Begin Again | On Hold

02 | apricity

02

A P R I C I T Y » the feeling of warmth when all you've been going through is cold

VIRAT

The sound of the her voice was intruding in the soft silence. She looked at me, positively gratified, with a wide smile as her hand reached out for me. Her eyes focused only on my eyes, probably because that was the only thing she wanted to focus on as a bare chest would've been deemed as an inappropriate subject.

"Heal me? I'm not broken," I told her, my voice laced with a thin-veil of annoyance. I was fed up of the routine which involved changing physiotherapists. But the girl in front of me seemed too young to be experienced enough to handle such a messy and... broken case.

"Okay," she mouthed the word without argument, raising her eyebrows as she walked past me. At that moment I couldn't help but wonder if she was a serial killer or something – until, I heard the sound of her crashing, a small wince escaping past her lips.

"Miss. Two-Left-Feet," I said, rotating my wheelchair as I sighed exasperatedly. "What are you doing?"

The girl recovered from the fall almost instantly as she ran a hand through her skirt to dust it. "I'm not that clumsy, it's you who are supposed to keep a sign of wet floor here." She rolled her eyes at me, she seemed to be in real annoyance as me and as serious as it was, I couldn't help but wonder why Life Beat would let her come in as a physiotherapist.

She walked towards the window, her hand drawing to open the curtains. "Don't open!"

She peeked at me with an amused glance, "It's too dark to even see your face, Virat."

I ambled slowly towards her, "First of all, don't call me Virat. You should call me Sir. And second, I like keeping my room dark."

"Seems like you've got to make a few changes then, Sir." She smiled but I could already tell that a bad omen had fallen upon me, maybe upon us when she drew the curtains open. Sunlight streamed in through the window flamboyantly, and I saw her scrunching her eyelids and smiling knavishly at the same time. The breeze that flew through the window were soft and caressing. It didn't feel like it was raining a while ago.

"Are you fucking drunk on what... sunlight?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. The girl had the nerve to annoy me so much, how long had it been since we met? Five minutes? "Listen, stop this drama of Alice in Wonderland, okay? And please, for God's sake, just leave, please! I'll talk to Dr. Shekhar and tell him I want to change my physiotherapist."

"My session is supposed to be an hour long so I'm not going anywhere, how much ever you try and cry." She replied, putting an arm on her hip which as she faced the window.

I rolled my eyes, noticing that it was a habit I had fallen into after meeting her a few minutes ago. My mother didn't condone eye-rolling in our house, especially if it was at her, so I normally didn't do it with caution. Even when I was in the team, I always had to clue my body in so I could effectively roll my eyes. But with me sitting on the wheelchair around her constantly nagging presence, it seemed like I had no alternative but to express my displeasure publicly.

"Alright. I've no option left but to call Shekhar and tell him to order you to leave, Anusha." I warned her, positively peeved by her reaction.

She finally turned to look at me. There was a ghost of a smile on her face that made a shiver cascade down my spine no matter how hard I tried to steel myself. It was probably because this was the first time her smile didn't come across as fake or even sarcastic; it seemed quite genuine. She slowly strutted towards the center table which was separated us, and gripped her arm around my phone which kept on it.