Fitoor

16 | Deja vu

Shehnaaz

I lean to read it on instinct and suddenly the file disappears from my sight and I look up to see Sidharth holding the file in his right hand with an impassive look.

“What is that symbol?” I inquire out of curiosity.

“Nothing that should concern you,” He says casually and goes back to doing his work on the laptop with the beige envelope out of my sight this time.

His sudden attitude arouses my suspicion and I decide to drop it.

After all, I was nothing much to him other than some woman he plays with occasionally. The thought wasn’t a good one but I’m soon distracted as my phone starts ringing and I peer down at the screen to see Rohan’s name flashing on the screen.

I smile as ] swipe on the screen to answer his phone call.

“Ah look who forgot her dearest friend” His voice greets me through the speaker and I laugh which causes Sidharth to look up from his screen and leer at me.

Out of nowhere, a silly thought comes into my head and I rise up from my seat and saunter to one of the nearby spaces between the rows of shelves. I could distinctly feel Sidharth’s stare following me as I act like I rose up from there to gain some privacy.

“darling, tell me about it! You know how much I miss you” I say on the phone coyly.

I know that Rohan wouldn’t mind because out of all the men from my friend circle, he was the flirtiest one.

“Ah, don’t you just love me? So what’s up? I heard from Vani yesterday that you are in France for work. Do you like the place so far?” he asks with his lilting accent. Vani was one of my design coordinators at my firm who was his cousin.

“Well, the foods not bad and the location is lovely. So, yes I guess”

“That’s good to know. Oh well, I actually called you to invite you to Sanaya’s birthday that will be held after 2 weeks. You know how much Sanaya likes you and she insisted me to call you as soon as I get home from work” He ends with an exaggerated sigh.

My lips curl into a fond smile as I imagine the tiny five year old  squealing up and down. I really missed that kid. Sanaya was Rohan’s five year old daughter whom he adopted to fill his void after his mother passed away. Rohan always loved children and one day after spotting Sanaya getting smacked by one of the fruit sellers, he immediately intervened and saved the girl. Ever since that time, Rohan protected her like his own daughter and gave her everything she ever asked for. He really was an amazing father.

“I really miss that little kid. Tell her that I'll be there and please tell me the cake will be chocolate flavored this time. It better be!” I exclaim.

Last year Rohan’s housekeeper mistakenly bought a vanilla cake instead of chocolate and by the time we all found out about it, the cake was already cut and ready to be served.

I absolutely abhorred vanilla cake and vanilla flavored foods too.

“Remind me again, whose birthday is it?”

“Huh as if your daughter liked that stupid cake last year” I roll my eyes.

“Point,” He said and continued “Oh by the way I also heard that Sameer is in France too”

“Where do on Earth do you keep getting this information from?” I state in confusion.

He released a huge sigh and said “Neha called me yesterday just for some friendly chat according to her and at the end when I asked how you were doing she told me about Sameer”