9. Hit Me Once

"Why behaving like a bitch with her, huh?"

"Don't tell me she seduced you to spend a pleasure and painful night."

He shook his head in amusement. Wait a second. Was it amusement I saw in his face?

"You still don't have a filter in your mouth. She was helping you." I gave him a look on the name of help. He cracked a smile. "Okay, pushing herself on you."

"Exactly."

Silence fell between us like a heavy cloak. He was standing close to me, so close. I could see the raw skin, stubble covering his half face, hair draped over his forehead, his lips stretched with pink in them like before. Brown eyes were evading looking at me, muscles were stiffened and something was strange about his face. It wasn't a happy face which I used to see before. Then it clicked, I hadn't seen him smiling much anymore, no ease was in his talks. He was always troubled about something like something was eating him up.

"Sanchi, we should talk."

Arching my eyebrow, I said, "We aren't in a relationship, so why you need to talk or more like break up?" I was tired of forgiveness, and this made me turn back to me.

He gave me deadpanned look, telling me to be serious about the situation.

"I was thinking since we work together. How about we call a truce?"

"Truce? For what?"

"We behave civil, no more fights. We're adults now and the thing happened in past. You were right, I should move on. And we were just teenagers that time, had no idea what we were doing."

Hope ignited in me. "But you cannot forgive me?"

He licked his lower lip, faced me with a sad look. "I need time." Maybe, that was enough for some time. At least, he was ready to ditch the baggage and move on from it.

"Okay. Truce." He forwarded his hand, and we shook it together. His grip had gotten harder and firm. I wonder how it would feel when he touched me. I shrugged off the thought quickly. I had been getting weird thoughts about him. Sanchi, he was married, control your damn thoughts. I couldn't be attractive towards him. It was out of league before, it would be out of league again.

"What changed your mind?" I couldn't help, but ask this question.

His emotions became raw that time. His face was covered with pain and hurt and betrayal. And it was deeper than anything I had seen before. "Someone told me it's better to forget and move on. Past will only bring the wounds to burn and I've enough wounds."

"Dhruv, do you still miss him?" My voice had gone gentle.

And his face turned back to normal. Raw pain was gone and he faced me. "I think you lost this right of asking. We just call the truce. We're not friends."

Ouch, that hurt.

From a distance, I saw Piyush staring at us, pointing his gaze at our pads. We were running late. Gulping, I snatched Dhruv's design. He stared at me with confusion.

"Piyush is staring. Let's get over with this first, then you can talk all you want." Opening his design, the flowing skirt with zigzagged strap top penetrated my vision. We both stared at each other helplessly, trying to find a way to complete this design, which we were supposed to work together.

An idea emerged from the foggy part of my brain. Taking my design from his hands, I saw his and mine. "How about we merge our designs?"

"Huh?!"

"We can use your top, and my bottom, designing of the top could be of mine and the skirt could have flowing cloth from behind. See?" I gave him some time to access the idea which I had given. His eyes lit up, and he agreed.

Whoosh!

Finally, it was done. Now the drawing part was left. We both faced each other with one sentence leaving our mouth, "You'll draw, not me."

Piyush was right. For people who ignored each other, we had a habit of saying things together.

"No. No. I'm tired. That annoying girl made my mood sour."

"Angela."

"What?"

He rolled his eyes. "Her name is Angela, not annoying girl." He shook his head. "Sanchi, remembering the names isn't a tough thing." I sheepishly smiled back, but his face remained neutral. I had a problem of remembering others name because it was tough for me to do. Even in the start, I used to forget my friend's name.

"I prefer the annoying girl. And you'll draw."

"Nope. I've to go. It's late. Ria will be waiting for me. You'll draw for me. I'm not free." Image of Ria's cute face surfaced back.

"And I'm not your slave." My phone buzzed again in my pocket. Probably, one more sorry text which I wanted to ignore for some more time.

"Hey, but you're my best - " He stopped quickly when words registered in his brain and mine too. I wanted the sentence to be completed. "I mean please do it. Really, I've to be somewhere. It's urgent." He changed the topic too soon.

Compiling for few more minutes, I said, "Give me a good reason to do."

"Because you've to. You've no other option left. Or you can leave, and I'll tell Piyush that the annoying girl drew your design." And he would probably kill me for letting someone touch my designs and complete it.

Widening my eyes, I pushed him back with my hands. "She did it herself."

He gave a grin. Dhruv, you were confusing me now. Sometimes cold, sometimes painful and sometimes just a different person. What's happening to you? It's like you didn't know yourself anymore, like everything was a weight on your shoulders and you've lost yourself. "Who knows it?" Wiggling his eyebrows, he dropped the sketchpad and a pencil in my hands and started walking away.

"Dhruv!" I yelled his name, but his back vibrated with laughter and strides weren't stopping. When he was out of the door, I yelled his name again. He peeked his head inside and gave me a wink.

"You'll thanks me for it later."

"How?"

"That you should know, not me. I don't have free time to think about it." Huh, he gave me a wave and went away. He knew no matter what, I would draw, to save us from Piyush anger. I never saw it but heard from others that if he was playful, then his anger was something which burned people.

A smile was playing on my face too. Because I just realized Dhruv wasn't behaving his grumpy side but talking normally to me. But it was suspicious too at the same time. What happened to him? What changed his mind? Two days ago, he was angry at me and suddenly he was behaving like nothing happened us at all.

Something changed.

And this change didn't seem nice to me.