Mom finds out

Vansh and Shreya were lying in her bed, his arms wrapped around her waist, spooning. His face nuzzled in the crook of her neck, breathing deeply.

His eyes opened, and slowly the memories of this morning came rushing back to his head. He wanted to rest his eyes, instead he had slept for… he checked his watch… two hours, he thought frantically.

He had to leave now, or Shreya’s mother would find him and he didn’t know how he would defend him being in her daughter’s room, lying in her daughter’s bed with her daughter close to him. A disaster in the making.

He pushed himself to his elbow and looked at his love sleeping peacefully beside him. His eyes softened. He stared at the curve of her eyes with big long eyelashes that gave her eyes a mysterious and angelic vibe, his eyes moved down to her straight nose and then to her plump lips – the ones he’d tasted more times than he could count. He lost himself in the beauty and peace her face provided and stared at her as only a love-sick fool could.

He bent down over her and placed a small kiss on her forehead, saying all that he couldn’t, didn’t know how to. After a long while he gathered enough motivation to pull himself away from her, and went off the way he came – through the window; thanking again, for not having safety grills.

As soon as he went, she missed his warmth. Though sleepy, she turned this way and that, reaching for him. When her sleep broke and her eyes awoke, it was already past 6 pm. Groggy and tired - she pulled herself to her height and stood on unsteady feet.

Slowly, she made her way downstairs where her mom was sitting on the sofa, with an unusually stern look. The sound of her steps snapped her mother’s head to her direction and the scowl she saw on her face forced her to recount every mistake she’d ever made.

‘Was something wrong with the case?’ She thought and a wrinkle formed on her brow.

When she finally reached the last step, her mother’s scowl was still as potent and before she could ask her what was wrong, her mother remarked, “Why was your boss in your room, in your bed?”

“No, he wasn’t” she replied automatically, only then did all the hallucinated memories crossed her mind.

‘I was hallucinating, right?’ she asked herself but the look on her mother’s face denied the assumption.

‘Oh shit!’ she swore, ‘I spoke so much nonsense to him’

“Do not lie, young lady” said her mom, sternly, her voice raising gradually. “I saw you two with my own eyes, he was in your bed holding you… close” she said, absolutely revolted. Her face scrunched when she said ‘close’ like it was an insult.

“I..I…” Shreya couldn’t find any words, her vocabulary was dead; she didn’t know what to say.

She always imagined that she would tell her parents about Vansh after conditioning them to like him and only after she was sure of him. But now, here she was. Under trial for a boyfriend who was no longer hers.

“Um.. um…” she tried again, when she could no longer take the death stare of her mother but to no avail.

“Speak” shouted Mrs. Sharma and Shreya shivered.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry” she sobbed.

“I don’t want your sorry, why was he here? Do you have an affair with him?” her mother narrowed her eyes as she asked.

“No, we broke up” she whispered.

“Is this what you call break up, you two lying together in the same bed? Then I cannot imagine how you two were when you were together.” She said disapprovingly.

“Is that why he filed a case against you? Because you broke up with him after you finally came to your senses?”

“He says he didn’t file a case and he was the one who broke up with me.”

“And you believe him?” she scoffed, and added, “then you are dumber than you thought”

“I’m sorry”

“Listen to me, Shreya. You know that our family does not believe in love, and if you had to couldn’t you find someone of the same social circle? Do you know how bad our family’s reputation will be if this… your affair… becomes common knowledge?

I have given you a lot of freedom but this is where I draw the line.

Your boy problems brought a police case against you; do you now understand why I didn’t allow?”

“Yes, mom” she whispered meekly.

“No meeting him, no calling him, no texting him, got it?” she asked rudely.

“Yes, mom”

“Give me your phone” asked her mother and stretched her palm out.

“But I said I wouldn’t call or text” she whined.

“I do NOT believe you. And do not talk back to me. Give me your phone, NOW!”

Like giving away a part of your body, she handed over her phone and ran to her room.

“Have your food” her mom shouted behind her but she only ignored.

Slamming the door, she dropped on her bed angrily and angry tears ran down her cheek. She wasn’t angry at her mother, she was angry at herself. She had never dated before, luckily following her mother’s advice and now, look at her.

She was crying, distraught and almost a criminal, all because she gave her heart to a boy. Her mom wasn’t wrong; she should have followed her orders. Her little love didn’t last two months and though she was the happiest then, her investment had gone horribly wrong. And now she was just a sad mess.

“I’m not going to talk to this man, ever” she decided and announced aloud to the walls and books in her room. They’d remind why this was a good decision.

She walked to the window and locked it, never to open again.

Vansh gave her a thrill, but he and this window were a danger. And a smart girl knows to ‘Beware of dangers’

Vansh was in his office, after collecting the camera storage of the past fifteen days. He wanted to find the culprit but it was no easy task. Shreya worked in his office and there were no cameras here, as he ordered. The day he asked Shreya to be his assistant, he had asked the technicians to remove all the cameras from his cabin; he knew the things he’d do to her.

But since Shreya worked in his cabin, he had no idea how to find the culprit. The report sat in his cabin, how was he to know who took it when there were no cameras here?

He could check for who came in and who went out when he wasn’t there, but there were too many people and too many times. He tried for a few minutes but the task was draining and almost impossible.

He didn’t know how the file looked, he didn’t know how to distinct it from the various other files, he had never even seen the file. He should have started working on it but the tension and then the eventual break up with her had taken a toll to his productivity. He didn’t want to do it, and putting it off and daydreaming about Shreya – imagining he soft curves of her body and the sweet moans she made - felt a lot easier.

But now, he needed her help; only she could tell what the file looked like and where the documents could have gone.

He called her.

…Call rejected.

Imagining her to be asleep, he tried again, and again, and again, until finally she picked up.

“Hey” he started saying, but before he could complete a woman, a very rude woman spoke through her phone, “Do not call her again” and ended the call.

When he tried again, the electrical voice informed him that her phone switched off. ‘Did Shreya lose her phone?’ he thought.

Not thinking much about it, he decided to visit her window.

He threw the USB in his pockets and drove to his home as fast as he could. Once home, he rushed to her window, discarding his shoes on the way.

But when he reached there, his eyes narrowed in suspicion and dread.

The window was locked.

Shreya had stopped locking the window from the day they first met, and the closed window was suspicious, very suspicious. Or heart-breaking. Maybe she had decided she didn’t want anything to do with him, useless crap that he was. But he did not want to believe that, at least not now. He had important matters to discuss with her.

He knocked on the window. Soft, hard, loud, he tried pushing it open. He called for her but got no answer. His heart beat was accelerating. Was she okay?

She would have answered, even if she did not want anything to do with him, which wasn’t the case. Maybe she just wasn’t in her room? That’s possible, he thought and rushed to the front door of her house and with his heart in his throat, he knocked.