Silent Love

| 24 |

Shehnaaz

"You're late!" Deep fixed me with a glare as I hurried to him. Of course, I was.

It was never my style to walk in late to any event or meeting, especially to work. I was always a morning person and generally had no trouble waking up early. In fact, I had trained my biological clock so well that I didn't even need an alarm anymore. Just a simple suggestion during the night was enough to awake me at the stipulated time.

But all the mind games I played with myself in order to trick myself into being more productive had gone down the drain right at the instant where my schedule demanded it more.

Since the boards were just a few days away, I, along with deepika and Karan, had been spending most of my time staying up late by necking countless shots of coffee. It was proving to be resourceful only during the nights and the pain of waking up sleep deprived was undeniable.

For the past two weeks, Deepika and Karan had been pushing each other, and to a certain point, even me, to work harder than ever. In order
to avoid the hustle of calling each other, karan suggested me to move in with them for a while so we could conduct combined study sessions.

I told him that I would give it a thought but luckily for him, Sidharth made it a reality when he left to Mumbai last night and asked me to stay at their house.

"Shut up.” I glared back at him and took the medical records from his hand. “Is Dr.Khanna here, yet?”

“No, he wanted us to take over the case for him." He mumbled and upon hearing his words, I froze in my tracks.

“What?" I asked, bewildered. Opening the charts in a hurry, I looked through to see what the medical procedure was.

"Mitral valve replacement. No biggie.”

“Are you serious?" I asked, groaned. "I am not ready for this. I mean, I am, as in, I can do the procedure but I'm too exhausted for this.”

Widening his eyes, he gave a look that made me question if he thought if I indeed grew crazy. "You kidding? Are you seriously saying you want to let this go?"

“I can't go in solo,” I replied. “I'm severely sleep deprived and I have a lot going so please, please do me this favour?"

Utter concern poured from his eyes at the mention of my current state. Right, he was not aware of Sidharth’s situation last night when he volunteered to leave us alone at our house. “What's the matter?”

Sighing, I merely shrugged, “Don't worry, I'll be fine.”

It's not that I didn't want to share it with him, I did, but when we were alone and had enough time to discuss it probably. I didn't want to bother him with my issues when he was just about to go into surgery.

“That's not what I asked,” He said, his tone was now more strict than before,
He was not going to give in. Sighing, I did, instead. "Sidharth flew to Mumbai last night." I realised my face fell at the mention of his name, “His sister met with an accident."

“Is she all right?"

“I don't know, I haven't spoken to him since yesterday,” I said. “I want to talk to him but I'm going to wait until he calls. I mean, I don't know how to be there for him, deep, I feel I'm going to do more harm than good. I just.. I'm clueless. I want to be able to help him if he needs me, although I'm sure he's strong enough to sustain himself, still, I just don't want to sit here and do nothing about it.”

“Why do you think so?”

“That I'll do more harm than good?"

"Yes,"