It was a tube of lipstick, a shade that she was meaning to buy from quite sometime now. She had mentioned it to Armaan in passing when they were shopping one evening and after that she had forgotten about it. Now the same shade of lipstick was sitting innocently in her locker with a note "Use me now!" attached to it. She recognized his familiar scrawl, of course, but wondered about the amount of time he spent on searching for this lipstick.
She had realized very early in their relationship that, between the two of them, he was the romantic one. In the beginning she had ruled it out as a typical "Armaan-wooing-girl" charm, but as months passed, she found out that he did all those things for her because he simply wanted to make her feel happy.
She had felt an overwhelming sense of affection when he casually told her that her happiness meant everything to him. She thought of sending him a text message, thanking him for his gift but her mind immediately rejected the idea as her heart declared that it was impersonal and dull. A small smile crept on her face when she thought thanking him by giving him a gift of her own; something that would make him smile. She picked up her scrubs and her lipstick and moved to the changing room humming an old tune. It was going to be a long day in surgery and she hoped to meet Armaan before they departed for the day.
He was not new to losing a patient on surgery table but that didn't mean that it hurt any less. In medical school he was hoping that he could achieve a form of clinical detachment with his patients so that if anything went wrong during the treatment he could mourn for them and recover fast.
Apparently, fate had other ideas for him and even now, he could not handle loss of a life. He blamed his over empathic nature for that. His friends were walking next to him, talking about their day, about surgery and everything in general. His brooding mind kept him preoccupied for the rest of the journey to the locker room.
The silent locker room was filled with sudden noises of his friends and somewhere in the back of his mind he had hoped to see Riddhima there, even when he knew that she would be busy in surgery for the rest of the day. He sought his girlfriend's rational mind to soothe the ache of his over sensitive heart. In the beginning it had annoyed him when her voice took a clinical tone, but after working with her, being with her in a relationship, he had come to realize that it was her way of coping. He sincerely wished to get a sight of her so that he could crack some lame joke, making her roll her eyes at him and pass a small smile in his direction; perhaps then, in that moment, he can forget the lifeless eyes of the patient he had just lost. It took a moment for him to realize that his girlfriend had broken into his locker to leave a plain while envelope for him.
Breaking into locker and leaving gifts was mostly his prerogative but he wholeheartedly welcomed the surprise. His breath caught in his throat when he pulled out a small sheet from the envelope. On the sheet, was a lip-print, definitely from the new lipstick that he had presented to her in the morning and scribbled in her neat handwriting – "Thank you! As you can see, I used it". He could feel the day's tension slowly leaving his body and he was overcome with warmth that spread all over him in a gentle caress.
Now he knew that he was going to be OK. His brooding mind dissipated at the sight of his gift, sent a silent prayer of thanks to God and joined his friends in their noisy banter.
--o00o--
Cricket
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
999