AAROHI

Chapter 3

I don't know how exactly the story is going on but I hope u all are liking it .

I saw that views and votes and comments all have a vast difference. If u like the story just respond it will boost us to write more nd encourage us .

This is the last part and epilogue was pending .

Epilogue will be posted only after enough responses , the reason I am posting this part also prior is only because of some readers who are still supporting me

Happy reading........ 😀

The corridors whisper now. Not with gossip, but with awe. Not with pity, but with fear. Dr. Aarohi Goenka walks through Birla Hospital with a clipboard in hand and command in every step. The interns straighten when she passes. The board listens when she speaks. The same walls that once ignored her now echo her name like a standard.

Her proposals become policy. Her presence becomes weight. Mahima withdraws from committee meetings. Manjari avoids eye contact. Parth, rattled. And Abhimanyu — always watching, always silent — becomes a shadow of what he once was.

The staff shifts slowly. Not because she demands it, but because she earns it. The interns follow her into surgeries. The patients ask for her second opinion. Her precision is unmatched, but her empathy shakes people. She listens with focus. She saves lives without spectacle. She teaches. She mentors. She doesn’t raise her voice, and yet nothing she says goes unheard.

Aryan grows closer. Not in grand gestures, but in quiet respect. He meets her after long days with warm coffee and conversation that asks nothing of her past. He tells her once that she reminds him of fire. Not the kind that destroys. The kind that warms frozen bones. The kind that scares people because they don’t know how to hold it. She smiles, and it’s the first one that touches her eyes in years.

But the past always returns when least wanted.

One afternoon, during a pediatric surgery conference, Akshara collapses backstage. Her vitals unstable. Panic spreads. Abhimanyu is called but he freezes. Manjari cries. Mahima hesitates. No one moves.

Aarohi steps forward. Calm. Unrushed. Hands gloved within seconds. She stabilizes Akshara, diagnoses a neurological issue mid-faint, administers correction. The room watches in stunned silence as she saves the woman who once took everything.

When Akshara wakes up, she tries to speak. Her lips quiver with words that come late. Aarohi doesn’t wait for them. She checks the pulse, nods at the nurse, and walks away.

Later that night, Abhimanyu follows her to the rooftop. She stands alone, wind brushing against her white coat, city lights flickering in the distance. He speaks slowly. You saved her. Again.

She doesn’t turn. I’m a doctor. I don’t choose who to save.

He walks closer, guilt thick in his voice. I ruined your life.

She breathes in. You didn’t. You exposed it.

She turns then. Looks him in the eyes. Four years ago, I would’ve burned the world for your apology. Today, it means nothing.

He whispers her name like it still belongs to him. Aarohi.

She tilts her head. That name died the day I was left at the altar.

The silence stretches. She doesn’t break it. He walks away first.

The next morning, she is called into a board meeting. They offer her a position. Dean of Medical Ethics and Leadership. The youngest in the institution’s history. She accepts without hesitation. Her name is etched on glass. Her photograph framed near the entrance.

She stands in front of it later, not with pride, but with peace. Aryan joins her, hands in his pockets. You’ve rewritten your story.

She nods. I didn’t want revenge. I wanted to stop bleeding.

He asks if she’s ever thought of beginning again. She smiles. I’m not waiting to be chosen anymore. But if it happens, it’ll be on my terms.

He doesn’t propose. He doesn’t confess. He simply stands beside her, like an equal. And she lets him.

Weeks pass. The hospital adapts. The Goenkas send a message. An invitation. An apology. A request for reconciliation. She declines politely.

Not out of anger. Out of clarity.

One Sunday morning, she returns to the temple she once visited as a bride-to-be. Alone. No family. No man beside her. No need for one. She carries no bitterness. Only a small brass sindoor box. She places it at the temple steps.

It’s not surrender. It’s closure.

She stands in silence as the breeze lifts her hair. And in that moment, she is not the woman abandoned, not the woman returned, but simply herself.

Whole. Healed. Free.

And as the bells ring above her, Aarohi Goenka smiles.

Because the fire that once burned her has now become the light she walks in.