Asha once had someone.
His name was Gautam. She never expected him to disappear—not through death, but through a betrayal so cold it killed him in her mind long before his body ever could. She never reached out again. Neither did he. That chapter had closed quietly, leaving behind a woman who no longer believed in the permanence of anything.
What followed was worse. Life became a series of closed doors. Her skills felt useless, her efforts invisible. The future stopped looking like a promise and started looking like a threat.
And then came Rohan and Roy.
Rohan—the playboy who navigated life on the surface—found himself disturbed. Whenever Asha was near, he felt a heat in his chest he couldn't explain. He found himself blushing, a vulnerability that annoyed and confused him. A girl had never shaken him like this. So, he did what he always did when something felt real: he avoided it.
But the memory of their conversation just a few hours earlier wouldn't leave him.
The Flashback: The Park Bench
He had gone to her hostel that afternoon to return a notebook she'd left behind. He found her on a weathered park bench, sketching a crumbling building across the street. She didn't look like a girl who had been part of a prank the night before; she looked like a creator.
"You're an interior designer, right?" Rohan had asked, leaning over her shoulder.
"That just pays the bills," she'd replied, her voice steady for the first time. "I'm an architect, Rohan. Or I want to be. I want to build things that are so strong the world can't tear them down."
He had looked at her sketch—a masterpiece of glass and light. "Why aren't you doing it then?"
Asha had let out a dry, hollow laugh. "Talent is a luxury. I have a sister to protect and a family that needs me. I've applied to thirty firms and received thirty silences. You wouldn't understand. Doors stay open for you. I have to kick them down... and my legs are getting tired."
She had looked at him then, her eyes raw and honest. "I'm not just a prank, Rohan. I'm just a girl trying not to drown."
The Reality: The Hospital Corridor
Now, standing in the clinical glare of the hospital, those words—my legs are getting tired—echoed in Rohan's ears like a scream.
The call had come in the evening. Her voice had trembled over the phone: "Rohan… the stalker is following me." They had driven like madmen, fear driving faster than reason. But they were too late. When they reached her, the neighborhood was eerily silent. The wind felt frozen. Asha lay on the ground, a crimson stain spreading across her shirt. Her hand lifted weakly, reaching for a help that arrived seconds too late, before falling limp.
Now, the "Surgery in Progress" sign was the only thing Rohan could see. Roy sat nearby, his face buried in his hands, his quiet strength shattered. Rohan stood against the wall, his own hands still stained with her blood.
When the doctor finally emerged, the news didn't just break the silence—it shattered their world.
"The stab wound is manageable," the doctor said, his voice heavy. "But the blood tests... she has advanced stage cancer. It's reached the final stage."
The corridor turned into a vacuum.
"She's too young," Roy whispered, his voice cracking. "She was just starting to fight. God always takes the good ones too early."
"We should tell her," Roy continued, looking at Rohan.
"It'll break her," Rohan snapped, his voice thick with a rage he couldn't direct at anyone. He thought of her sketch. He thought of her dream of building things that last.
"She might have hoped for a beautiful life," Roy said softly.
Rohan didn't respond. His mother's face flashed through his mind—the same antiseptic smell, the same hollow feeling of being a boy who couldn't save the person he loved. Roy saw the look in Rohan's eyes and fell silent.
The doctor returned after a few moments. "She's out of danger for now. But... she doesn't have much time. Months at best. Her immune system is too weak to fight both the trauma and the illness."
"Please," Rohan stepped forward, his eyes burning. "Do whatever you can. Cost doesn't matter. Fly in specialists, buy the equipment—anything."
The doctor shook his head slowly. "There is no cure. Only pain management."
Rohan didn't speak. He couldn't. He looked at his hands, where her blood had dried into his skin. He realized with a terrifying jolt that he finally cared. He cared about the architect who would never build her skyscraper. He cared about the girl who was tired of kicking down doors.
And for the first time, the playboy who never cried felt hot tears carving paths through the dust on his face. He realized he was losing her before he ever got the chance to tell her that, for him, she was never invisible.