Doctor ..please , a woman in her thirties with tear filled eyes drained , a mess looking at aira , with a faint hope glimmering in her eyes .

Aira swallowed her own saliva, she has been through this situation, even worse case way number of times she could even imagine , and everytime she realised it never gets easier , or does it for everyone else in medical fraternity, as always aira is someone who never fits , probably she never understood the concept of healthcare professionals being desensitised.

Parents cry differently when grieving a child who is still alive.

Aira dint learn that today .She always knew.

She sat across from a couple whose little boy had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. They asked if he would run someday. If he would play football. If he would grow up.

She had to answer:

“He won’t live past fifteen.”

Their silence didn’t break.

It rotted.

Aira carried that silence home with her heavy, metallic the kind of weight that drags the spine downward even when you’re standing straight.

She avoided the café for days.

Avoided him.

But fate waited at street corners not in coffee shops.

The pavement shimmered with rain; fluorescent lights blurred in puddles. Her thoughts were too full, her legs too tired. One misstep the foot slid, the world lurched, and the ground rushed up.

Pain shot through her knee but she didn’t cry out. She never did.

She pushed herself up once. Slipped again. The second fall hurt worse her pride more than her body. Aira never whined about having a bad day , it wasn't surprising.

Only then she sensed him before she saw him. A broad shadow casting over her. Black armani shoes with rain droplets shimmering against it.

There he was yet again ..Arman.

He didn’t hesitate.

He extended his hand silently.

Aira shook her head. “I’m okay.”

That was her mistake.

He ignored the lie his reflex faster than her refusal.

He reached, wrapped his fingers firmly around her wrist, and pulled her up with one decisive, practiced motion.

It dint let her react , something stunned her beyond belief .

Her body collided with his faintly her coat brushing against his she could feel the rain, heat, breath, pulse and for one suspended heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Her voice simply vanished.

Arman froze too not because he regretted holding her, but because it shocked him how natural it felt.

He let go… too fast.

The sudden release threw off her balance and she stumbled again, just an inch but enough for him to react without thought.

His thumb pressed into the top of her shoulder steady, grounding, intimate in a way that stripped the air out of her chest.

That touch lit every nerve in her body at once not pain, not fear

recognition. Aira was pulled out of her senses before it could get worse .

“Stop—” she breathed, not even looking at him, “stop touching me.”

Her voice wasn’t harsh.

It sounded like someone trying not to drown.

Arman didn’t apologize.

He didn’t move away either.

He simply lowered his hand slow, controlled the withdrawal ache worse than contact.

“You’re compensating,” he said softly, eyes locked on her posture. “Your quad isn’t firing. If you take another step, you’ll drop again.”

Aira blinked because he was right.

Exactly right.

She swallowed. “How do you know that?”

He didn’t answer.

But she saw the flicker in his eyes a memory, a scar, something from a place where pain had turned into knowledge.

“You’re an athlete,” she whispered before she could stop herself.

His jaw moved just once a small, violent reaction he tried to hide.

“hmm yes” he said. Two words. A eulogy.

Silence thickened the kind that exposes every truth both of them were trying to bury.

She opened her mouth to say something else she didn’t even know what but her knee buckled again.

This time he caught her mid-fall, an arm sliding behind her back, not tentative instinctive.

She didn’t push him away.

Couldn’t.

The heat of his chest against her shoulder, his breath beside her ear everything in her body remembered warmth like it was danger.

Arman didn’t lift her he held her just enough to keep her upright.

“I called a cab,” he murmured, voice right against her pulse. “It’ll be here in two minutes.”

Her heart hammered so fast she was sure he could feel it.

“I can go by myself,” she tried, but her voice didn’t match her body.

“You don’t have to,” he replied and somehow that was the most intimate line of the night.

When the cab arrived, he guided her gently, hand hovering near her back not touching, but close enough that she felt his restraint like fire.

He helped her into the seat.

Rainwater dripped from his cloak of self-control.

She looked up at him a second too long.

And that second ruined distance.

He leaned down slightly helping her in ,not a kiss, not a goodbye just enough that she could smell his cologne and feel the heat of him.

Close enough for truth, not touch.

Aira’s voice broke out before she could stop it:

“Why are you doing this?”

He didn’t think.

He didn’t look away.

“Because I can’t not.”

The cab door shut.

She didn’t look back.

But for the entire ride home, her wrist still burned where he’d held her

and her shoulder still tingled where his thumb had once told her

that for one impossible moment,

she wasn’t alone.