Olive Chaudhuri

 ~FORTY FOUR~ "Ar...are you  drunk ?" Vedant seemed to straighten in his position, as he ran a quick hand through his obviously expensive graphic Lee shirt and a branded leather jacket she had no idea he possessed. From him, came out overwhelming wafts of his usual perfume she recalled gifting him on some occasion, and alcohol.  Lots and lots of it. It had been a day and a half since she'd returned from Mumbai. She'd wanted to meet him,  so  bad. But everytime she considered that, Mrs. Shah's words rang in her ears over and over again. And then, she'd end up stopping herself. No, she wasn't going to ignore Vedant forever. But she wanted to avoid him, till she had collected her own thoughts. Vedant and her had never had any  major  fights before, where they would stop communicating altogether. They had always managed to find a way back to eachother in the past. But  never  had she ever seen Vedant look like  this. ...

 ~FORTY THREE~ Meera gazed at the old, silver-coloured scooty parked and felt herself breaking into an unconscious grin. How many times had she hopped behind Vedant on that thing? She stopped at the main gates of the typically Gujarati house quietly, her head snapping up to the third floor of the house. The back balcony of the house was attached to Vedant's bedroom, where she would spot him with his Company Law textbook almost every time she would step out of her house once upon a time. Now, it looked rather empty, the bamboo swing hanging untouched. The door of his bedroom that was visible from the balcony was locked, and the clear darkness within the currently uninhabited room could be seen. Meera smiled to herself, already able to picture Vedant's thin frame with days of unshaved beard due to the exam stress walking the span of the balcony with a yellow highlighter balanced between two fingers on his right hand. Sometimes he'd be too deep into studying to notice, b...

~FORTY TWO~ "Coming!" Kanan yelled, before hurrying his way out of the shower. Skipping to dry his hair, he leaned into his cupboard and pulled out the first Tshirt and track pants that his palms gripped before changing into them in record speed. With quick strides, he made way for the door, unlocking it quickly in response of the bell that had been rung not less than ten seconds ago. "Meera." She stood rather awkwardly, her fingers fidgety with the strap of her purse per usual, blushing the exact way he was used to seeing her blush in his presence. "Hey." She gave out a small smile, "I would've called before coming but-" He cut her with a quick wave of the hand, and pulled the door further open in invitation. Meera hastily tucked a loose chunk of hair behind the curve of her ear before walking in quietly. "What's up?" "Well, Dadi's back home and my family's back to being it's old bic...