The first ten hours of their thirty-six-hour shift had been a relentless blur of clinical precision and mounting exhaustion. Rohan had spent the better part of the morning in the minor OT, meticulously performing a dressing change for a persistent abscess patient. Meanwhile, Dr. Sandhya had been traversing the female wards, her hands steady as she managed a series of Foley catheter insertions.
When they finally converged at the scrub station to wash up, the silence of the hospital corridor felt heavy. As they stood side-by-side, the rhythmic splashing of water was interrupted by a sharp, unmistakable growl from Sandhya’s stomach.
Rohan froze, turning his head slowly to look at her. He let out a long, theatrical sigh, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "Women like you," he started, his voice dripping with condescending fatigue, "how can you possibly expect to manage a household and a hospital when you can’t even take care of your own basic needs?"
Sandhya stiffened, her hands gripping the edge of the porcelain sink until her knuckles turned white. 'You want me to take care of a house?' she thought, a bitter fire rising in her chest. 'If you allowed me a personal life—if I had a boyfriend—perhaps he would be the one taking care of me. But you men want to sterilize my ambition forever, driving me into the ground for another forty-eight hours just to squeeze out a fraction more efficiency.'
She took a slow, steadying breath, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a verbal outburst.
"I’m going to order food," Rohan muttered, breaking the tension. "I suppose you’ll need me to include you?"
"No, sir," Sandhya interrupted, her voice cool and composed. "I’ve brought my own."
Rohan blinked, genuinely taken aback. The professional mask slipped for a split second, revealing a flicker of surprise, before he adjusted his posture and shrugged dismissively. "Fine. Suit yourself. Why should I care? It’s just more money saved for me."
The walk to the canteen was punctuated only by the rhythmic clicking of their heels against the linoleum. When they reached the doors, they pushed them open simultaneously, both carrying their meals—a stark, quiet reminder that even in their shared struggle, they remained islands of solitude.
The canteen was sparsely populated, bathed in the sterile, hum-drum glow of late-night hospital life. Sandhya made a beeline for the very last bench in the corner, seeking the solitude she desperately craved. Rohan, trailing slightly behind, claimed the table directly adjacent to hers, his posture rigid.
Just as Rohan began to unwrap his Zomato parcel, the delicate aroma of his dinner wafting through the air, the rhythmic tap of shoes signaled an arrival. A medicine resident approached, looking hesitant.
"Sir," the resident began, offering a respectful nod toward Rohan before gesturing toward the empty space at Sandhya’s table. "Our medicine department is organizing a get-together dinner tonight. If you don't mind, we were hoping to sit at the table where Dr. Sandhya is currently seated, as she is your resident."
The resident paused, glancing between the two of them with a nervous expression. "I could have asked her to sit at your table, sir, but I wasn't sure if you would mind the intrusion, so I thought it best to ask you directly."
Rohan paused, his hand hovering over his food. He glanced at Sandhya, who remained pointedly focused on her own meal, her back turned to the unfolding scene. The air in the room felt suddenly thick with the weight of the department’s expectations and the silent, unspoken friction between them.
Rohan’s pride anchored him to his seat; the thought of moving to his table felt like a surrender he wasn't prepared to make. Instead, he gestured sharply for Sandhya to join him, effectively ordering her over to avoid the indignity of approaching her himself. Sandhya paused, momentarily confused by the sudden change in command, but she knew better than to dwell on it. With the silent obedience of a tired, loyal trainee, she gathered her meal and took the seat directly across from him.
As she began to eat, Rohan’s eyes drifted to her plate. His expression shifted from cold detachment to genuine shock. "Oh god, you’re a non-vegetarian?" he muttered, his voice laced with sudden revulsion. The spicy aroma of her dish seemed to nauseate him, his face contorting into a mask of pure disgust. To him, she suddenly looked less like a colleague and more like a little monster; he watched with a mix of horror and bewilderment as she took a bite, his eyes fixated on the way she dug into the chicken, as if analyzing the very act of her eating with disdain.
Sandhya caught the expression of utter revulsion on his face and felt a jolt of nervousness. "Sir, is there any problem?" she asked, her voice small.
That single question shattered his composure. In an instant, his appetite vanished, replaced by a suffocating sense of frustration. He could no longer bear to sit across from her. "You’re a non-vegetarian?" he snapped, his voice tight. Sandhya could only nod in quiet disappointment, shrinking further into herself as his judgment landed heavily on her.
Without another word, Rohan stood up abruptly and stormed out of the canteen, desperate for the cool, sterile air of the hospital corridors. He paced the hallway, his mind reeling; he simply couldn't reconcile the image of the "cute puppy" resident he knew with the sight of her tearing into flesh. Inside the canteen, Sandhya stared at her food in disbelief. 'Now he has a problem with what I eat, too?' she thought, the absurdity of his reaction stinging more than his usual harsh critiques.
Thankfully, her grueling thirty-six-hour shift finally drew to a close. Exhausted, she made her way to the parking lot to retrieve her scooty. As she climbed on, she struggled to find her balance, her body so drained that she couldn't comfortably touch the ground with one of her legs, leaving her teetering precariously.
Suddenly, she felt a presence nearby. She looked up to find Dr. Rohan standing there, watching her with a strange, unreadable intensity. He had been waiting for her, his eyes fixed on her struggle to steady herself on the bike.
Rohan pulled his car out of the hospital parking lot, the asphalt blurring into a dark, melancholy streak. He arrived at his sprawling villa, an architectural masterpiece of glass and steel perched on a cliffside overlooking the city. Inside, the silence of the massive, cold halls felt suffocating. He shed his sterile scrubs, poured a heavy glass of amber scotch, and stepped into the warm, illuminated sanctuary of his private infinity pool, the water mirroring the moonlight.
As the heat enveloped him, the present dissolved.
The steam rising from the water morphed into the intoxicating scent of jasmine and bath salts. He was back in that night—the night that ruined him for everyone else. He and sandhya , his vibrant, brilliant OBGYN, were tangled together in a bathtub overflowing with thick, iridescent foam. They moved with a desperate, frantic hunger, their lips locking in a kiss so deep and absolute it felt like an erasure of the rest of the world. They were skin against skin, slick and inseparable, pulses racing in a rhythm that defied the ticking clock.
The transition to the bedroom was a blur of limbs and heated whispers. They stumbled in, draped only in damp towels that hit the floor like dead weight. Rohan remembered the intoxicating scent of her hair, the way his voice trembled when he pressed his forehead against hers. "I love you, Sandhya," he had breathed, his soul bared. "This life isn't enough to love you more."
He recalled the way he had worshiped her, his lips tracing the elegant line of her neck before descending to her , his touch creating a vacuum of pleasure that made her arch her back and whimper. Her fingers had been clawed deep into the silk bedsheets, her body turning into a landscape of exquisite, raw sensation. He remembered the exact look of her surrender—the way she groaned in a mix of agony and ecstasy as he turned her, his tongue exploring her with a rhythmic, devastating precision that brought her to the absolute edge of sanity. When he finally claimed her, thrusting into her with a force born of pure, unadulterated obsession, every kiss they shared felt like a promise written in fire.
The memory shattered.
Rohan surfaced, the cold reality of the villa’s silent, empty architecture slamming back into him. He stood alone in the pool, the scotch glass trembling in his hand. It had been a year, yet the void in his chest hadn't healed—it had only grown sharper, a jagged, relentless ache that no amount of luxury could ever soothe.
Rohan hauled his dripping, muscular frame from the infinity pool. Despite the crushing exhaustion of the 36-hour shift, his physique remained sculpted and formidable, a testament to his obsessive discipline. He walked toward a hidden compartment in his study and pulled out a stack of weathered letters.
They were from her—the original Sandhya.
As his fingers traced the frantic handwriting, the betrayal resurfaced with the force of a physical blow. The letters were desperate, a series of tear-stained pleas for forgiveness. It was a cruel irony that the woman who had shattered his world was the daughter of the hospital’s director, a position that had made their entanglement feel inevitable and inescapable.
In the letters, she begged him not to abandon the surgery department because of her presence, feigning concern for his career while ignoring the jagged ruins of his heart. She had begged for a second chance, conveniently omitting the exact nature of her duplicity: she had been sleeping with his best friend, Dr. Ansh , the Head of Pediatrics.
The memory of that discovery—the image of them together—turned his blood to ice, even in the warmth of his villa. He realized then that his current torment, the way he projected his hatred onto the new Dr. Sandhya, was just a way to keep the ghost of the old one alive. He wasn't just working; he was punishing the world for what the Director’s daughter had done to him.
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