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5. personal

5. personal

It felt fantastic.

Fantastic, maybe more than that, honestly, more than fantastic, Aarohi concluded as she scanned through the patient file in her hands. This time, the file she had was not because she had to do some measly admin work, instead it was because she was actually doing some work for real. It was the patient's file which she was assigned by the devil himself and honestly, Aarohi could not care less now that she had her lab coat and her work to look after. Neurosurgeon has always been something she dreamed off, after her mother died in front of her, her head hitting the cold pavement of the stairs and bursting open, this was the need for her to help someone else before they died. More than that, the flush of money this career was getting her, it had been just a year of her internship with the Birlas and she had savings already.

But the past one year of her suspension had cost her to use all of that and then rely on her family for their monthly allowance. The Goenkas were rich, they always have been wealthy from generations, but Aarohi was not a Goenka and she never felt like she belonged there, she never felt like she was their daughter and hence asking from allowance from them seemed like a debt to her. Now that she had cut herself off from them, her money was hers and she had no debts to pay, just live her life with enough to last a lifetime.

She did not want to get married, Aarohi had never added marriage or a grand wedding in her list of life goals she had set for herself and while there was nothing wrong with marrying and settling down with someone, for her, marriage only meant bondage. She would have to make up for things, ask for forgiveness, try to live and love someone else and Aarohi was selfish to the core. She loved herself and no one else belonged in that heart of hers, except for herself.

Yet, the last one year where she pretended to love Neil, had been one remarkable year. It was for sure tricky, to act like you are in love, to be goofy and cute, to pretend to care for the other when in general, Aarohi gave no hoots. But she would be lying to herself if she said she did not love the attention, the concern and the general feeling of being loved by another human being. Her family only cared about Akshara, right from the start, from a very young age Akshara had been a sensitive kid, fragile heart and would be worn out by emotions and hence the entire Goenka clan would only surround her, hoping to get their precious daughter somewhere happier in life and in that chaos, they completely sidelined her, just because Aarohi was better in masking her emotions, did not mean she was okay. But none of her family saw that, and even when she asked for some attention, they called it out as an act.

Yes, Aarohi did some mean things to get their attention, she was not too proud of the past of hers but she realised it was more to outshine Akshara so her family could look at her once and in that jest she had done all sort of things, good and bad, but Akshara somehow still managed to get their attention on her and seemingly, made her the bad sister, the black sheep of the family. Enough was enough when Neil broke the engagement with her, and her entire family instead of speaking to her, discussed ways to save Akshara's already broken marriage.

That was when Aarohi felt like she would die, and yet her family would ask Akshara if she was okay.

She did not belong, she always knew that, but that was a vital eye-opener for Aarohi to pack her bags and leave. And so she did.

"Thank you Dr...." The woman said as she took the prescription from Aarohi, rather timidly, "when would I get the reports?"

"By next day, actually, we get the reports checked by the head and then give it to the patient, this saves time."

"Alright," She mumbled, afraid that her constant headache and an act of passing out was nothing serious. "Would everything be okay, doctor?"

That kind of a question was something Aarohi never knew how to reply. Understandably, doctors are adivsed to not lie to their patients, not give them false hopes, not assure them of anything that is preferrably a grey area of concern. And would everything be okay, was the kind of question, Aarohi never answered, because she did not know whether the reports would be okay, or whether there was a serious matter to witness further.