Un-succeed love of Barthi and Sanjay - part 2
BARTHI FINALLY TOOK A COURAGEOUS DECISION ......
The air in the office felt thick with a tension that only two people understood. After the news of the engagement, Barthi’s demeanor changed. Fearful of her family’s pressure and her sister’s past, she chose the path of least resistance. She chose her cousin.
The weeks that followed were a living nightmare for Sanjay. They still sat in the same bay, their desks separated by nothing but a thin partition. Barthi stopped acknowledging his presence. To make matters worse, her fiancé began calling her every afternoon.
Sanjay sat just inches away, forced to overhear her sweet whispers, the same tone, the same laughter, and the same "have you eaten?" check-ins she once reserved only for him. Every word felt like a shard of glass in his heart. He tried to talk to her, to remind her of the unconditional love he showed after the accident, but she remained a stone wall.
"It’s over, Sanjay. Focus on your work," she had said, her voice trembling but firm.
Unable to breathe in the same space where their love had withered, Sanjay resigned within a week. He couldn't stay and watch her become someone else's bride.
Sanjay moved to a different firm just a kilometer away. Despite the physical proximity, they became ghosts to one another. He buried himself in work, staying late into the night to avoid the silence of his room. He learned new technologies, took on impossible deadlines, and climbed the corporate ladder with a desperate, frantic energy.
When his friends told him the wedding date was finalized, Sanjay couldn't stay in Bangalore. He fled the city for 15 days, switching off his phone and disappearing to avoid the mental image of her holding someone else's hand. He returned with a heart that wasn't healed, just numb.
A year passed. Sanjay was no longer the boy on the broken bike; he was a seasoned professional. An opportunity arose for a Team Lead position at his old company. He heard from the grapevine that Barthi had left the firm months ago after her marriage.
Thinking the coast was clear and the "haunted" bay was finally empty, he decided to return to where it all began. He wanted to reclaim his space.
On his first day back, the HR manager led him through the familiar hallways. Sanjay felt a sense of pride; he was returning as a leader. As they turned the corner into the main floor, the manager pointed toward the team’s seating area.
"You'll be managing this wing, Sanjay," the manager said.
Sanjay scanned the floor, his eyes landing on a familiar desk. His heart stopped. There sat Barthi. She hadn't left the company, or perhaps she had returned. She looked different. Her hair was tied back, and around her neck hung the Mangalsutra, the auspicious thread of her marriage.
Their eyes met for a split second. The professional mask Sanjay had spent a year building shattered instantly. Without a word to the manager, he pivoted on his heel and walked straight toward the manager’s office, his breath hitching in his chest. Seeing her as a woman Belonging to another man was a pain he hadn't prepared for. He had come back to lead, but standing there, he felt like the same broken boy who had left a year ago.
Walking back onto that floor wasn't just a career move; it was a confrontation with a ghost. As he eventually stepped out of the manager's office to settle into his new cabin, he had to pass her desk. He kept his eyes fixed forward, but the peripheral vision he once used to adore her now betrayed him.
He saw the small things. She still kept a small cactus on her desk, the one he had joked looked as prickly as her when she hadn't had her morning coffee. But beside it was a new framed photo. A wedding portrait. She was draped in heavy silk, smiling a smile that looked practiced, standing next to a man who wore the victory Sanjay had bled for.
That afternoon, the office went quiet for lunch. Sanjay stayed in his cabin, staring at the glass wall. He remembered the first "Hey" he had ever sent her. He remembered how his heart had done a somersault when she replied instantly. Now, he was the Team Lead. He had the power to assign her tasks, to call her into meetings, to control her professional day, but he had zero place in her heart.
A knock came at his door. It was Barthi.
She didn't wait for him to say "come in." She walked in and closed the door. The silence between them was heavy, weighted with the memory of a bike accident, a deep leg wound, and a thousand shared meals.
"Sanjay," she said. Her voice was thinner than he remembered. "I heard you were coming back. I thought... I thought you had moved on."
"I did," Sanjay lied, his voice cracking. He gestured vaguely toward the floor. "I moved on to a better company, a better salary, and a better title. I didn't expect to find you still haunting the hallways."
"I tried to leave," she whispered, her hand instinctively going to the Mangalsutra around her neck, a gesture that felt like a dagger to Sanjay’s chest. "But life is expensive. My husband’s business... it struggled. I had to come back to the place that paid me well. I didn't know you were the new Lead."
The Unbearable Proximity
Sanjay stood up, walking to the window to avoid looking at the golden thread around her neck. "Do you know what it was like? Sitting in that bay a year ago, hearing you tell him you’d eaten lunch? Hearing you use the same pet names you used for me?"
"I had to, Sanjay! My father was"
"Your father is fine," Sanjay interrupted, turning around with tears finally stinging his eyes. "But I wasn't. I drove a broken bike with a bleeding leg just to make sure you got home safe. I stayed up nights learning code just so I could earn enough to be 'worthy' of a proposal. And you didn't even give me a chance to fight. You just... handed the keys to my life to someone else."
Barthi stood there, her own tears finally spilling over. The "courageous decision" she had made a year ago suddenly felt like a life sentence.
"I’m your lead now," Sanjay said, his voice turning cold as he retreated back into his shell of professional armor. "I will review your work. I will sign your timesheets. But don't ever ask me how I am. And don't ever mention the bike, the rain, or the 'Hey' that started this. To me, you’re just an employee who wears a reminder of my greatest failure every single day."
He sat down and opened his laptop, refusing to look up until he heard the door click shut. As she walked away, Sanjay didn't feel like a leader. He felt like a man who had climbed to the top of a mountain only to realize he was completely alone, looking down at the life he was never allowed to have.
He had the title. He had the respect. But every time he would look across the office bay, he would see the girl he loved, living a life he had scripted, with a man who didn't have the scars to prove he deserved her.
"He earned the title he always wanted, only to realize he had lost the person he earned it for. In the quiet hum of the office, the loudest sound was the silence between two hearts that used to beat as one."
Comments
Post a Comment