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Two more months passed by. February had arrived. It was Delhi’s spring time. Temperatures hovered around 20 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit). Amit relished the bright and sunny days.
Delhi looked greener and roses blossomed everywhere, including the public parks. Amit was looking forward to eating strawberries soon which always grew in the spring.
Amit missed his conversations with Naina. She hadn’t spoken to him for a while. What he found strange was that she otherwise behaved pretty normal. She didn’t look sullen the way she did when she had just joined. She mingled with abandon. She laughed a lot but she had stopped paying any attention to him.
During lunch times, Amit saw her sometimes eating a bowl of salad. She appeared to have boiled some broccoli and carrot and had mixed them in unsweetened yoghurt. When she ate, he saw a look of disgust on her face. He knew the salad would have tasted sour without any other element balancing the flavours. But she had no choice. This is what she had made for herself. Amit found it difficult to control a snigger.
Professionally he was trying to be at -his best. But he still failed to please Mr. Ram Kapoor. No matter how hard he tried, he was always at the receiving end of things.
Smriti’s behaviour too had not changed. She moved from one extreme to the other which always left him bewildered. On certain days, she would be extremely aggressive with him.
Most of the time he would bear with that behaviour. But on some days, when it became too overbearing, he would defend himself vigorously and she would calm down. At that point, she would act as if she were so extremely helpless. Tears would start rolling down her cheeks. She would then begin blaming Amit, her circumstances, everything. The more she behaved in this manner, the less was she able to make an impact on him.
He wanted to speak to Naina terribly. But was afraid that she would ignore or worse insult him and he didn’t want to feel hurt. Did he do anything wrong? He wasn’t sure.
He knew somewhere down the line she blamed him for the breakup that she had had that night. It wasn’t his fault that she messed up with her boyfriend. Occasionally, he thought of apologising to her but then he thought, for what?
It was not he who had wronged her. She wanted to display him as a trophy boyfriend but without his consent! That was too much.
It was best to let things cool down and let time heal old wounds. But it was taking longer than expected. Or maybe it was all over between him and Naina, even before anything had started.
