| NAINA |

ONE AND A HALF YEARS LATER...

It had been thousand days since my journey as the founder of Wheelers.

Three months after the chaos I made in India, I resigned my job as a blogger in Vogue, only launch my dream travel-based blogging company Wheelers with the help of my six-year-old savings and some amount from an investor.

And then, there I was, on a serious relationship with my work (so serious that I had to work on my birthday as well).

My day at office started off with the notification sound bombarding my mobile when I was working with my work in progress.

I checked the very first message, which was from Abhishek ' Barbie Boy' Grover.

Yes, the guy who almost forced to kiss me is my current best friend. Despite all those he did, he proved to be the someone I could rely on without the fear of being judged.

And, the moment when I knew it was the day when he replied this to our parents who persuaded us to get married:

"Just because I loved Naina, it doesn't mean that I have to get married to her. I loved her, but she wasn't okay with that. She deserves a guy better than me. She is a star. And, it takes only the night sky to fit the star. Not me. Ask me to find a man of her preference, I will do that for her. But... I can't be the preference to her."

The way he compromised his feelings for me had let me know that I can trust Barbie Boy.

He was named Barbie Boy due to his incessant roast of my Barbie Girl ringtone.

Abhishek: Hey, Naina! Wishing you a happy 30 to you! You may be 30, but the energy you radiate is those of 13 (get me a Jaguar for this flattery I did). Honestly speaking, I'm so in awe of you, inclusive of your plusses and minuses. And, I am so lucky to have you as my best friend. Thank you for being the Aditi to my Bunny (get a "Naina" for me and I'll get a "Taran" for you). You are who you are because of you and you are what you flaunt because of you. Thank you for having me in your life with zero judgements. I'm glad that my "I love you" no longer holds a romantic meaning behind and traumatise you.

See you later, bitch!

Your Barbie Boy...

Me: Awww, thanks, Barbie Boy! You do know to flatter people. Keep doing this, and you'll get a "Naina" for yourself. And... Thank you offering to get a "Taran" for me, but... I think my office is the "Taran" to me for now. And... You're indeed lucky to have me as your best friend. (but no Jaguar for you *wink*)

After reading my birthday wish message from Charlotte— who had relocated to Fort Augustus, Scotland to manage her three-generations-old pastry shop, The Browns— I noticed a (1) near the Requests pop-up.

Deducing that it must be some random creepo, I clicked on those blue words, only to wetten my dry eyes upon seeing a familiar face's mirror selfie in a round icon and the name mxxtag_ in bold letters.

Letting the uncomfortable grip of my heart go to embrace her virtually for the first time in eighteen months, I clicked on the pop-up with a deep exhale through my mouth.

Meeta: Hey, Naina! Meeta here. Hope you remember me. How are you doing?

Meeta: Happy Birthday to you and congratulations on Wheelers. Glad that you brought your dream to reality and watch it grow.

Four sentences became more than enough from a person whom I thought would never ever step on my way and accidentally utter a word. I, the ever-grumpy lady boss Naina Mathur, was at my office cabin, shedding tears and suppressing from making sounds over an aloof text from a person who was once my everything.

I accepted her request and texted back in a hope that she was online.

Me: Hi, Meeta! I'm good. How about you? And, double thanks to your wishes.

P.S.: I remember you. *smile*

Only when I saw the tiny green circle near her icon, I'd managed to breathe and relax.

But then, the three tiny dots grabbed my breathe away again.

Meeta: Glad to know that you remember me. How's your birthday bash going on?

Me: So good!

Meeta: Wanna make it better? *lopsided grin*

Me: I wish, but work is an impatient bitch.

Meeta: Work can wait, now attend your receptionist's call.

Before I could wonder where did my receptionist come from, I received a call from her as if she heard me.

I attended the call and asked, "Yes, Chloe? What's up?"

"Ma'am, a visitor is up for you. Someone named..." She paused, only to utter something else as if she was talking to someone else. Then, she continued, "Someone named Meeta."

I couldn't hear the external sounds as I heard the name at last, white noise possessing my ears like a ghost. The world outside whirled as if I was inside an washing machine. I tried to get out of the whirlpool of emotions and reply Chloe but to no avail. Until I tried harder and did it.

"Well... Ask her to come inside," I commanded, wearing my "boss lady" mask and sitting uncomfortably upright in a bid to make myself stronger.

The moment she opened the door, I was supposed to be standing in my place, wait for her to approach me (and straighten my midnight blue blazer suit with my hand), shake hands with her when she approached me, ask her to sit and request to have some tea, coffee, or juice.

But, I didn't do any of them.

The moment I encountered those familiar, warm black eyes, I ran to her, squeezed her and begged, "I'm sorry, Meeta," with emotions blocking my braining and teardrops blocking my view. "I'm sorry, Meeta. I'm sorry for everything. It wasn't meant to happen. I didn't mean to break you. I'm sorry, Meeta."

While I expected her to reciprocate my hug with an emotional shedding of years, she pushed me away and mock-yelled, "Bitch! Stop behaving like I'm your ex. Do you remember that I'm that bitch who would never ever leave you even if you ask me for so?"

I countered her last line with an, "Then, why didn't you contact me so long?"

"I needed a break from all of these. Back then when I see you, I get reminded of him. And, I don't want that. I don't want to remember you as a fucked-up douchebag's girlfriend but as Meeta's friend. Hence, I gave myself the required time to get rid of it. Now, I'm here to celebrate my friend's—" she quoted "my friend" on the air and added, "—birthday with her. Do you get it now?"

I, effortlessly blinking away the tears from my eyes, replied with a chuckle that came from the bottom of my heart— for the first time since my mom died seven months ago.

"Now... Am I allowed to take a seat, Senorita?" She bowed down like a humble servant, leaving her Senorita in tears yet again.

"Sit here, bitch!" I pointed to the couch and sat on it before she could join me. Plopping my arms against the back of the sofa, I asked the customary question, "How's life treating you?"

"Well... To be honest, life's good." She sighed as though she meant it and continued, "I've started to do workouts and go to gym. It looks like my medical career is going up the hill. And... Abhishek has been giving me updates on you. I'm sorry for Mom, by the way. I should have come, but... I had this very important surgery as well."

"No, that's fine. Work's first." I interjected in a bid not to push her into a pit of guilt. "By the way, where's my gift?"

"Your gift..." She started looking right and left and covered her chin with her hands, exclaiming, "I'm your gift, dude!"

Ah, I missed this Meeta "I crack only lame jokes" Grover.

Wait! Is her surname even Grover now?

"Wait! By chance... Are you married?"

She shifted in her position and opened her mouth. "Well... I..."

Before she could reply, I heard my mobile ring and the screen flashing Chloe's name on it.

Right time, Chloe. Thank you very much!

"Yes, Chloe? Who's it this time?" I sounded as though I wanted to say what I wanted to say.

"Ma'am, someone named Angad Sharma is waiting for you."

"What? Come again," I yelled almost out of disbelief, making Meeta jerk a little.

"An Angad Sharma had come to meet you. What should I do now, ma'am?"

"Oh!" I exclaimed while making a mental note that that day's not going to be an ordinary one. "Let him in."

"Okay, ma'am!"

As Chloe disconnected the call, I groaned and told Meeta, "Looks like our good luck had gone on a vacation."

And as if on cue, we saw the six-feet-tall, blue-eyed bastard entering the room, that time with a lot of (positive) physical transformation. With chiselled biceps, tanned skin, and a quite short hair, he looked like a gym trainer.

I suddenly felt like I was third wheeling between Meeta and Angad, with those two people looking right into their eyes and trying to tell something to each other. I wasn't sure of the emotion behind those eyes, but I was sure it wasn't hostility.

"Hi!" Angad greeted Meeta, instead of his host, in a way that screamed he didn't expect her at my place.

"Hi?" She reciprocated his greeting in the same mood as he was. "How are you, Mr Sharma?" She got up from her position and extended her hand for a handshake as if she had no objection on shaking hands with her ex fiance (now, that's my Meeta for you).

"Good. Fine. You?" He accepted the handshake.

"I'm great," she replied with her OG energy without underdoing or overdoing it.

"Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday, Naina!" Angad turned back to me and gave me a bouquet of tulips. My favourite.

He remembered.

"Thank you so much, Angad!" I accepted the bouquet and placed it on my table.

Angad, sitting on the chair that's opposite to mine, asked, "Girls, I need to talk about something. About us."

"Does that still exist?" Meeta asked with nose scrunched and her hand gripping her head.

"Well, it did," Angad started as though he was going to recite a monologue, emphasised on "did". "We all knew what happened before. And, it was all because of me. I shouldn't have been playing two-time with both of you, especially when one of them is my ex fiancee's friend." He looked into me as he said "ex fiancee's friend" and continued, "I should have played a good game for a better future. I have even ruined your friendship—"

"You didn't." Meeta interjected as if she was correcting a guy who was saying that one plus two is equal to five.

"Oh! Good to hear that." He exclaimed with an expression of those who were offended yet trying not to be. "And... I am sorry, girls."

As the room fell into silence that felt like eternity, I filled it with a monologue of my own. "To be honest, I should apologise to Meeta for what I had done to her. I broke the sis code and have been the rulebreaker in my destructive style. And, in this moment, I feel like I'm sorry only to that woman and nobody else."

I emphasised on the last sentence only to rub salt on Angad's wound on his heart. Yes, he admitted his mistake. But, once an asshole, always an asshole.

"Okay!" Meeta sighed airily and added, "Now... Shall we pretend that this never happened, just like adults do?" She quoted the word "adults" in the air, giving a reminder that we are adults indeed.

The next half an hour went on with us chatting, the comfort level in the room increasing from minus fifty to infinity. Angad, unlike his "I'm an asshole" version, behaved like the gentleman with whom I fell for months ago.

"By the way, may I know which person is busy ruling your hearts?" It was Angad who asked it, reminding me of the question I asked Meeta before he came. "If you want to know mine, well... I am dating a girl. She's my neighbour. Her name is Chelsea."

"Ooh!" Meeta and I exclaimed in unison while I was ready to give my answer.

"Meet my boyfriend..." I spread my hands on the air, gesturing my office, and continued, "He stole my heart." I shifted my focus to Meeta and came back to where I left before Angad came. "What about you?" I pointed my chin at her.

"Well... I..." She shifted in her place and replied almost spontaneously, "I'm married."

As she grasped our "Are you joking?" kind of glance from us, she took her mobile, searched for something and handed it over to us while saying, "This is my Raghav."

The next moment, we were facing the mobile screen that showed Meeta and "Raghav" showing off their toothy smile like couples do. With Raghav's arm over Meeta's neck, that guy who was of Meeta's height did look good as my friend's husband.

What seemed off was that I felt like I knew that guy (but I don't).

"Raghav is..." Angad handed over Meeta's mobile to her while searching for apt words to describe his ex fiancee's current husband. "He looks good. Is he a banker?"

"No. A freelancer," Meeta replied with a smile that made me convince that she was happy indeed.

"When did this happen?" I asked while chuckling at her out of disbelief.

"Three months ago," she replied as my heart filled with utter ecstasy.

My hopeless romantic best friend who had got a bitter experience in love had finally met her happily-ever-after.

"Oh, and..." She got off her place and added, "I think it's time to go."

With that, Angad got off his place and repeated Meeta's line while I thanked them for being with me on my special day. They reciprocated it with a bear hug with me with Meeta kissing my cheek at the end of it.

We said bye to each other and I looked at the entrance of my cabin, watching them leave my room and leaving me back to normalcy.

As I sat on my office chair with a mild thump, a realisation had hit me hard, with Raghav's face flashing in front of me and my hand covering my O-shaped mouth.

Holy fuck!

***

| MEETA |

Raghav was not my husband.

He was my distant cousin who's more like a brother to me.

Then, I felt guilty for using Raghav's name for covering up my real feelings. The one I still had for Angad.

Yes, I hate him. I hate him for all that he did to me. But, at the end of the day, I do love him. And, what was much worse was that I knew I'll never love anyone the way I loved him. I can't even love myself the way I loved him.

I don't want to see him. I don't want to hear him. His face is etched in the core of my heart deeper enough to remember for a lifetime. His voice reverberates in my mind, synchronising with my breathing and heart beat.

There was one moment when I knew that I won't be able to marry anyone else, not even Angad, for all those overwhelming feelings I have for him.

I lied to Naina because I don't want her to worry about me and give me advices. She would not understand me. Hence, giving off a false hope to them sounded better in my mind.

As Angad and I reached outside Naina's office, I looked at Angad and gave myself a final peek of him. The moment I saw him in a cowdung yellow turtleneck shirt and olive green jeans, smiling at me and greeting goodbye for one last time before getting into his car, I knew it would live in the core of my mind and heart and come with me even when I reach under the world.

I whispered goodbye, got into the car, and rode towards the right while looking into the rearview mirror and watch him go towards the left.

***

| CHARLOTTE |

Life for the past eighteen months felt like rewatching a good rom-com with a sad ending: you know it's going to be good and you know it's going to be bad.

A month after I settled in Fort Augustus and The Brown's— a pastry shop that has been run by my grandfather when he was eighteen— I lost my brother Jonathan to brain cancer. With my mom sulking over her elder brother's loss, my dad pretending that Jonathan exist while checking on Jon's widow Karen, I took the entire control of the shop and tried to fill in the shoes of Jon's and the cavity in my soul after ending things with Violet. I must say that though I hated it, I ended up convincing that I loved it. Overall, my life sounded good from afar.

Until I saw her at my shop with no familiar feelings engulfing her eyes.

Dad approached her, believing her to be just our customer, and asked, "Welcome to The Brown's, gentlewoman. What would you like to have?"

"Hello, Sir!" Violet greeted back her ex's father and continued, "I have come to meet my girlfriend after around two years. So, I'm planning to surprise her with some good pastries to my sweet-toothed girl. But... I don't know what's her favourite pastry? Could you please tell me what are the varieties available, so that I could choose one and get it for her?"

Okay, this girl certainly had some guts to say that.

"Sure, ma'am. We provide original, Scottish pastries such as Millionaire's Shortbread, Ecclefechan Butter Tart, Clootie, Drop Scone, Dundee—"

"Apple Frushie?" I said it in more like a suggestion than like an answer, that time bringing in the guts to look into those eyes which tempted me to embrace her and make her mine.

Dad looked at me abruptly as he asked, "What do you mean, Charlotte? Apple Frushie? You can't enforcing your favourites to the customer. Let me do my—"

"I'll go with Apple Frushie," Violet stated, that came in as a surprise to Dad, unlike me who had said that only to receive this from her.

"Ma'am, are you sure?" Dad asked her and looked back at me as if I was straight out of Heaven. "Are you sure that your girlfriend would like it?"

"I know my girlfriend better than everyone, Sir. Hence, I would go with Apple Frushie," Violet replied with sarcastic humbleness laced her tone, probably successful in the mission of annoying Dad.

"Sure, ma'am!" Dad walked into the kitchen, disguising his anger in a shroud of Violet's sarcastic humbleness, and came back while cheerfully singing, "You're lucky, ma'am. We just prepared it a few minutes ago, and here you are!"

"Thank you, Sir." Violet greeted, this time with genuine humbleness. After paying the money and receiving the package, she left the shop, shooting me a God-knows-what look.

"She must be some spoilt brat, mustn't she, Charlotte?" Dad's rant brought me back to my doomed life in Fort Augustus. "Okay, come. It's time for lunch. Let's close our shop now."

Five minutes went by as we were closing the shop while I noticed a box with our shop's logo on it and a tiny, turquoise blue worn out box above it.

Dad, noticing me glaring at it, said, "It was the brat who came now. Doom of the existence! She does all big talk but nothing else."

"Uh... Dad, shall I go and check the baking room?" I asked, allowing myself to give into the temptation of raiding the boxes. After getting a nod from Dad and watching him not noticing me, I snuck the boxes and ran into the baking room.

I sniffed the box with our shop's logo and it smelled like apple and dough (just what I expected). I kept it aside and had my hands on the lid of the second box, noticing my heart beat and beat until I opened the box.

It was a ring— a pink stone-headed platinum one— that made me look back at the lid that bore the words: Tiffany & Co. while I rewinded to what I had texted her on the last day of our love story.

Keep our Tiffany's ring safe. I might come back in the future to get it as your fiancee. If I never did, show that ring to your kids and tell them about the girl for whom you waited for two years.

Instead of waiting for me to come for her, she ran to me for us, ending the wait.

Then, I noticed a pink Post-it and read it in my mind.

Am I allowed to become yours?

I wanted to cry. I badly wanted to, but the prospect of being confronted by my father suppressed it (though a little of them did come).

"You are, Violet," I whispered to myself in a hope that she could hear me and continued, "You. Are," while wearing the ring which was finally mine.

***

So, here is the official end of WCS. And... I wonder why the Wattys banner isn't even showing up. Is that my fault?

And... There is an end note. Rush now, peeps!

See you soon!

Song Courtesy: Kaathalae Kaathalae from 96