You're the Stars in my Empty Night Sky
Veer knew something was wrong with him. He could sense it and as if that wasn't enough, so could the people around him. He had just over heard a conversation between two of the hospital nurses. "I wish they would have demonstrated this much interest in their work" he thought. According to them, he was finally becoming human towards Krishna. Her! That girl! That name, God, it infuriated him and made him feel things that he had absolutely no explanation for. He was the kind of person who always had an explanation for everything. Yes, a lot of people saw him as a narcissistic, ruthless yet brilliant doctor. And to be honest he was fine with that. He had seen the world for how it was. cold, unforgiving and selfish. He had learnt from a very young age not to run behind petty things like emotions, love and anything that would involve trusting and giving yourself over to a complete stranger, instead you should stick to your goals. Creating attachments in this world to anything or with anyone for that matter could prove to be fatal. Losing his father had taught him that. He could vividly remember the day his mother begged people to save his father's life but not a single person showed even an ounce of compassion towards them. So yes! Becoming a human felt wrong to him. It meant that he was letting his carefully built guard down. And under no circumstances was that acceptable to him. Especially when it came to Krishna. The girl who ruined his career and the life he had strived so hard to build in London. He had to move back to the one place he hated just because of her. He could never forgive Krishna for that. And although Krishna wasn't the primary person to blame for his father's death, she was the daughter-in law of the disgusting man who denied to help save his father all those years ago. And that was something he was not going to forget. She belonged to that wretched family. Unfortunately, not long after moving back, he found out that Krishna's husband died and she had to discontinue her studies in London. He knew how much she loved her husband. And being the illiterate people that Krishna's in-laws were, they blamed her for their son's death. Veer initially thought that this was some twisted way of the universe to punish Krishna for what she had done to him. But as time passed he started feeling sorry for her. Veer had a pretty good idea of how capable Krishna truly was. After all he was her professor in the medical college. If only she would have been able to complete her medical degree. He thought she was stupid to not go back and finish her studies. She was a widow, but that didn't mean her life was over.
He wanted to torture Krishna and make her life miserable for whatever she had done and he found the perfect opportunity. He agreed to work for the hospital that was owned by Krishna's In-laws with the condition that she too would work alongside him as his assistant.
Despite the usual hatred that Veer held for her, he secretly admired Krishna's tenacious nature, the way she stood up for what she believed, the way she spoke her mind without caring about the consequences. And above all he admired the fire that he saw in her eyes, the passion to chase her dream. He rarely witnessed this ardor in people. This was the Krishna he knew in London, who managed to take him down. But now things were different. Krishna was different. She had lost that fire, that passion and everything that made her special.
He did his best to make her life unbearable, he taunted her, provoked her, annoyed her, yelled at her but she was a stone. Nothing affected her. She wouldn't speak back to him. She would simply stand quietly and follow his orders. On other days, she would sit alone and stare into space. A smile nowhere to be seen. That exasperated Veer even more.
But as time passed, Veer started to realize that she was being tortured from both ends. Her in-laws were probably treating her worse than he was. Just yesterday, she had walked into the hospital with puffy red eyes. He knew something must have gone down at her home. He didn't know when it happened but his behavior towards Krishna had started to soften. In fact, he looked forward to seeing her walk in each morning. It softened to an extent that he ended up offering her coffee, simply because she looked sullen. that was when people started noticing the difference in him.
Here he was now, wondering what changed. How that beautiful storm of a girl had managed to capture his attention. Yes, for the first time in years, the great Dr. Veer noticed a girl's beauty and was taken aback by it, and out of all the girls it was Krishna. He wanted to mentally slap himself for even thinking about this. Veer wanted to somehow bring back the old Krishna with fire in her eyes. It didn't matter whether he hated her or tolerated her, Krishna was all he could think about these days. It was like his mom said, He was slightly obsessed with annoying Krishna.
But he knew he was going down the wrong path, he knew he needed to bring his ruthlessness towards Krishna back, and so he promised himself he would never let his guard down and he was going to do just that. He would simply stop caring and thinking about her. That shouldn't be too difficult he thought.
