The Roommate Therapy ✓

51 • Closer

《Short Recap》

I let out a content a sigh as I watched our parents drowned in animated retellings of their college anecdotes and bittersweet memories. All the people I loved were under one roof, happy and bursting with life.

And under the soft golden glow of the fairy lights strung around the house I felt my heart warm up too.

●○●

Three weeks.

That's twenty one days, five hundred and four hours, thirty thousand two hundred and forty minutes and almost two million seconds.

It felt like a lifetime, at least it would be if I was a drone ant.

Vinay had picked Cornell after days of studying course objectives and career prospects along with the budget planning aspects. His first semester started in four weeks and he was leaving a week in advance to settle in and get familiar with New York.

But three weeks felt too short to mentally prepare myself. They'd be gone before I knew it, taking Vinay with them.

I wanted what was best for him but I hated the fact that Vinay was going halfway across the globe. And I really wanted to spend more time with him, cherish every second we had left but making time for us was becoming close to impossible ever since we'd put twenty five percent of our company shares up on the share market.

I felt immensely guilty and my mind had become a farrago of contradictions.

Honestly, the only time we spent with each other was breakfast which was a quick and quiet affair and at night when we shared the same bed, a tangled mess of arms and legs as I slept away the daylong exhaustion. The physical proximity felt like a bleak compensation for the fact that we never had time for any impromptu dates and lazy Sundays anymore. The lack of conversation in itself was jarring.

"Did you find an error in that proposal, Akira?" Neel asked, leaning over my shoulder to take a peek at the open document on my laptop screen.

I jolted out of my train of thoughts and I turned to him with a bewildered expression before composing myself quickly.

"No, no it's all right." I replied with a slight shake of my head, "I was just about to send them a confirmation and schedule a meeting as soon as possible. Would you like to go over the proposal yourself?"

"No, I'm sure you have it worked out." Neel replied, grabbing a chair and sitting in front of me, "But I do want to know what's going on in your mind."

I shrugged my shoulders in response, hoping that he would let it slide.

"Akira?" he asked again, his voice filled with concern, "Talk to me."

I massaged my temple gently before slumping lower in my seat.

"Does Lara ever get annoyed that you spend so much time working and you don't have time to give her anymore?" I asked with a sigh.

"Oh she totally does," Neel answered, shifting his gaze to the floor pensively, "It's pretty much the subject of all our fights. But if you think about it there's not much I can do to help it."