Drowning In Him

The air in the cubicle farm usually smelled of stale coffee and industrial-grade carpet cleaner, but today, it was thick with the scent of unbridled desperation. Tomorrow was the annual company retreat, and the thrill of escaping the fluorescent lights for a tropical island had turned a floor of sensible adults into a pack of overexcited golden retrievers.

Except for one corner. That corner was currently occupied by a verbal boxing match.

"I’m just saying, Anya, if you wear that highlighter-yellow blazer to the airport, the pilot might mistake you for a landing strip and try to park the Boeing 747 on your head," Siddharth said, leaning casually against the edge of Anya’s desk. He looked annoyingly put-together in his charcoal-grey button-up, the sleeves rolled precisely twice to reveal a forearm that had no business being that toned for a man who claimed his only exercise was "dodging responsibilities."

Anya didn't even look up from her monitor, though her lips were twitching. "And I’m just saying, Sid, that if you wear that much cologne on a six-hour flight, we won't need to worry about the plane crashing. The scent alone will knock out the engines and the air traffic controllers."

"It’s a signature scent," he countered, reaching over to steal a handful of her masala foxnuts. "It conveys authority. Sophistication. The kind of man who knows his way around a spreadsheet."

Anya finally swiveled her chair, swatting his hand away. "It conveys 'I recently hugged a department store floor manager.' Give me those back! Those are my emotional support snacks for the flight."

"You need emotional support for a flight to paradise?" He popped another foxnut into his mouth, his dark eyes dancing with a mischief that Anya had been dealing with since their first week on the job. "What’s the matter, Anya? Afraid you’ll forget how to be a corporate drone if you're not within ten feet of a printer?"

"I am a delight on vacation," she informed him, snatching the bag back and tucking it into her desk drawer. "I am relaxed. I am serene. I am the physical embodiment of a Zen garden."

Siddharth let out a bark of laughter that made a few people from the Finance department look over and shake their heads. "You? Zen? You got into a fifteen-minute argument with the coffee machine this morning because it 'coughed at you' with a judgmental tone. You’re about as Zen as a caffeinated squirrel."

"The machine started it," she muttered, trying to keep a face straight. "And for your information, I’ve already planned my entire itinerary. It involves a very comfortable lounge chair, a book that has zero numbers in it, and absolutely zero percent of your commentary."

Siddharth straightened up, giving her a look that lasted perhaps a second too long. It was that look again, the one that occasionally made the air in Anya’s lungs feel a little too thin. But before she could process it, he was back to his usual self, leaning down so his face was level with hers.

"Whatever you say, Landing Strip. Just don't cry when I'm the one having all the fun while you're busy being a 'Zen garden' in the shade. I'll see you at the gate. Try not to get lost; I know how big signs can be confusing for you."

He winked, a quick and devastatingly casual flick of an eyelid, and sauntered off toward his own desk, whistling a tune that Anya recognized as the song she’d been humming under her breath all morning.

Anya rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer, but her heart was thumping a rhythm that had nothing to do with her afternoon caffeine hit. She started typing a nonsense sentence into an email just to look busy.

"You are so hopeless," a voice whispered from the next cubicle.

Meera popped her head over the partition, her expression a mix of pity and amusement. "Seriously, Anya. Are you actually blind, or do you just enjoy the view from the Nile?"

"The Nile? What are you talking about?"

"Denial," Meera groaned, leaning her chin on her hand. "The way that man looks at you is literally illegal in three states. He just spent twenty minutes 'bullying' you just so he could stand close enough to smell your hair. And you? You just stood there and roasted his cologne like he wasn't looking at you like you’re the last glass of water in a desert."

Anya snorted, waving her hand dismissively. "Oh, please. That’s just Siddharth. He’s a menace. He treats me like a sibling he actually likes, which is saying a lot because I’ve met his sister and she’s terrifying."

"Siblings don't look at each other with that 'I want to ruin your life in the best way possible' expression," Meera pointed out. "He’s head over heels, Anya. It’s like watching a romantic comedy where the lead actress is a brick wall."

"He is not into me, Meera. We are work besties. We have a system. I insult his vanity, he insults my competence, and we both survive the 9-to-5. If he actually liked me, he wouldn't have told everyone in the breakroom that I once accidentally wore two different shoes to a client meeting."

"He told that story because he thought it was cute!"

"It wasn't cute, it was a fashion tragedy! Now go back to work. Some of us have to finish this report before we go off-grid."

Meera sighed, retreating behind her wall. "Fine. But when he finally snaps and confesses his undying love over a coconut cocktail, I want a front-row seat to your meltdown."

Anya laughed it off, but as she went back to her files, she couldn't help but steal a glance toward Siddharth’s desk. He was laughing at something a colleague said, his head thrown back, looking effortless and bright. For a fleeting second, Anya wondered what it would be like if Meera was right. But the thought was too heavy and too complicated. She shook it off. Siddharth was her anchor in this boring office; she wasn't about to mess that up with something as messy as feelings.

Four hours later, the office was a ghost town, and Anya was standing in the middle of her bedroom, surrounded by a sea of cotton, linen, and sheer panic.

Her suitcase sat open on the bed like a hungry mouth. She had packed four different sundresses, three pairs of shorts, and enough sunscreen to coat a small elephant. But as she folded a turquoise sarong, her movements slowed.

The trip was to a remote island. Tropical. Surrounded by the vast, endless, shimmering blue of the ocean.

Anya felt a cold shiver crawl up her spine despite the evening heat.

"It's fine," she whispered to the empty room. "It’s a big island. I can just stay in the center. I’ll stay by the pool. No, wait, pools are water too. I’ll stay on the sand. Far back. Near the trees."

She reached for her laptop and opened the resort's website for the tenth time that night. The images were beautiful and horrifying. Long, wooden piers stretching out over deep, dark water. Boats that looked entirely too small to be safe. People jumping off cliffs into the surf with reckless abandon.

To the rest of the office, this was a dream. To Anya, it was a three-day endurance test in hiding her greatest secret.

She had been terrified of the water since she was six years old, ever since a stray wave at a family outing had pulled her under, filling her nose and throat with salt and terror before her father had snatched her back. She hadn't told anyone at work. Not even Meera. And certainly not Siddharth.

The thought of Siddharth knowing made her stomach flip. He already had so much ammunition to tease her with. If he knew she was a grown woman who got dizzy at the sight of a boat, he would never let her hear the end of it. Or worse, he would be nice about it. He would look at her with pity, and that felt a thousand times worse than his insults.

"I can't let them find out," she muttered, shoving a pair of heavy denim jeans into the suitcase. It was entirely impractical for the tropics, but they felt grounded.

She walked over to her vanity and picked up a small, waterproof pouch. Inside was her survival kit. It contained motion sickness pills, a heavy-duty whistle in case she fell in and needed to be found immediately, and a printed map of the island's hiking trails that stayed strictly inland.

She tucked the pouch into the deepest corner of her bag, hidden under her pajamas.

If she could just get through the sightseeing trip without having to get on a boat, she’d be fine. She would be the fun friend who preferred the beach bar to the snorkeling excursion. She would be the chill one who liked the shade.

She just had to keep her cool. She had to keep the banter going. As long as she and Siddharth were arguing, he wouldn't notice the way her hands shook when the tide came in.

She snapped the suitcase shut, the sound echoing in the quiet room.

"Just three days, Anya," she told herself, catching her reflection in the mirror. She looked determined, but her eyes were wide with a fear she couldn't roast away. "Three days of pretending the ocean doesn't exist. You’ve survived Siddharth’s ego for two years; you can survive a little bit of water."

But deep down, as she turned off the lights, she knew the ocean was a lot harder to bully than a colleague with a crush.