The Only One

A Sudden Shock

Her heart felt heavier than ever, brain tangled in thoughts and eyes staring into the vast darkness. For a moment, she lost track of time. A tiny drop of tear rolled down her eyes and others followed tracing their path all the way down to the ears, as she lied emotionless on her back. Was this for real? Had she actually heard what she never thought or imagined? But why was she so hurt? 

It was the autumn three years back. Rose had gotten into one of the best universities to pursue her education. She was into one of the best committees but life never came so easy and happy to her. As faster as she grew in her career, her personal life took a deep downward slump. Being from a relatively smaller college, she wasn't aware of all the student politics. Naive and kind at heart, friendly and bubbly and always carefree, she expected everyone to be amiable. Little did she know that life had a different twist for her.

Rose's normal schedule at university started with morning classes from 8:30 am  followed by work at the committee which would extend up-to 4 am in the night. She had no time to relax nor think of herself. Her priorities were straight and clear. With all the stressful schedule the only that kept her moving was a call at 4 am from her close friend, which slowly vanished into thin air. 

Within 6 months, the pressures of work were extreme and she put all the effort to hold herself up in all these difficult times. Her hard work yielded results and she could now quickly wrap up her daily commitments at  work and head back to library for a bit of study by 2 am in the night. Her colleagues continued to stay on till 4 am. It struck a nerve for everyone as to how a small school girl was faster than them. Like every story, they now spent more time planning against her. Rose had no clue of any of this.

On a dark rainy night, at a meeting-impromptu for her but planned agenda for her counterparts- held with the senior team, the team spoke up about how they had found bugs in the work that Rose had done. They pointed out dozen of plotted flaws and termed her a cheater and a fakester. Rose had never done any of this her entire life. If anything she hated most, it was dishonesty. She defended herself as much as she could but it felt like 15 guns shooting directly into her as she was all weaponless. Holding herself straight and standing tall with confidence she knew she wasn't at fault. But all the blames shattered her into pieces. The ever so friendly colleagues, who would play and sing along with her, people who would always move together like a pack of wolves suddenly backstabbed her. Her legs fell weak and she fell to the ground. All she could hear was a buzzing sound. To the world her eyes were wide open but she could only see a black blurred vision in a fully lit room.  She was almost unconscious.

Rose's parents had come all the way with an 8hr journey to spend time with her  but till 5 am next morning she was stuck at this meeting and when she finally returned to meet her parents she was all drained, almost nearing exhaustion. She hardly slept for a hour and her parents left, as they had a flight to catch. They had advised her to leave the work but she was a lioness. She was not among those who would give up. 

Something happened that night. Everyone isolated her from the next day. She would now quietly go and sit at one corner of the room in a chair closer to the exit door. No one would accompany her to meals nor care if she was unwell. A lone warrior, she fought as hard as she could. But every night as she went back to her room, she would lock herself up behind closed doors in dark rooms and cry for hours together until she finally fell asleep of hunger or headache. She had started to think negatively of herself and she was going through a mini-crisis with her love life also. Her friend would never be available and would shoo her away as if she was a bad omen. Even while it was toxic, she couldn't give on the relationship either.

One day, she decided to take a break and by chance happened to meet the on-campus psychiatrist. She had already gone through a deep shock and was not ready to open up to anyone, atleast not a stranger, at this point of time. What if the doc told the situation to outsiders? What if he spoke to her Colleagues? No, she would be targeted more. Worse still, what if he leaked it to faculty? After all they're all the same. Well, she wouldn't be able to face anyone who knew all of this. She was not ready to speak about it. She kept quite and just told him I'm fine. However, this 1hr a week, to her was chill time. A time when she could just smile. A time to move away from the colleagues who suffocated her. With the intent to take a break, she went every week and finally came a day when she burst into tears and told him everything.

This moment turned her life. The doc had realised that she was in the initial stages of depression. But he only told her to keep jogging, and talking to people as much as possible. At this point, she hadn't discussed her personal life with the doc yet. She never wanted to but as things evolved, he became her friend and there came a point when she revealed the other part that hurt her. As stubborn as she was, she denied his advice to end a toxic thing and stopped visiting him.

Whoop. Here she was back again in dark rooms and teary nights!  

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