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Heal Me Anyway

Chapter 2 The Night The Lights Stayed On

Word Count: 1304 | Released on: 31/10/2026

linic, and she remembered the rain better th

from the other end of the corridor. Aya sat on the long wooden bench with her chemistry notebook open on her knees. She was not reading it. Amma ha

rst, holding a cloth bag in one hand and his wife's elbow in the other. Behind them walked a boy

t she was laughing. She held the doorframe and laug

she said. "I have done

he came over slowly and pinched

e day you will deliver my grandchildren, and I w

pite of herself.

d gi

inging door. It flapped shut behind them. Kabir started

n at the far en

m Rao, a year ahead of her, good at cricket, loud in the courtyard. He was not

r notebook, folded it into a boat, and held it out. She

at it. "Wh

n taught me. It f

s pa

s if you fol

and turned it over carefully. Then he aske

ctor in Brindle Cove," Ay

lain as a lamp being lit, and it was the last time anyone from hi

ir stopped pacing and sat down with his head in his

r pot near the delivery room. The door there was not shut all the way. It

alfway to her mouth, because she heard her mother's voice, and it w

re tonight, Meera. I am

red, but steady. "And I am telling you as someone

eas

. "Promise me something. Whatever happens

era

omi

door shut with a soft clic

d not understand a word of it. Who was he? Hear what? She told herself it was nothi

not say anything. Shubham asked if

e morning when the swi

out looking at anyone, shouting for the other nurse, shouting for something Aya co

Kabir said. "Lata

d of metal against metal, quick footsteps, and her mother's voi

ime, there w

one, the so

r white coat was stained dark down the front. She walked up to Kabir Rao

y," she said.

bir's knees simply gave way, and he sat down on the bench with his

tood absolutely still, his

ned and loo

. "You said she was the

ham,

it would

Her voice cracked on the

idor. He grabbed the edge of the bench and shoved it against the

u are a doctor! Do something! Go

d everythin

hy is s

r mother close it again without saying a word. She saw her look down at her

efend herself. Not t

y, two policemen came to the clinic. One of them crouched down in front of Aya, kind

o was standing in the doorwa

Aya

ad ever told. She had been

with her mother's brass key still sitting in her mind li

e does not hear it

promise. Meera was dead, and yet he

at, exactly, she ha

Chapter End

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Heal Me Anyway

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“In the small town of Brindle Cove, everyone once trusted Dr. Nalini Mensah. Then Shubham Rao's mother, Meera, died while giving birth under her care. Shubham was seventeen. He had no one else to blame, so he blamed the doctor. He shouted at her in the street, told the whole town she had failed his mother, and even took the case to the police. Dr. Nalini was cleared, but patients stopped coming, and the clinic that fed her family nearly closed. Her daughter Aya, now twenty-two, learned to live quietly. She works long hours at the clinic and the town pharmacy, never tells anyone how bad things are, and never asks for help. Years ago, she tried once to calm Shubham down and tell him that anger wouldn't bring his mother back. He sent her away. Since the town was now sneering at her too, she decided it wasn't her job to care about a boy who was hurting her family, and she stopped trying. Shubham, now twenty-three, runs his family's shop with his silent, grieving father. He has noticed that Aya no longer looks at him, and the silence bothers him more than her pleading ever did. Slowly he starts to wonder if he was wrong, but his pride won't let him say it. When he finally tries to talk to her, she cuts him off: "Do you want to call me the daughter of a bad doctor, or the daughter of the one who killed your mother? I'm not interested." Then life pushes them together. Shubham's father falls ill and the town clinic is the only place nearby, and Aya is the one who has to help. Through small, awkward moments, they start to see each other clearly. He sees the girl who has been carrying her family alone. She sees a boy who never got to finish grieving. Anger turns into curiosity, then care, then love. But Dr. Nalini will not allow it. She is hiding something about the night Meera died, and she knows the truth will break Shubham all over again. When Aya finds her mother's private notes, the secret comes out: Meera had been warned to go to the city hospital, and she refused, because she wanted her baby born in the town she loved. Dr. Nalini stayed silent for years to protect Meera's husband and son from that pain. Shubham is shattered, and in his first instinct he pulls away from Aya again. This time, though, he has learned what pride costs. He clears Dr. Nalini's name in front of the whole town, and it is Aya who has to decide whether love can start from a place this broken.”