SaiRat- Bound with Love (Office Romance)

The Dark Secret

"Sai" He went to sit in front of her and gently touched her knees.

"What are you doing here in the dark? It's so cold. Why you haven't switched on the heater" he asked

She kept looking at the floor like she had been doing for the last few hours.

"Let me be in the dark. I have bought so much darkness in their lives... Let me live and  feel this darkness" she held his hand as he got up to switch on the lights. Some thing which had not come for years that past scenes flashbacked in her mind. 

"Saiii" He tapped her shoulder and she broke into tears.

Tears ran down her face as she rested her face on his shoulder. He sensed that but didn’t say anything; instead he gripped her tight let her use his shirt to absorb her tears.

He didn’t want her to cry. It hurts him to see tears in her eyes. He can’t bear to see any pain on her cute face.

"What is the thing that is hurting you so much?" he gently rubbed her head.

“I couldn't save her! Did she really died because of me?" she broke the hug and said in a trembling voice

"Who died? what are you talking about?" he asked

"I didn't know her name until it was over, much too late. What I knew was she was Eleven. She was riding bicycle in front of her house. Suddenly got hit by a car. Reportedly, as they helped her up, crying, she fainted. The family member did what  family members do they took her home and laid her on the bed. About forty-five minutes after that, when she was unarousable, ambulance was called. Half an hour after that, she arrived in the hospital, in full cardiac arrest. It was Holi other than me, some interns were there in hospital. It was my 7th day in the hospital. But technically I was the senior one.

When I checked her there was still electrical activity in her heart. Her pupils were dilated, I couldn't measure any blood pressure. But she was Eleven. Several IVs were started, massive fluids infused, and she started to produce a pulse. Her belly was greatly swollen. We got her to the OR before the A-negative blood arrived and continued the resuscitation until it seemed possible to anesthetize her and cut her open.

Blood had filled her abdomen.  I stuffed a few packs into the crater of her liver and pressed on them.

My aim was just to control bleeding,  For a while, I observed a sustained blood pressure. I took turns with the assistant compressing her chest. And finally, when it was beyond obvious, I stopped.

There were no beeps from monitors, no sighs of the ventilator, no small talk. I used a large suture on a giant needle, taking big bites of tissue, making it quick. On a Eleven-year-old, with a baby's beautiful skin, healthy tissues giving more resistance to the needle than usual, perfect organs disappearing from view, I was sewing through tears.

I went alone to the family area. I've done that walk a few times: If the earth were to open up and swallow me at that point, it'd be ok with me. The mom was there, maybe a few others. Seeing the look on my face, she stepped toward me, hand in a fist, pressed against her mouth. "I'm sorry," I said. "I couldn't save her." Without a pause, the mom began beating me on the chest, with both fists, hard, yelling and moaning, crying, "What do you mean you couldn't save her? Why? Why? How could you not?" "I'm so sorry," I said, again, finding none but the predictable words. "We tried everything, but there was too much damage." Letting her beat away without raising my hands, forcing back the obvious statement: had she been brought in immediately we'd have had a chance. "Oh my God. How could you not save her? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my Gudiya, oh Gudiya."