He stared at me as we ate. Well, he had been doing so when we were ordering too, or so it appeared since I felt someone watching me as I hovered over the menu. But after him watching me like that, I knew for sure that it was him who made me shift in my seat due to the discomfort.
I continued to ignore him and eat from my plate, not bothering to shoot him even a glance. It was a punishment from me on him just as I had been ignored or maybe played with when we were in the car.
"I... No... Are... No, not that either... What..." he finally burst out but in a soft tone. "No, never mind."
I set my cutlery on the table with a small thud that startled him. He stared at me with frightened doe-like eyes like I was a lion who was about to eat him., a small mouse who wouldn't be enough to satisfy my great hunger. Yet nevertheless, I had decided to attack him as, in his eyes, I appeared to be famished.
"What?" I snapped, causing him to shrivel up like a leaf because of my tone.
"N-nothing at all," he said back with gestures and more expressions to emphasise his lie and make it more truthful to me. But I knew better than that.
My annoyed facial expression made him speak up the words, "You know, it is a 'friendly' lunch, not someplace where you are being forced to eat. We could talk a little while eating, right?"
"Eating while speaking—" I started.
"Dear God, don't start with your educational talk again," he interrupted and prayed. "I still don't understand. How can you be so serious even after spending your time with us? Do you never change from the closed shell of yours?"
I sighed in disbelief. My ears couldn't believe that I had heard that in a very long time. It was like the trauma of my childhood being brought back to life.
He took out the spectacles from my face with a dissatisfied face. Rolling it in his fingers, he surveyed my face and frowned harder. Then he took out his phone and showed it to me with the selfie mood on.
My eyes went wide at the figure I saw, something that had never happened in my entire life. The woman had sunken cheeks, dark circles and heavy eyes showing how tired she was. Her tightly bunned black hair had curls spiralling down her temples due to the short nap she had ended up taking in the car. Her gaunt face spoke about ghost stories where the ghost was between life and death, like a grim reaper.
"Sometimes," he said, getting up and breaking my brown hair away from its secured place, "be a little pretty and have some mercy on yourself."
Then he walked away to the men's restroom coolly, as if he had never caused the mess that turned each person's attention on me. I closed my eyes, and covered my face with my hands for a while. My fingers were busy pulling my earlobes to hold back the tears when my past was brought crashing before my very eyes. I know in which way he wanted to mean it, but my heart was always living in fear.
'Still the man with a bully's heart,' I muttered under my breath as I picked up the pins with a flustered face. 'I don't think he shall ever change his ways, whether in mischief or not.'
Having no choice but to braid my hair so that it wouldn't be pulled down again, I sat and tried to relax by meditating.
'Don't think about anything,' I told myself. 'Breathe in and out. Don't get carried away. Don't get broken-hearted by being reminded of the past. Don't let those thoughts get into your head.'
I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder. The instant relief made me sigh. I was overthinking yet again and stressing myself for the little things that didn't happen or affect me anymore. Yet the fear that I faced during my childhood never seemed to pass. It had become a dread to live every day with my mind dreaming of only dreadful things.
"Were you crying, Rina?" he asked, picking up my face in his dainty finger to meet his eyes.
"No, I wasn't," I said, touching my face to dab them away with my handkerchief. "It must have been the stress level that shot up. I haven't slept well and now I have a bunch of work to do. Too... overwhelming..."
His sudden closeness to me caused me to panic and release the last few words in a whisper. My breathlessness was getting stronger as I prevented myself from inhaling his scent. I didn't want to ask for more only to have it become awkward between us.
After staring into my eyes really hard, he let go of my chin and returned to his seat. I finally released the breath I had been holding in. I smiled ruefully at the thought that although I couldn't have him where I wished it to be, I couldn't ask for more unless I wanted to lose him completely.
My sad, meek smile at his serious countenance got his brows furrowed with concern. He reached out his hand to touch mine. Unconsciously, I relaxed at the rub of this thumb on the back of my palm without a word of resistance.
"I must have brought back your past," he said with a kiss on my knuckles, bringing me back to my senses. "I'm truly sorry. I happen to keep forgetting that though I like a little bit of mischief, your little heart can't hold the bad boy actions I used to have when I was younger."
'How did he read my mind?' I asked myself in an astounded tone. 'Am I really dreaming at this moment?'
I retracted my hand in a hurry and massaged it absent-mindedly. I shook my head to think straight as it seemed like I was living a lie or thinking far-fetched ideas.
"Did you look up the date on your phone?" I inquired, trying to divert his attention from me to my words. "Because I hardly seem to remember when I graduated university with all this hellish work."
"I had set it up long ago," he said mildly. "It's nice to remember small details, you know. It helps in improving and building a stronger friendship."
I let out an awkward laugh. Indeed, I had been very stupid to believe that he would ever try to hit on a very normal, or even abnormal, looking lady. The tone in which the last word was said was enough to say where our relationship stood.
"But this is the first time I saw the date and I remembered it," he said, in the hopes of probably buying my heart again.
Hearing him say so sounded nice to my heart, but my mind knew not to indulge in the trickery of those words. He seemed to shift between being an angel and a devil. Perhaps, he was a demonic angel, who could be an angel at most times until his life became boring.
After the meal, we bought drinks in a takeaway package and divided the receipt as we didn't want another hassle. Or perhaps it was more so that we didn't have to waste our energy arguing when he knew how stubborn I could be.
We jogged to the car, with me carrying the drinks, as it was close to the reaching time.
'We're going to be late again,' I muttered under my breath. 'There's no way I'm not losing my job this time.'
We were putting our seatbelts in a hurry when his phone rang. Noticing that it was an office call, both of our faces turned pale until we picked it up. Yusra had pranked us with such a scare that the two of us were cursing at her till we ran out of breath.
I was removing the juice cups from the tray to place them in the cup holder in the car in such haste that I cut my finger. The slice got blood oozing out of my ring finger when it had quickly moved through the sharp edge of the cup's cover.
He noticed the cut and frowned, picking up the ring finger in his long fingers. The softness with which he touched me sent sparks down my arm and spine. That immediately made me sit upright with all my attention on him.
I saw a flicker of ruby red in his eyes. But they disappeared when he closed them gracefully and sucked on my finger. He took his own sweet time, running his tongue along the cut to make a pain settle in my heart.
"Be careful," he said after rolling his tongue over the wound once more to soothe it and then surveying the slightly deep cut.
With a light kiss on the region, that was already starting to heal, and a small bandaid around it, he let go of my ring finger. I took it back quickly before I could feel more sparks arise from it.
His eyes rose up to meet my hazel ones, I turned my face away and avoided meeting his soft brown eyes to not let him see my red face. My heart was falling deeper into the pit of love for him and I couldn't seem to stop myself before any damage happened to it.