"I see nothing that you can offer me," She said eyeing him head to toe. There was a clear hint of dismissal in her tone as she got up to leave.
Catching the steps with her, Mahil smiled, "I don't think that's true."
"Eh?" She frowned.
"How about a...
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Kuhoo frowned as he walked away. What did they talk that he looked so enraged? Wasn't he so calm moments back?
She waved those thoughts off and scrolled through her instagram waiting for the seniors. It had been a month since Diwali, a few weeks since the season of Tulsi Vivaah was over and her insta-feed already seemed flooded with invitation cards, photographs of newly married couples, haldi ceremonies, sangeet, enchantingly decorated high-end mandaps, dreamy pre-weeding pictures, there was no end to it.
After years of struggle in the medical field most of her classmates had reached that part of the circle of life when they finally had time to step into wedlock. Some of them were the ones getting married; others were attending the functions and posting pictures. Kuhoo smiled looking at the posts, these were the people she learnt how to hold a scalpel with while attending those dissection classes when the cadavers smelt of formalin, the same people who had been there with her as they together learned the art of taking a patient's history, tying a surgical knot, taking an emergency ECG, and how could she forget those crazy parties held once in a while.
It seemed half of the batch was getting married this year, that wouldn't be a surprise though, she knew these people well, not that she was a crazy extrovert mingling with everyone back in those days but just because they were all so ambitious and medicine demanded one thing in return of ambitions - years and years of your life with undivided attention. It mercilessly took those years of youth from people and a few like her who rebelled wanting to get a work-life balance, if not handled with care would land into a tornado of never-ending miseries. No, she didn't want to go there.
Even the thought of her mind going back there seemed to wreck Kuhoo's nerves. Moving the fingers in a nervous motion, she tried to press the back icon when her eyes landed on a particular picture and her blood turned cold. She could hear silent screams of her own mind that said No this couldn't be.
It wasn't even a minute when she found herself near the bar counter, "Tequila, three of them." Neither did it take long for the order to arrive nor for her to gulp it down. As the third drink burnt the throat, Kuhoo felt her nerves calming a bit but at the same time started a few voices in her mind. No, no, she didn't want to lose it at the moment.
"Two more," Her mouth had a mind of its own by then.
Guilt surfaced through her being when she finally realized what she had done, "Actually, cancel it." Kuhoo felt the dire need to get back to her apartment before she created more ruckus in her already dismantled life and without wasting a second she sprinted out of the club.
-*-*-*-
Mahil walked to the parking lot, his mind running back and forth between the past week and the fight with Winslow. Things could turn worse, but thank heavens he wanted to buy a new place of his own even before the landlord broke the news of willing to sell off the place and went with his gut booking that classy flat at Parker Street. He had liked it at the very first sight. The place radiated uncanny warmth as if it had been waiting for him promising new beginnings.
