The next few days were a blur.
Rounds. Charts. Surgeries.
But for Vashti Dhiman, none of it quieted the chaos inside her.
She had waited for years to hear those words from Shabd Heer.
To see that look in his eyes.
To finally feel wanted.
And now that it happened?
It wasn't enough.
Because love isn't just words whispered under pressure.
It's time.
It's effort.
It's showing up—when the other person is still waiting, not after they've started walking away.
She sat alone on the rooftop after her shift, staring at the city below. The wind tugged at her ponytail, the same wind that once carried her name out of Shabd's mouth like a whisper.
That night played on loop in her mind.
"I'm scared of a world where you don't feel anything for me at all."
She did.
She always did.
But now?
Now she didn't know if she could survive loving him again.
Shabd, meanwhile, couldn't focus.
Every time he saw her laughing down the hall or standing beside Armaan during rounds, he felt it:
Regret.
Heavy. Suffocating. Deserved.
He had been given a hundred chances. And each time, he handed her silence.
Now she was silent.
And the quiet was killing him.
Finally, he stopped her near the elevators after a long shift. No excuses left. No mask of calm.
Just him.
Raw.
"Tell me what to do," he said, voice low. "Tell me how to fix it."
Vashti looked up at him, eyes steady. Not angry. Not broken.
Just tired.
"You don't get to ask that now, Shabd. You don't get to ask how to fix something you spent years pretending didn't matter."
He swallowed hard. "It mattered."
"Then you should've fought."
She turned to go, but paused.
"For what it's worth…" she said softly, "I never stopped loving you. I just started loving myself more."
The elevator doors slid open.
She stepped in.
And for the first time in his life—
Shabd Heer didn't follow her.
He just stood there, alone in the hallway, the weight of what-if crushing everything he'd been too late to say.
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