toes to avoid looking into her mother's eyes and nibbles on her bottom lip—"I have to tell you something about Arnab, but you have to promise that you won't tell papa. He will flip out completely and I don't want that."