Part 34
The monitor beeped beside her, soft and steady.
She hadn’t moved all day.
Not that he expected her to.
Not anymore.
Maan sat hunched in the same hospital chair, his spine a wreck, his body stiff, but he didn’t shift. He didn’t leave. He barely breathed.
His phone buzzed once with a work notification.
He ignored it.
Instead, he opened something else.
A folder.
Unlabeled.
Buried deep in his saved files.
He’d made sure no one could find it.
Not even himself, sometimes.
Inside were clips, links, and downloads—none longer than a minute or two.
Geet—in a dozen strange outfits, selling everything from masala mix to shampoo. Sometimes overly cheerful, sometimes fake-crying on a plastic couch in a daily soap. Always luminous. Always giving more than the script deserved.
He had watched them all.
Long before the hospital.
Long before the blood and the silence and the blank, unblinking version of her in this bed.
It had started as a guilty distraction. A curiosity. A late-night lapse.
Then it turned into something else.
Obsession.
Ritual.
Memory.
He hit play.
The commercial buffered. Then bloomed across the screen.
She appeared—brightly lit, grinning too hard, holding a plastic bowl of dal.
“If you’re going to ignore me,” he muttered under his breath, “I might as well annoy you into waking up.”
She didn’t move.
Not a flicker of eyelash. Not a twitch of the lips.
But he kept going.
He turned the volume low, just enough for her voice to filter into the room—the sugary, overacted cadence of a woman selling housewives a shortcut to happiness.
“You look like you’re trying to win an award for smiling through emotional damage,” he muttered, lips twitching. “They really made you do this, huh?”
Still nothing.
He swiped to the next clip.
A soap opera.
Easily the worst of the lot.
Bad lighting, garish background music, and there she was—draped in heavy bridal attire, lips trembling, mascara streaking beautifully down her cheeks like tragedy painted in real time.
She stood beneath a mandap, deserted, broken.
Onscreen text screamed: “He left her... AGAIN!”
Maan blinked once. Then again.
“Wait—again?” he said aloud, stunned. “He left you twice?”
He stared at the screen like it personally offended him.
“What is this nonsense?”
She was delivering her lines—flawlessly, as always—crying over some man named Karan or Varun or... who the f**k cared.
But the disbelief in Maan’s chest had already curdled into something else.
He looked at her—his Geet. Fierce, elegant, too full of quiet dignity to be reduced to melodrama—and for a moment, everything stilled inside him.
“Who the hell dumps you?” he asked, softly this time.
Not rhetorical.
Not sarcastic.
Genuine bewilderment.
“What kind of lunatic... has you—and lets you go?”
A beat.
A slow shake of his head.
“That’s how I know it’s fiction.”
He glanced at her still face beside him, and the weight of it hit hard.
No sane man would ever walk away from her.
Not if he knew what he had.
Not if he had even half a heart.
Because she wasn’t just someone you dated.
She wasn’t even someone you loved.
She was the kind of person you thanked the universe for, every single f**king day.
And anyone who left her?
Didn’t deserve to breathe.
He leaned forward a little, resting his elbow against the edge of the hospital bed, his thumb smoothing a crease in her blanket.
“You were always trying to prove yourself,” he said softly. “Even when you didn’t have to.”
Another clip auto-played.
She said a line—some inane tagline about coconut oil and ‘inner shine.’
He whispered along with her.
Word for word.
His lips moved before he realized what he was doing.
The shame hit instantly.
He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling like he could scrub the moment out of himself.
“I know,” he said, voice rough. “I’m the one who didn’t even ask what your favorite perfume was. But I know the goddamn tagline from your hair oil ad.”
His laugh came out broken.
Low. Bitter. Familiar.
“You should wake up just to mock me for this.”
Still nothing.
And still—he didn’t stop.
He clicked play on another one. And another. Let her voice fill the room again. Not the real one—the one that challenged him, reasoned with him, hissed at him in boardrooms and behind stairwells.
This was her screen voice.
Saccharine. Comedic. Over-directed. Performing.
And yet, somewhere in the cracks between fake emotion and flat lighting—
she was still alive.
Not just breathing. Not just surviving.
Real.
He watched her perform like it mattered. Repeated every line like it was scripture. Let her face move across the screen while her body stayed still beside him.
It wasn’t poetry.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t romantic.
It was ridiculous.
Ordinary.
And real.
This was his ritual now.
No flowers.
No letters.
Just her.
As she was.
Line by line.
Until she came back to tell him he was awful.
And he could finally say—I know.
+++
Hospital Room – Night
The fluorescent light hummed faintly above, but Maan had turned off the overheads hours ago. Only the soft glow of the monitor illuminated the room now—steady, rhythmic beeps and the occasional mechanical sigh from the machines offering a strange kind of lullaby.
Geet lay still, her face calm, almost indifferent to the passage of time.
Maan hadn’t left his seat. He rarely did. Tonight, like the last few, he sat slouched beside her, scrolling through videos on his phone. Not work. Not distraction. Her.
One after the other, he let them play—absurd old detergent ads, soap opera cameos where her character cried over trivial betrayals, travel show pilots with voiceovers that barely pronounced names correctly. There she was—in synthetic sarees, heavy TV makeup, cheap lighting—and somehow, she still looked like a star.
He said nothing.
Just hit play again.
Until a soft knock interrupted the silence.
He looked up, blinking as if surfacing from underwater.
A nurse stood at the door. “Mr. Khurana?”
He straightened slightly.
“I need to do her sponge bath and change the linens,” the nurse said gently. “Would you mind stepping out for a few minutes?”
Maan nodded, slowly rising from his seat. He hesitated for half a second—eyes lingering on Geet’s unmoving form—then quietly left the room.
The corridor outside was cold. Unforgiving. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching the sterile white ahead like it might offer an answer.
Ten minutes passed.
Then the door creaked open again.
He turned.
The same nurse stepped out, pulling her gloves off. Her expression was different this time—gentler, even hopeful.
“There’s good news,” she said softly.
Maan’s brows pulled together. “Good news?”
“She got her period,” the nurse said.
He blinked, caught off guard. “And... that’s good?”
She nodded, her voice calm but firm. “It means her body is stabilizing. Her hormonal system is trying to resume its cycle. We don’t see that in patients who are deeply unresponsive. This... this is usually one of the first signs we get that the brain and body are reconnecting.”
Maan stared at her, processing.
Geet—who hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken, hadn’t blinked with intent—her body was... waking up?
The nurse gave a small smile. “It doesn’t mean she’ll open her eyes tonight. But it means something inside her is trying. That’s not nothing.”
He exhaled.
Quiet. Slow.
Like his chest hadn’t realized it was holding breath.
“Thank you,” he murmured, almost dazed.
She nodded once. “Take your time,” she said, then moved down the hall.
Maan turned to face the door again.
He didn’t go in right away.
He just stood there.
One hand in his pocket.
The other still curled slightly, like it had been resting against her phone screen moments ago.
She had fought for everything in life—auditions where no one remembered her name, roles where she was barely credited, clients who mocked her accent, producers who offered the worst kind of exchanges. And even then, she had walked with her chin up.
And now, her body was doing the same.
Fighting.
Quietly.
He finally stepped back in.
Sat down again beside her.
And hit play.
This time, it was the ad where she played a cheerful receptionist who messed up coffee orders and apologized to the camera with a wink.
Maan watched her wink and smirked.
Then, alone in that sterile room, he lifted his own face and exaggerated a slow, clumsy wink.
“See that?” he muttered, gesturing at himself. “Oscar-worthy.”
The sarcasm curled around the exhaustion in his voice, trying—just barely—to keep the ache in his chest from rising too high.
He slumped back into the stiff chair beside her bed, still watching the phone.
Her wink had always made him feel like he’d been seen through.
Like she knew exactly who he was—and chose to stay anyway.
He looked over at her now, lying so still, her lashes fanned like shadow over skin that looked too pale under fluorescent light.
“You’re a menace, you know that?” he said softly, setting the phone down on the table beside her. “One day you’re auditioning for these absurd roles then serving tandoori paneer to drunk horrible elites. Next day, you’re in my office making me forget what I was even mad about.”
His voice dipped, the edge of humor fading to something quieter.
“And now here you are. Not flinching. Not blinking. Just sleeping like the world didn’t shatter the second you stopped laughing.”
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, eyes tracing the curve of her fingers where they lay curled on the sheet.
The monitor behind her beeped steadily.
Soft. Indifferent.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Then opened them again.
“You got your period today,” he said into the silence, almost to himself. “Apparently, that’s your body trying to crawl back to life.”
He huffed once, dryly.
“So... congratulations on bleeding. First time I’ve ever said that to someone without sarcasm.”
A beat passed.
Then, under his breath, barely audible—
“Don’t make me start applauding your uterus.”
He shook his head.
“Only you,” he murmured, voice thick now. “Only you could make something like that feel like a goddamn miracle.”
His gaze moved slowly across her face.
Then—softly, tenderly, without the armor of irony—
“You stubborn, stubborn girl…”
He reached out, not to touch, just to hover—fingers inches from hers, like breaking that barrier was still too dangerous.
“…my stubborn, brave girl.”
His voice cracked a little and his hand dropped gently into his lap.
He didn’t expect a response.
But he kept sitting there anyway.
Because this—watching her fight quietly—was the bravest damn thing he’d ever seen.
And until she woke up to hear it herself—
He’d keep saying it for her.
+++
It had been a day since Nurse Tara’s quiet announcement.
Since that one line—She got her period—had carved a crack in the stillness surrounding Geet’s bed and let something warm and terrifying pour in.
Hope.
Since then, Maan hadn’t left her side for a second.
Not out of duty.
But out of something deeper.
A kind of reverence.
As if her body—betrayed, broken, silent—had just whispered back: I’m still fighting.
That evening, the nurses returned.
Two of them this time—Tara, who always moved gently around Maan’s silence, and a younger one named Reema, who had only just begun her ICU rotation and had heard whispers about the powerful man who hadn’t left the side of the quiet girl in Room 407.
They entered with the soft efficiency of professionals used to navigating both grief and hope.
“Just routine vitals and cleanup,” Tara said, her tone kind as always.
Maan nodded, not taking his eyes off Geet’s face.
She still hadn’t moved. But her breathing was stronger today. Her color less hollow.
He sat off to the side as the nurses moved around the bed, changing sheets, checking her IV, adjusting the soft padding under her legs.
Then came the quiet conversation between them—low, clinical.
“Second day, likely,” Reema murmured, reading off a chart. “Flow’s moderate. Do we know her typical cycle length?”
Tara glanced at Maan.
Then back at Reema.
Then gently, kindly—
“Mr. Khurana, do you happen to know if her cycles are usually short or long? Five days? Seven? Painful? Heavy?”
Maan blinked.
Actually blinked.
As if they’d just asked him to solve quantum physics with no numbers.
“I—what?”
Tara tried again, softer. “Her menstrual cycle. Duration, flow, if she tends to get strong cramps. Any birth control history? Sometimes that can affect the pattern.”
He stared at her like she’d spoken in Hebrew.
“I—I don’t know,” he said, voice low. “I mean... I never thought to ask her that. I didn’t...”
He exhaled, running a hand down his face. “We weren’t... together like that.”
Tara gave a small nod, professional. “Of course. Sorry, I assumed. The way you—” she stopped herself, smiled. “It’s okay.”
But Reema wasn’t done.
“She’s lucky,” the younger nurse said quietly, changing out the sheet with delicate care. “Not many have someone who waits through this kind of thing.”
Tara gave her a warning glance, but Maan wasn’t offended. He barely heard them.
His gaze was back on Geet’s still body, brows furrowed.
“Is she in pain?” he asked suddenly.
The question made both women pause.
He looked up.
“Because of the... the cramps. I read somewhere that the second day is the worst. Is she... hurting?”
His voice wasn’t shaky. But it wasn’t steady either.
Tara softened completely. Her expression shifted—clinical mask melting into something maternal.
“We’ve given her mild medication through IV. But yes, it’s likely her body feels the discomfort. Cramping, lower back pressure. All of it.”
Maan nodded slowly but wasn’t soothed by that.
His gaze drifted back to the bed—where Geet lay with one arm in a cast, her neck braced, leg elevated, ribs wrapped, gauze still dressing the left side of her temple.
And now?
Now her body had chosen to bleed too.
“She’s already hurting,” he said, mostly to himself. “Every part of her is broken. Bones. Spine. Skin.”
He swallowed.
“And now this.”
His hand curled slightly, not into a fist—but something tighter. Something fragile.
“She can’t even lie still in peace. Her body still finds new ways to punish her.”
There was no self-pity in his voice. No drama. Just quiet, aching awe.
“How does she do this?”
The nurse didn’t answer.
Then looked down at Geet’s stomach.
“She always stood so straight. I never noticed if she was in pain.”
A pause.
Then, almost to himself—
“I should’ve noticed.”
There was silence again as the nurses finished their task. Fresh linens, a gentle repositioning, careful swabs at her temple.
When they left the room, they didn’t speak until the door closed behind them.
And then—
Reema turned, grinning into her palm.
“Did you hear him?” she whispered. “The cramps? He asked if she was in pain. Like—genuinely worried. Not performative. He meant it.”
Tara chuckled, pressing a hand to her chest.
“They’re not even together. He doesn’t know her cycles. But he’s still here. Every day.”
“And that line? ‘She always stood so straight’? God.” Reema wiped under her eyes. “He’s gonna wreck me.”
Tara shook her head, smiling.
“He already wrecked himself.”
+++
Inside the Room
Maan sat beside her again, knees spread apart, elbows on thighs, fingers rubbing over his lips.
He looked at her.
Still the same.
Still too still.
“I didn’t know your cycle,” he said softly, “but I know you can’t function without your tea in the morning. I know you chew on your straw when you’re anxious. I know you hated it when people said ‘smile more.’ You always smiled less after that.”
He looked at her abdomen again, at the soft hospital blanket folded over her.
“I didn’t know about the pain. But if you’re hurting right now... I wish I could take it.”
Silence.
Just the soft hum of machines. The steady rhythm of her.
He leaned closer, brushed her hair away from her forehead, and kissed the side of it without hesitation.
“Next time, you can yell at me for not knowing your cycle. I’ll deserve it.”
And just like that, the ritual continued.
Except now—
He wasn’t just watching her.
He was beginning to learn her.
The version of her that lived beyond the screen. Beyond the office. Beyond the guarded glances and the fights and the closeness they never named.
He didn’t know her past cramps.
But he would know the rest.
Every soft, ordinary, human thing.
One sacred, stubborn breath at a time.
Edited by NilzStorywriter - 3 months ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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