A week had passed since the night of the red saree, and the air in the office had shifted. It was no longer the sterile, pressurized environment of a manager and his subordinate. There was a silent, pulsing understanding between us now—a bridge built on the secret of his heartbreak and the fierce way I had defended his worth. We moved around the mahogany desks like two people sharing a language that no one else in the building could speak.
That Friday, the clock felt like my enemy. My mom and I were scheduled to travel to my aunt's house for a family commitment, a journey that required a specific bus and a tight schedule. I had been checking the time all day, my eyes darting from my ledger to the wall clock every few minutes. At exactly 5:00 PM, I gathered my things and walked into his office.
"Adi, I need to leave a little early today," I said, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm going to my aunt's place with my mom, and we have a long journey ahead."
He looked up from a stack of quarterly reports, his eyes lingering on me longer than necessary. There was a strange shadow in his gaze, a mix of exhaustion and something that looked almost like... loneliness.
"Wait for some time," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "There's still work to do on the Ahmedabad branch projections."
I nodded, retreating to my desk. Half an hour passed in silence, the office slowly emptying as other employees headed home. Then an hour. Every time I reminded him of the time, standing by his desk with my bag over my shoulder, he gave me the same cryptic answer: "Wait a little more. Just a few more pages."
It wasn't like him. Adi was a man of efficiency; he knew these reports didn't require an extra hour of my time. It was as if he was stalling, trying to stretch out the minutes, tethering me to the office because he wasn't ready to let the silence of the room settle in once I disappeared for the weekend. Finally, with a heavy sigh and a reluctant closure of his laptop, he looked at me.
"Okay. You can go now, Alfha," he said, though his voice sounded hollow. "Have a safe journey."
The trip to my aunt's was long and exhausting. As the bus rattled through the dark outskirts of the city, my mind remained half-stuck at the office. I kept thinking about the way he had looked at me—like a man standing on a sinking ship, watching the last lifeboat pull away. We arrived late, settled into the familiar chaos of my aunt's house, and sat down for a late family dinner. The room was filled with the clinking of plates and the loud chatter of cousins, but I felt strangely distant.
Then, at exactly 8:00 PM, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out, my heart giving a sudden, violent jump when I saw the name glowing on the screen. It wasn't a formal email about the projections. It wasn't a notification on the internal office app. It was a personal, direct text message.
Adi: Did you reach safely?
I stared at the screen, my dinner forgotten. In seven long months of working side-by-side, through the coldness and the "Professional Wall," he had never once messaged my personal number. He knew I was with my mother. He knew I was surrounded by family. And yet, he couldn't help but reach out across the distance.
The text was simple, but its implications were staggering. He wasn't asking about the reports or the filing. He was worried about me. The "Manager" had finally reached out to the girl, and as I typed my reply, I realized that the distance between us had never felt smaller.