Chapter 1 - New Story

Chapter 1

Falling for Committed Men

“So, how’s your first day at work?” asked Ayesha, my best friend of 7 years.

“Well, it has been nice so far”, I answered shuffling some papers and then stapling them alongwith balancing the phone using the other hand.

“So any hot guys around?”, Ayesha quizzed me enthusiastically. Girls have to know if there are hot guys around their friends!

“I don’t know…. Umm I’ve just come to office today!”, I replied, keeping the stapled papers aside.

“You’re stammering….. that means you’re lying…you bitch! Tell me who’s the hot guy!”

“How do you come to know when I’m lying?!”, I asked her, blushing.

“Well, that’s because I know even the nucleotide sequence of your genes, so out with it! Who’s the hot guy?”

“Well, I don’t know if he’s hot….but he’s definitely cute. He has a cute smile.”, I gave her some food for gossip.

“Oho! Cute smile! So what’s Mr. Cute Smile’s name?”

“Abhay”, I replied trying to hide my phone with my ear. I wasn’t sure if taking personal calls during office hours were allowed.

“Abhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!! Nice!” Ayesha screamed. Now I wasn’t sure if it was me who had a crush on Abhay or was it Ayesha!

“Relax, Ayesha! He sits just at the next desk… he might hear you scream!”, I warned Ayesha.

“What stupidity is that, Aditi. You’re saying that Abhay might hear me scream his name from the phone, but he won’t hear you take his name!”, Ayesha retorted.

“Hepe wapasn’t apat thepe depesk whepen Ipi topok hipis napeme. Hepe jupust repetupurned. (He wasn’t at the desk when I took his name. He just returned.)” I informed her in our P-language. It was a language we used to talk about our crushes. Just when I finished my sentence, Abhay looked at me and gave me a warm smile. Wow! He really had a cute smile!

“Oh…so he’s right next to you. Then why are you talking to me, dodo! Talk to him. Did you guys get introduced to each other?”

“Yeah, my Boss did that”

“So, did you talk after that or no?”, she asked me.

“No”, I gave a short reply because Abhay was right next to me.

“Aditiiiiii! Talk to him! He won’t eat you up!”, Ayesha said.

“You know me. I can’t talk to people Ipi lipike (I like).”

“You’re 22! It’s high time you start talking to guys you like! It’s not that difficult.”

“I know it’s not difficult, but I’m not sure if I’m still over Varun.”, I replied in a morose way.

“Urgh…Who’s asking you to get into a relationship with Abhay. Just talk a little. Flirt a little. Have a good time at office babes! Anyways you have no option but to get over Varun. It’s been a good four years that you’ve been waiting for that jackass to decide!”

“Yeah ok. I’ll try. Now you hang up. I’ll talk to you when I get home. Bye. Take care.”, I said, trying to end the conversation soon. It was rather weird talking with Abhay giving me side smiles!

“Bye, Love you,”. With that Ayesha hung up.

Abhay smiled at me when I kept the phone down. Now the real task was about to begin. I had to talk to a guy I had a crush on. The only guys I spoke to, despite being in an engineering collge were Vikram, Ayesha and my best friend, Rohan, my other best friend’s boyfriend and Varun, my crush of four years. Now if you call a four year old crush ‘crush’ is something I’m not sure of. But it isn’t love because it’s just one sided feelings! I had always been an introvert….lost in my own world type of a person. So, for me to open up to someone is very difficult. And although this is not the case, but I blame my Convent School education for not being able to talk to guys! Though I’m an introvert, I talk a lot to myself and my Facebook account! So, keeping my introvert-ness aside, I thought of speaking to Abhay. But how should I start the conversation….!

“So, Aditi…. Is this your first job?” Wow! My job was made easier. Abhay started the conversation.

“Yeah…. My first job”, I tried to sound confident.

“Which college are you from?”, he tried to keep the conversation alive.

“DJ Sanghavi… I.T”, I replied.

“Oh…that’s nice!”

“So, is this your first job as well?”, I asked him.

“ Yeah. My first job. Been here for 2 years now”

“Oh! That’s nice. Which college are you from?”

“Thakur”

“Oh… my best friend’s boyfriend too graduated from the same college this year!”

“Nice.”, he replied.

“Can you Facebook here?”

“Umm… well, there are locks, but they forget that this office is full of I.T guys, so Facebook’s open….let me unlock it from your PC.” , with that he came forward to work on my PC. He wore a nice deo. Guys who smell nice are always a turn on!

“Thank you so much! I feel restless without Facebook!”, I added.

“You have a million other people for company”, he winked.

“Hehe.”, I tried to laugh, unsure if I should’ve laughed or no!

*****

It was 11pm. First day at work was hectic. Actually more than office, I found the travelling hectic. After finishing calling up the 5 most important people in my life- Varun, Ayesha, Niti, Vikram and Rohan about my first day at work and Abhay (well, I didn’t mention Abhay to Varun!), I updated my status on Facebook and began searching for Abhay on Facebook. Now, I was feeling really idiotic for not having asked Abhay then and there where on Facebook he was! So, I had to go through the ordeal of typing Abhay in the search box and finding him. When I did that, I got 465 results! Now, one, I was dead tired, two, I had to get up at 6am the next day, three, I really wanted to find him on Facebook so I tried to gather all the patience I had to sift through the 465 Abhays to find my Abhay. After about 17 Abhays, I gave up. I didn’t even know his surname to narrow down the search! It was in this exasperation, a brilliant idea struck me! I knew he was in Thakur Engineering College, and considering that this was his first job and he’s been here since the past 2 years, it means that he must’ve graduated in 2007. So if I checked the Thakur 2007 batch’s group, chances of finding him were better! So I did that! And Bingo!!! I found Abhay there! I identified him from his photograph! And his full name is Abhay Shah......Gujju!!! I almost did a victory dance in my room! I excitedly clicked on the profile and suddenly all my fatigue disappeared looking at his profile pic! His profile page opened and I hurriedly went to check his relationship status…..which was COMMITTED. And the fatigue returned….bringing some heartache along with it!

So, now my Facebook status read : Aditi Mehta continues to fall for guys who are committed L