Part 30
City General Hospital – Intensive Care Unit, Pre-Dawn
The door to the ICU room clicked softly behind him as Maan stepped inside.
The air was heavy—sterile, cold, and unnaturally quiet. The soft glow of medical monitors lit the dim space, casting long shadows against the pale walls. Rhythmic beeping filled the silence—her heart, still beating.
That was all that mattered.
Geet lay on the hospital bed, barely recognizable beneath the bruises and bandages. A long, sterile dressing traced the line of the wound above her temple, curling into her hairline. Her lips were cracked, pale. A clear oxygen mask covered the lower half of her face, fogging faintly with each breath—shallow, mechanical, fragile.
Her neck was braced, stiff and unmoving.
One arm rested in a heavy white cast beside her. The other was wrapped with IV tubing, saline and medication feeding into her bloodstream at a careful, clinical pace. Her leg was elevated, encased in another cast from knee to ankle, the weight of it suspended slightly on foam padding. A spine brace clung to her torso, straps securing her like she might break apart if left untethered.
She looked... delicate.
And completely still.
Maan stopped in the doorway.
His breath caught.
The sight hollowed him.
This wasn’t how she was supposed to look. Not her. Not Geet. Not the girl who challenged his arrogance in whispers, who stitched together his silences without ever needing praise. The girl who had helped him find clarity in chaos—who walked through a world that never chose her and still showed up every day.
She didn’t belong in a bed like this.
He took one slow step forward. Then another.
By the time he reached the chair beside her, he was trembling and didn’t know it. He sat down carefully, as if even the creak of the chair might disturb her.
His eyes never left her face.
The bruises. The cuts. The stillness.
How had it come to this?
Why wasn’t I there when she needed me?
He reached out, slowly, like he was afraid his hand would pass through her. His fingers brushed her hand—cold, thin, limp beneath his touch. The IV line pulsed faintly at her wrist.
He closed his fingers gently around hers, his thumb grazing her knuckles.
There was no response.
But he held on anyway.
Time moved without meaning.
He sat there in silence, hour after hour, the machines ticking behind him like a reminder of all the things she couldn’t say. He couldn’t look away from her, not even to blink. Her body was broken in places, her silence absolute.
But she was breathing.
And as long as she was breathing, he would stay.
I should have fought harder, he thought. I should have told her. I should have stopped her that night when she walked away with tears in her eyes and I stayed frozen like a coward.
He leaned forward, voice barely a whisper.
“I'm sorry, Geet.”
His voice cracked, throat burning.
“I failed you. I let you leave thinking you didn’t matter. And now... now I don’t even know if you’ll ever hear me again.”
He lowered his head, eyes shut, pressing his forehead against the edge of her mattress.
It was the only moment of surrender he’d allowed himself in years.
The night wore on, and he never left.
He stayed through the shifting of nurses and the soft squeak of IV carts, through whispered updates and low conversations he didn’t register. Occasionally, someone paused in the doorway—recognizing who he was, hesitating—but none dared disturb him.
They saw what he looked like.
And maybe they understood.
Because the man seated in that chair, holding the hand of the broken girl in the bed, wasn’t a CEO or a genius or the heir to anything.
He was just someone who had failed the only person he couldn’t afford to lose.
What if I lose her before I get the chance to show her how much she means to me?
The thought hit again, and his grip on her hand tightened. Not forcefully. Just enough. Enough to beg her to stay.
As dawn broke, light crept slowly across the room, slipping through the blinds, pooling on the tile floor.
Maan sat motionless in the half-light, eyes fixed on her face, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
He had everything.
And still—without her—
He had nothing.
+++
At the office, the morning unfolded without him.
His assistant had checked his calendar twice, then again, hoping for an updated entry. The Frankfurt call was scheduled for 10. Investor documentation was due by 11. By 11:30, the whispers had started—Where is Maan Singh Khurana?
Nobody knew.
Not even Priyanka.
She sat alone in his office, one stiletto crossed over the other, her posture perfect, her patience fraying beneath the surface. The phone on his desk buzzed. Then stopped. Then buzzed again.
Her eyes flicked toward it for the third time in ten minutes.
Still nothing from him.
She’d sent three texts, each increasingly neutral.
Morning. Let me know if I should push the Frankfurt call.
You missed the VC thread. Want me to draft a response?
Just checking in—should I cancel the 3 PM review?
No reply.
She tried not to let it show—the way her lips pressed tighter together with each unanswered message, the way her fingers tapped against her tablet, not even pretending to read anymore.
Maan didn’t ghost people.
Not like this.
And certainly not her.
Something had shifted last night. Something she couldn’t name but had definitely seen. In his eyes. In the way he looked at that girl. Geeta.
Priyanka hadn’t expected her to come back. Hadn’t expected that kind of closeness between them. And she definitely hadn’t expected him to vanish afterward—turning off his phone, skipping meetings, leaving her in silence.
Her leg bounced once. Then stilled.
She picked up her phone and typed again.
Maan. Everything okay?
Sent.
She stared at the screen like it might bleed answers.
+++
Meanwhile, across the city—
Maan didn’t hear any of it.
His phone lay silent in his coat pocket, forgotten.
He hadn’t checked it since he arrived.
He didn’t care who was trying to reach him, or how many deals were waiting on his word.
Because Geet was lying in front of him, unmoving, her skin dotted with bruises, her body wrapped in casts and machines.
And that was the only truth that mattered.
He paced the floor of the ICU room in slow, tight circles. The beeping of her heart monitor was the only sound that cut through the blur in his head. His thoughts spun in fragments—her voice, her laughter, the way she used to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear when she was pretending not to be nervous.
He hadn’t noticed those things at first.
But now, he could barely remember who he was before he did.
He stopped pacing and sat again, reaching for her hand once more. His fingers laced around hers with reverence, like she might dissolve if he held too tight.
She was still breathing.
But she hadn’t moved.
And the weight of that stillness was becoming unbearable.
He rested his forehead against the edge of the bed, eyes closed.
Come back to me, Geet.
+++
The day that followed blurred into a strange purgatory—caught somewhere between prayer and punishment.
Maan hadn’t left her bedside.
Not for food. Not for sleep. Not even when the nurse politely suggested he step out so they could reposition her leg in the traction sling.
He just…stayed.
One hand resting lightly near her casted arm, careful not to disturb the IV lines. His thumb occasionally brushing her skin as if reminding her—I’m still here. Stay with me.
She looked impossibly fragile.
Her face was still bandaged at the brow, the white gauze cutting across her temple where the gash had been stitched. A sterile dressing climbed the side of her face, and her lips were dry, cracked at the corners. Her neck brace was rigid, holding her chin just slightly upward, like she was staring past him even in sleep. One arm lay heavy in a plaster cast, the other arm punctured by IV ports. And beneath the blanket, he knew her left leg had been set in another cast. They had spoken of spinal trauma. He didn’t ask how bad. He couldn’t.
He hadn’t shaved. His blazer lay crumpled on the spare chair. He had refused to wear hospital slippers, so his dress shoes sat discarded in the corner, forgotten. His once-pristine shirt was wrinkled beyond hope, rolled sleeves damp at the elbows where he’d rubbed his face into them, hiding the moments when fear overtook him.
The only thing that hadn’t changed—
Was his vigil.
His phone buzzed again.
He didn’t need to look to know it was Priyanka. Or his assistant. Or maybe even his whole Board.
He didn’t care.
The world outside could burn.
The office could collapse.
Meetings, press, shareholders—let them all wait.
Because the only thing that mattered in this moment was the faint, fragile pulse beneath his fingers. And the possibility that it might fade.
His voice was hoarse now.
He hadn’t spoken much—not aloud. Only in broken murmurs when the nurses left. Only in the thick, intimate silence that filled the ICU like fog.
He rested his forehead lightly against the edge of the bed, closing his eyes.
“Come back to me,” he whispered, voice barely audible. “I never told you… how much I—”
He stopped.
Because saying it out loud felt like a curse.
What if it was too late?
What if this was all he got?
What if the last time she’d seen him, she’d walked away thinking he’d chosen someone else?
He clenched his fists against the mattress, fighting the rising tide of grief that had nowhere to go.
The nurse came in just before dawn to check her vitals.
She glanced at him and softened. “Sir… you should lie down. Just for an hour.”
He didn’t answer.
She adjusted the oxygen tube, noted the vitals, and left quietly.
Maan exhaled, long and shaky. Then looked up again.
The morning light had begun to filter in—pale gold pushing through the blinds, tracing faint lines across her cast and the crisp sheets.
She still hadn’t moved.
Still hadn’t made a sound.
But he stayed.
Hand steady.
Eyes unwavering.
Voice quiet.
“Don’t give up on me, Geet,” he murmured. “I’ll never forgive myself if you do.”
And in the hush that followed, it felt like the world held its breath with him.
+++
City General Hospital – ICU, Four Days Later
The days no longer came with names.
They passed instead like colorless clouds drifting across a gray sky — indistinguishable, endless.
Maan hadn’t left the hospital.
Not for a single night.
Not for a single hour longer than absolutely necessary.
He barely ate. He didn’t sleep, not truly.
The lines of his once-crisp button-downs sagged around his frame, his shirt cuffs worn and stained from endless hours leaning against the edge of her bed, forehead sometimes resting on the back of her limp hand when the fatigue overwhelmed him.
The nurses came and went, murmuring updates in soft voices.
Doctors clipped charts to the edge of the bed, adjusting saline levels, reassessing dosages.
Maan heard none of it.
None of it mattered.
The world outside these walls—his office, his fortune, the ticking empire that once clung to his name like a second skin—had long since crumbled into insignificance.
The only world that existed was here.
Where Geet slept in a fragile cage of tubes and machines, her breath a thin thread anchoring both of them to life.
Still she slept.
Still he waited.
Still he stayed.
He hadn’t opened his phone in days.
He hadn’t answered a single call from the office, or checked the messages piling into the dozens, then the hundreds.
There was nothing out there for him anymore.
Nothing that mattered compared to this —
the small rise and fall of Geet’s chest beneath the thin hospital blanket.
The haunting, devastating stillness in her face.
+++
Morning crept in without warning, the pale, anemic sun slicing through the half-closed blinds in long ribbons of gold.
The sterile white sheets turned momentarily warm under the touch of light, catching the soft curve of her exposed cheek — the one place not marred by gauze or bruises.
Maan sat slumped in the chair, chin tucked against his chest, one hand still wrapped around hers like a man clinging to a ledge in a rising flood.
He was so still, so silent, he might have been another piece of the furniture.
A part of the room.
A part of her.
And then—
A flicker.
So faint, it might have been imagination.
The smallest twitch of her fingers against his.
For a beat, Maan didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
The world sharpened into a blade's edge — everything narrowing to the place where her skin met his.
He lifted his head slowly, terrified he would frighten it away.
And there — again — a soft, unmistakable shift of her hand in his.
It happened so quietly he almost missed it.
A twitch.
The slightest tremor of her fingers against his palm.
At first he thought it was his imagination — some cruel trick born from days of exhaustion and desperation.
But then—
Again.
A small, definite shift beneath his hand.
His head snapped up.
Pulse rocketing into his throat.
For a moment he couldn't breathe, couldn't think — just stared, wide-eyed, at the fragile point of contact between them.
He didn't dare move.
Didn't dare blink.
He just clung to the moment like a man clinging to a cliff's edge.
And then—
achingly slow—
her lashes fluttered against her cheeks.
His heart stopped altogether.
Her brow twitched into a slight crease — confusion, maybe pain — and then, impossibly, her eyes struggled open.
Not fully.
Just a sliver.
But enough.
Enough to tear him apart from the inside out.
Soft brown eyes, cloudy and lost, blinked up at him.
Searching.
Reaching.
Maan leaned in without thinking, breath caught somewhere painfully in his throat.
The tears rushed up before he could stop them, filling his vision, blurring her into a soft watercolor of the girl he had been chasing through every waking nightmare.
Her gaze struggled to focus, drifting weakly—
Until it found him.
And stayed.
“Geet…” he whispered, his voice wrecked and raw and desperate.
Her lips parted beneath the oxygen mask, cracked and pale.
It took a monumental effort — he could see it — just for her to find enough strength to shape a word.
But she did.
"Maan?"
The sound of his name on her lips — thin and broken and beautiful — shattered something vital inside him.
He made a broken sound in his throat, gripping her hand tighter, pulling it toward his mouth like a prayer, pressing it fiercely against his lips.
"I’m here," he whispered against her knuckles.
"I’m right here. I never left."
Her eyes glistened — heavy with exhaustion, with unshed tears — and though she didn’t smile, though her face barely moved, something shifted.
A softening.
A flicker of something old and stubborn and fiercely Geet.
Her lips moved again.
Trembling.
Her breath shuddered through the mask.
And then — the words he had feared in the pit of his soul.
"I... I may not..." she rasped.
"May not make it."
It hit him like a punch to the chest.
Harder than any loss, any failure, any betrayal he'd ever endured.
"No," he said immediately, fiercely, voice hoarse with panic.
"No. Don't say that. You’re here. You’re awake. You made it back."
He shook his head almost violently, willing the words away, willing her to believe in something he wasn’t even sure he could grasp anymore.
But her eyes —
soft, clouded, breaking —
had already begun to close.
She was slipping again.
"Geet," he choked, pressing both her hands between his own, grounding her there, refusing to let go.
"Don't say goodbye," he whispered, forehead bending low until it almost touched their joined hands.
"Don’t even think it."
The heart monitor kept up its slow, mechanical rhythm, indifferent to human heartbreak.
Steady.
Steady.
Steady.
Mocking him with its patience.
She was unconscious again.
The faint flicker of life she'd given him disappearing back into the darkness.
But her words remained.
Hanging in the air like smoke.
Heavy.
Bitter.
Unshakeable.
Maan leaned back slowly, his entire body trembling with the force of what he was holding inside.
His heart raced so violently he thought it might simply give up under the strain.
He stared at her, at the girl who, somehow, had become the air in his lungs without him realizing it, at the girl who had carved herself so deeply into his soul that even breathing without her had begun to feel unnatural.
At the only thing in the world that still felt real.
He had built empires.
Toppled corporations.
Broken kings.
He had believed he could fix anything.
But this?
This slow, brutal war for her breath?
He had no strategy.
No solution.
Only love.
Only waiting.
Only the fierce, endless refusal to let her go.
He squeezed her hand one more time.
Held it against his cheek like a lifeline.
Closed his eyes.
And began to pray, not to any God he knew— but to her.
To her breath. To her stubborn heart. To the girl who had always, always fought harder than anyone else dared.
He gathered her hand back into his own, his thumb brushing soft, reverent circles against her bruised skin.
And he stayed.
Because that was all he could do.
Because losing her — really losing her — would not just break him.
It would end him.
Still here, Geet.
Still waiting.
Still yours.
Even if it takes forever.
Book Talk
Hindi TV Shows
Ishaani
Tum Se Tum Tak
1.1k