[ Preface ]
My first scrap SHE SAID is a thriller. A story of a shy guy who thinks a lot and after that commits mistake. On the other side, a super computer girl who finds her love in that shy heart. Appearance of someone drove their thick and thin life to a dark edge. They struggled, they suffered, they left each other. After that how that shy guy got his love back in his life is the story.
Chapter 1
Inception
‘Shreya are you there? Listen to me Shreya… Listen to me please’ Raunak screamed in sleep. His piercing cry was enough to wake Shreya who lay beside him in bed.
‘Raunak..Raunak ! Are you ok?’ – Shreya shook him gently to wake him. She pulled the comforter down, put her palm below his head. Raunak was mumbling in dream.
‘Raunak..wake up Raunak..’ Shreya shook him again.
Raunak woke up like a child and aggressively took Shreya in his arms, as if trying to protect Shreya from an invisible danger.
Raunak was shivering and breathing very fast. Shreya could feel the hard grip of his arms.
‘Calm down.. calm down..I’m here… with you Raunak’ Shreya gently rubbed his back keeping his head on her shoulder.
Inside the chilled room Raunak was sweating like a marathon runner.
Shreya held him in her arms for about half an hour…slowly his heart beat came down to normal…Raunak slept on Shreya’s shoulder.. She put his head gently on the pillow…pulled the comforter till his neck…hugged him and closed her eyes…
Shreya tried to sleep but she couldn’t. Something pulling her against her will to go back to the memory lane where she had a past with Raunak.. It has been two years she was married with Raunak.. Living happily … but still a dark corner of her mind was curious about Raunak’s past life…Mumbling in one’s dream may be normal for others but it didn’t give a cathartic release to Shreya.
Unlike any other girl Shreya is a good mind reader, but may be she failed to read her Raunak. She met Raunak when she shifted to Mumbai from her Bangalore based MNC. She was very new to the city. Took an one bedroom kitchen apartment in rent in Vikroli and used to travel Andheri for her job at ABM Technologies. She was completely unaware about so called ‘Mumbaikar’ life style, She used to skip 3-4 trains thinking that the next local will be less crowed. Even a child in the city knew how impossible it was. But she was adaptive. A strong woman who wanted to stand on her own feet. She didn’t like to ask for help until something unmanageable. Very joyous in nature and quickly she built a friend circle.
The lanes opposite to Tunga paradise hotel in andheri is mostly crowed with IT employees at evening snacks hour. Shreya could die for junk foods though she used to plan a lot for her diet. Normally she used to wrap up snacks at office cafeteria but if someone would have asked her by chance to go out for snacks then she was unstoppable.
‘Bhaiya, one Masala dosa and a Mazza..chilled bottle please’ Shreya ordered her favorite dish.
‘For me a Papdi Chat’ Aparna shouted to the street vendor standing behind Shreya.
Aparna is Shreya’s shadow friend. Shreya calls her ‘Apu‘. They work in the same company.
Shreya took the order coupons for both and they moved to a table. Aparna kept her bag on it so no one could grasp their table.
“You know. Today I told Manish. I want a comp off” Aparna started a topic.
“O ya, You worked last Saturday” Shreya remembered
“See. You also remember but do you know what he said?”
“What?”
“Comp off !!? why?” Aparna was furious while retrospecting the conversation with her team lead Manish.
Shreya was about to open her mouth to support Aparna , suddenly the vendor shouted “ Masala dosa, Mazzaa”
Shreya could not but stopping Aparna “Let me bring it”. She rushed to the counter.
A guy, standing just beside the counter passed his hand to pull the plate.
“Hey, That’s mine” Shreya thundered.
People around him shocked by her sky cracking voice. As if the guy tried to pull her purse.
The guy looked at Sheya and stepped back.
Shreya was ignorant. She took the plate and maza and joined Aparna back to the table.
“You are too much Shreya” Aparna stated
“What’s up ! They are shameless. We were waiting for it. And moreover it was our order” Shreya justified her.
Aparna knew it was meaningless to tell right or wrong to Shreya that time.
“Start” – Shreya offered Aparna and started with a big bite.
Aparna looked at the counter. The Guy was standing firmly at the same place. Full sleeve blue shirt with a black trouser, crossed hands. Keeping his head down he seemed to be waiting alone for his order.
“Apu, Eat now” Shreya yelled
“Masala Dosa, Maza and Chat” the Vendor shouted from counter.
It bursted into their ears. Shreya fell down from sky in shame.
“Shit” – Shreya murmured
“It was his order” – Aparna completed
Shreya was not able to look straight. She understood what she had done.
The guy was standing at the same place. He heard the vendor but he didn’t move to the counter.
“It was my mistake” Shreya murmured. She stood up and hurried to the counter. She took the plate and turned to the guy. But where was he?
She looked back to Aparna.
“He just moved out ” Aparna pointed to the crowd towards the road.
Shreya was completely blank. She didn’t get a chance to say sorry. She has never hurt anyone in life but what did she do that day !
… Next Chapter ‘Shreya‘
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Som is a Cloud Infrastructure Architect, Public Speaker, and a Technical Consultant working in an MNC. He has around 15 years of accomplishments in IT solutions delivery for various financial institutions across the globe.
Som is the founder of “e2e Solution Architect“ and Udemy instructor. End to End Solution Architect is an educational forum for Data Science, Machine Learning, and end-to-end Cloud solutions for large-scale production environments.
