Rohan didn't go home that night. He sat in his car in the hospital parking lot, his laptop glowing in the dark. The "playboy" had a different kind of work to do.
He pulled up the digital files he had swiped from Asha's notebook earlier that day—the sketches of the glass buildings, the daring arches, the structures that she thought would never exist. He stared at them. They weren't just drawings; they were her soul laid bare on paper.
"Thirty rejections," he muttered to himself, remembering her hollow laugh on the park bench. "Let's see them try to reject this."
He didn't call human resources. He didn't send a formal email. At 3:00 AM, Rohan called the CEO of Vanguard Architects, one of the most prestigious firms in the country.
"Rohan?" the CEO's voice was thick with sleep. "It's the middle of the night. This better be a damn good party you're inviting me to."
"It's not a party, Vikram," Rohan said, his voice cold and precise. "I'm sending you a portfolio. Look at it. Now."
"Rohan, we aren't hiring—"
"You are now. You're going to hire an Associate Architect named Asha. You're going to give her a private office, a signing bonus that covers her family's debts, and you're going to put her on the Skyline Project. And Vikram?"
"What?"
"If she ever finds out I had anything to do with this, I'll pull every Malhotra investment from your firm before the sun comes up."
There was a long silence on the other end. "She must be someone special for you to threaten me, Rohan."
Rohan looked up at the lighted window of the ICU. "She's the only real thing I've ever seen."
The Morning News
The next afternoon, the hospital room felt a little less like a cage. Asha was sitting up, her face still pale but her eyes clearer. Roy was there, peeling an orange with the same meticulous care he used for his music.
The door opened, and Rohan walked in, tossing a heavy, cream-colored envelope onto her lap. He looked like he hadn't slept, but he wore his arrogance like armor.
"What is this?" Asha asked, her voice still a bit raspy.
"A headache for me," Rohan drawled, leaning against the foot of her bed. "A messenger came to the office looking for you. Apparently, one of those thirty firms realized they made a massive mistake."
Asha's hands trembled as she tore open the envelope. As she read the letterhead—Vanguard Architects—and saw the words Offer of Employment, the breath left her body.
"Associate... Architect?" she whispered. Her eyes scanned the numbers, the position, the project. "The Skyline Project? That's... that's impossible. They didn't even interview me."
Roy looked at Rohan, a silent question in his eyes. Rohan didn't blink.
"They said your portfolio spoke for itself," Rohan lied smoothly. "Something about 'raw genius' and 'a perspective the industry is missing.' They want you to start remotely as soon as you're discharged. They've already cleared your sister's tuition balance as a 'relocation' gesture."
Asha began to sob—not the quiet, hopeless tears from before, but a violent, racking release of a decade's worth of pressure. "I'm not... I'm not invisible anymore," she choked out, clutching the letter to her chest.
Roy moved to her side, rubbing her shoulder. "No, Asha. You never were. They just finally opened their eyes."
Rohan stood at the edge of the room, watching her. His heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant's fist. He had given her the dream. He had given her the career she had killed herself trying to reach.
But as he watched her radiant, tearful smile, the doctor's words echoed in the back of his mind: Months at best.
He had given her the world, but he couldn't give her the time to live in it. He turned away so she wouldn't see his mask slip, staring out the window at the city skyline she would now help design—the skyline she would leave behind far too soon.