This Time, Her Turn [Completed]

Chapter 11

In the evening Ramit was discharged and his parents brought him home. Their flight was the next morning. So he reluctantly agreed to stay over, his mom had told her.

When she opened the door, he stood with a loose shirt over his gauze. Half of his right arm was restricted from movement. It wasn't much different from how he was in the hospital.

He looked at her and turned his eyes away. Geetha could only ignore the awkwardness. She had never been the one to greet him first. She helped his parents carry things inside instead.

Probably two hours later, his mom said to her, "If you want to talk to him, go talk."

She awkwardly shifted her gaze away from the bedroom door.

When night came she carried his food into the room. She really didn't want to have any kind of serious talk with him given their conversation in the hospital. All she wanted to ask was how he was feeling. He didn't give her a chance to ask that yesterday, or better put, she didn't not take the chance to ask him before he started talking.

The older couple was having their dinner at the small two person table. Inside the room, she put his dinner on the stand beside and looked at him. He once again remained silent and looked back at her. She almost asked him what he was looking at. She quickly forgave her wayward self, she was not in a position to question him, and got back to the issue.

"Your dinner is here. I'll help you sit up," she said and reached for his arm. He didn't react and still kept on looking at her. She didn't know what was making him so vigilant. Maybe he was trying to make her feel awkward. She snorted in her head and thought, the more obedient you are, the easier it is for me. She believed they'd slowly go back to normal. No, he'd go back to normal and she'd be good and stick to him how he'd like.

Once she helped him up, he said, "Thank you. Go out now."

"How will you eat with that hand? I'll help, okay?"

When he heard that he felt bitter. The feeling of uselessness was getting to him. "Please just go out. I can eat on my own."

"Why? Are you taking revenge on me now?"

"You're like that. I'm not. Please go out. I don't feel like eating with you around."

"Fine," she said, passed him his dinner and rushed out.

"What happened? Is he eating?" her father-in-law, who rarely spoke to her after that day at the hospital, asked her.

"I saw him pick up the spoon with his left hand," she declared as she thought, for someone with little self esteem, Ramit had quite an ego! Something was amiss, she realised. She smiled and said to her father-in-law, "He asked me to go out. He said he'll eat only then."

He frowned at her and then gave her a clear scowl. Her mother-in-law who was sitting beside, shook her head.

Geetha turned around and squeezed her eyes. Patience was a virtue. A virtue every parent looked for in a daughter-in-law. At least when she was in the wrong she should not act all high and mighty, like how she was around him all this while. She told herself this when she slept the last two nights.

She slowly walked inside the bedroom again.

When she stepped in she caught his questioning gaze. She walked closer and sat beside him. She whispered to him, "What are you looking at? Didn't you hear me just now? It's hard being in front of them. I'll go out after a while." She almost never filtered her words around him.

Perhaps that was the reason why she was fearful of him, precisely, of his judgement. She did not want to put in constant effort into her words at home too. In fact, calculating every word came naturally to her in the presence of outsiders. Maybe it was because of their friendship that her words and actions were always bare in front of him, except when they were in complete disagreement. It had to be. He was her best friend, her only real friend.