CHAPTER 61
ISHIKA
The hospital smells like antiseptic and something else I can’t name—something sharp and hollow that settles in your chest and refuses to leave.
I didn’t know silence could be this loud.
It’s everywhere. In the white walls. In the too-clean floors. In the way people speak in hushed voices like anything louder might break something fragile that’s barely holding together.
Like him.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I press them together in my lap, fingers digging into my own skin, trying to anchor myself to something real.
It doesn’t help. Nothing does. Every few seconds, my mind replays it—the sound of the gunshot, the way his body jerked, the way he looked at me like he was trying to stay conscious just long enough to make sure I was okay.
That look. God. My chest tightens so hard it feels like something inside me is collapsing in on itself. He’s inside. Behind those doors. And I can’t do anything. I can’t fix this. I can’t design my way out of it, can’t plan it, can’t control it. I hate this feeling. I hate it so much.
Footsteps echo down the hallway, urgent and uneven, and I don’t have to look up to know who it is. I feel it before I see them—the shift in the air, the sudden weight of people who matter.
“Aryan?” His mother’s voice breaks on his name.
I look up.
She’s walking toward me too fast, her saree slightly out of place, her hair not as neat as it always is, panic written all over her face in a way I have never seen before. Behind her—Vedant. Radhika. And then, a few steps back, Rudraksh and Siddhant.
All of them here.
All of them looking at me.
And something inside me cracks.
“I’m sorry.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeat, my voice breaking, my vision blurring as tears spill over again. “This is my fault—I shouldn’t have—if I hadn’t—he wouldn’t—”
I don’t even finish.
I can’t.
Because she reaches me.
And then I’m not standing anymore.
Her arms wrap around me before I can brace myself, and I collapse into her like my body has been waiting for permission to fall apart.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her shoulder, the words dissolving into sobs. “I’m so sorry, aunty, I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—”
She holds me tighter. “No,” she says firmly, her hand cradling the back of my head like I’m something precious, something breakable. “No, beta. Don’t you do that to yourself.”
But I can’t stop.
I slide down, my knees hitting the cold floor, and she comes down with me without hesitation, still holding me like she won’t let me shatter completely.
“I should’ve—he came because of me—he got hurt because of me—”
My voice is barely coherent now, each word dragged out through panic and guilt that feels like it’s suffocating me from the inside.
Her hand moves through my hair, steady, grounding.
“He came because he loves you,” she says softly, her eyes watering as her voice breaks, but there’s strength in it. “Not because of your fault.”
That makes it worse. Because I know it’s true.
And I know I would do the same. Which means I would’ve been lying there instead.
The thought hits me so hard I gasp, my fingers clutching at her saree like I need something to hold onto or I’ll disappear.
“I can’t lose him,” I whisper, the truth spilling out raw and unfiltered. “I can’t—”
“You won’t.” This time it’s not her voice. It’s Siddhant. I look up, my vision blurred but I see him clearly enough—steady, composed, but his jaw is tight, his eyes sharp in a way that tells me he’s holding himself together by force.
“He’s not going anywhere,” he says, like it’s a fact, not a hope.
Rudraksh nods beside him, quieter, but just as certain.
Vedant doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, arms crossed, staring at the OT doors like if he looks hard enough, Aryan will walk out.
Radhika’s eyes are red. She doesn’t try to hide it.
And that—more than anything—terrifies me.
Because they know him. They’ve seen him hurt.
And they’re still scared. I slowly pull away from aunty, wiping my face with trembling hands, trying to breathe, trying to think, trying to not completely fall apart in front of them.
I fail. Because my eyes drift. Down the hallway. To him. He’s standing at the far end, like he doesn’t belong here. Like he’s already halfway out. My father. The word feels foreign in my head.
Heavy.
Wrong.
Something hot and bitter rises in my chest, cutting through the fear, through the grief, through everything else.
Anger.
I stand up before I can think about it. “Ishika—” someone says behind me.
I don’t stop. My feet carry me toward him, each step heavier than the last, my heart pounding in a way that has nothing to do with fear anymore.
He doesn’t move when I reach him. Doesn’t look at me. That makes it worse. “It’s all your fault.” My voice comes out shaking, but it doesn’t break. Not yet.
“You have never let me be happy,” I continue, the words spilling out faster now, years of confusion and pain crashing into this one moment. “And when I was—when I finally was—you took that away too.”
Nothing. He looks at me, his eyes filled with gilt, he physically flinches as if I have sliced him with a sword but he just stands there.
“Say something,” I snap, my voice rising, cracking under the weight of everything I’ve been holding in. “For once in your life, just—say something!”
But he doesn’t.
And I don’t know what hurts more—that he left me all those years ago, or that he’s standing in front of me now and still feels like someone I don’t know. My chest tightens, my vision blurring again. I hate this. I hate him. I hate that I don’t understand anything.
And I hate that none of it matters right now because the only thing that matters is—The door opens. Everything stops. A doctor steps out, pulling down his mask, eyes scanning the hallway. We all move at once. “What—how is he?” aunty asks, her voice barely holding steady.
I don’t say anything. I can’t. I just stand there, my entire body locked, waiting for words that will either break me completely or let me breathe again.
“He’s stable.” The words hit me like air after drowning. I inhale sharply, my knees almost giving out again.
“He will be fine,” the doctor continues, calm, measured. “The bullet missed any major organs. There was significant blood loss, but we managed it in time.”
Fine. He will be fine.
The words echo in my head, not quite settling yet, like my brain doesn’t trust them enough to accept them fully.
“It may take time for him to recover,” the doctor adds. “But he’s out of immediate danger.”
Aunty lets out a broken sob beside me. Radhika covers her mouth. Vedant exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. Siddhant closes his eyes briefly.
And me—I just stand there. Because the relief doesn’t come all at once. It crashes into me in waves.
Slow.
Overwhelming.
Unbearable in its own way.
“He should regain consciousness within seventy-two hours,” the doctor says.
Seventy-two hours. Three days. It feels like a lifetime. But it’s not forever.
And that—That is enough. For now. My legs finally give in and I sit down on the nearest chair, my body trembling, my mind still trying to catch up with everything that just happened.
He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.
The words repeat in my head like a prayer I didn’t know I believed in.
And for the first time since the gunshot—I let myself cry without fear of losing him.