For most of my life, I've hated crying around other people. Jen can count on one hand the number of times I have broken down in tears in front of her, and 90% of the time it's when I've dealt with a form of crippling tragedy. Not to mention, that aversion coupled with my difficulty of opening up is like a combo deadlier than ammonia and bleach.

    With the past week of being in the hospital, you're dealt with tragedy like it's Satan's personal deck of playing cards. I thought the pain of having Isha back in my life would cause my emotional state to be thrown into the blender.

I was wrong.

What has happened this week has completely squashed any thought of Isha and somehow, its impact was worse. And most of the time, you suck it up and deal with it because it's a hospital. Shit happens, right? Well, how can we forget those times that a patient's death makes it feel like you're being sucker punched in the gut? Well, it just so happens that this week, it happened to me. And once is bad enough, but Satan just had to waltz his way out of hell and right hook me in the abdomen twice this week.

    I'm sitting in my car, with my breathing heavily shallow. I've been avoiding checking my phone all week because I know that the guilt of not replying to Manish is going to start eating me up inside like termites on a wooden staircase.

But the emotions are too much. All the guilt, sadness, and pain is mixing up to be the world's deadliest potion that no one should have the misfortune of ingesting. All I need is for someone to listen to me and really not judge me over this whole thing.

I finally have enough lady balls to look at my text messages to see if Jen or my mom is willing to hear me out on whatever I'm feeling. When I go to check the messages, the first thing that I see is my conversations with Manish. The past few texts that he's sent me are there to start ringing in my head like church bells.

In particular, my eyes are fused to the last text. "Jaya, you're pretty quiet lately. I hope everything's okay. I'm always here if you need someone to talk to."

Once the text registers in my brain, I have this itching urge to call him up, break down in tears, and scream, "EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY. TWO PEOPLE FUCKING DIED AND I FEEL LIKE SHIT." But I decide better than that and choose the path that won't earn me a one-way ticket to a mental asylum.

My trembling fingers limp their way across the keyboard in an attempt to form a cohesive text. "Manish, I'm so sorry. Been super busy and this week has been so bad at the hospital. Do you mind if I call you up and talk about it?" My thumb shakily taps the send button as I flop back like a fish out of water.

I try to take deep breaths so that I don't start a screaming match in front of Manish. I try to compose the bullfight of emotions that are going around in my head. But the fight only gets more intense the more I try to collect them, and it only makes me want to scream and shout even louder. It doesn't take longer for my phone to vibrate with the notification of Manish's reply.

I sit right back up like someone shocked me awake and check the text that's popped up on my screen. "If you want, you can come over and talk about it. If not, call is fine."

My eyes widen with that thought. I can already picture what it's going to feel like. Us sitting on his squishy couch while the warmth of his apartment blankets me enough to make me be comfortable talking about all this.

My shaky thumbs somehow manage to type out, "I'll come. Be there in 10." After that, I drop my phone in the cup holder. My fingers trip their way to my lap to get my keys as I shakily put them in and turn them to start the car. All I hope is that Manish won't Usain Bolt for the hills when he hears what emotional waterfall I'm going to spew on him.

    I'm walking so fast and my mind is so disoriented that I don't even notice the cold air prickling my skin. The only thought etched into my mind right now is to get to Manish's house so that I can finally talk to him, and that's what exactly propels my legs to carry me to his apartment.

My breaths are heavy and jagged as I attempt to choke down the tears long enough so that I don't show up to Manish's apartment a complete mess. Thankfully, I don't have to choke them back for long, because in no time, I hear the lock click on the door and it swings open. Manish is standing there, with a loose sweatshirt sagging over his torso and old pants fading his legs.

His lips are pressed together in a gentle smile, as is distinguishable in a thick line embedded in his well kept facial hair. When he sees me, a sparkle illuminates in his eyes like there was a power outage in that small town. "Hey, Jaya, come in!" he greets as he moves aside to let me in. I only reply with a slight smile as I enter his cozy apartment.

Just like I anticipated, I'm immediately engulfed with a toasty aura. The faint smell of incense burning in the background wafts through my nostrils and slightly relaxes the tension cemented in my muscles. It still does nothing to evaporate the lump that's starting to weigh down the back of my throat. "Sit down, make yourself comfortable," he instructs, and it's a command that I will gladly obey.

As I flop back onto the couch, I raise my head to shoot a question at him. "You don't mind me coming and venting, right?"

Manish's eyebrows scrunch together in confusion and they are accompanied with a vigorous head shake. "Of course not. First off, my door is always open to you. Second, I get it. You're a doctor, and really tough shit happens."

A slight smile stretches at my face, but the bull fight of emotions prevents it from completely sprawling out. "Now tell me. What's going on? You've been very sporadic with texts recently as well. Let it all out."

I try to choke back the lump that's forming in the back of my throat, but it's to no avail. Every time I try to swallow it back, I feel like it's crushing my throat into even finer particles. "I'm so sorry, Manish. It's been really rough at work. I had two people die on me in the CCU. It's been so hard to deal with it. I get that people die on you when you're a doctor, but it still hurts. Like, what could I have done? Was there something more I could've done to help them survive?"

My voice starts to crack as the hot tears start to sting my eyes. Manish's face falls a little bit with the realization of what's going on. "Oh Jaya, I didn't know. I'm so sorry. Look, it happens. I know that's not that much of comfort, but you did your absolute best to try to help out."

Manish's kind words definitely act like an ice pack to the bruise of events that have occurred, but the sheer guilt of pushing him away after realizing what he could've done to help me causes the tears to start to stream out and onto my face. I turn away so that he doesn't have to see me as a crying mess. "I'm so sorry, Manish. I should've told you about this sooner, but I've had so much of my past also haunting me recently. I thought you would judge me. I thought I couldn't go to anyone to reveal my feelings."

I feel like someone is sucking out all the air from my lungs with a vacuum. While it feels like someone shoved a weight off my chest, all the other emotions mixed together just make me feel like someone is ripping up my throat with a chainsaw.

As I'm sobbing my eyes out, I hear Manish inch up towards me. Gently, his arms snake around me from behind and he tucks my head underneath his chin. I sniffle back my tears and I melt a little bit into his embrace. "Shh, shh, Jaya, it's okay," he gently whispers in my ear in an attempt to calm me down.

It definitely does the job, as I relax a little bit in his embrace. I turn around and bury my face a little bit in his shirt. His arms wrap around me in a little bit more complete of an embrace, as I sniffle back.

Just the feeling of being in Manish's arms makes me feel so safe. I feel like I can be in his arms forever and nothing will happen to me. He won't let anyone touch a hair on my head. After I sniffle once more, Manish brings my face out of his chest. When he sees my red, blotchy face, his thumbs go to wipe away the tears still dripping.

"Look, Jaya, you did the best you could to save them. Stuff happens, okay? And knowing that you care enough about your patients to cry about them when they're gone shows how good of a doctor you are."

I smile a little bit, as Manish gets up. "I'll be right back," he says, as he hops over to the bathroom. I hear the faucet run a little bit, as a warm, fuzzy feeling prickles throughout my chest. It doesn't take long for Manish to hop back to where we were sitting. He hands me a little stack of tissues for me to blow my nose and wipe my face. "Knock yourself out," he says, and I gladly take them.

As I'm wiping the snot that has smeared all over my nose, another sense of guilt pangs in my chest again. Manish is here, more than willing to lend a hand to help me out. Instead of letting him in, I shut him out, only hurting him and me in the process. My mouth falls open to start spewing out my apology. "Manish, I'm so sorry. I should've been honest with you in the beginning about what was going on. I shouldn't have left you hanging like that."

Manish's eyebrows scrunch together in understanding as his head complements that with a vigorous head shake. "Don't apologize. It's not easy to open up on your personal demons like that. Just be honest with me. I don't mind helping you out, Jaya. I won't ever judge you based on your feelings or your struggles."

My smile stretches out to be the widest it can get, as I squeak out, "Thank you. So much." His face himself lights up with an even bigger smile - as if that was somehow possible- and he gives me a little pat on the knee.

"Now, how does some food sound? I think I have some Hide n' Seek in the cabinet. Chocolate and sugar makes everything better, am I right?"

I immediately perk up and get up to follow him to the kitchen. Food is, for sure, the way to a woman's heart.

Maybe that was how he got into mine the first time.

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Aw, I love chapters like these. They warm me up. Do you think this little bit of honesty will strengthen their relationship?

I hope you guys liked this chapter! As always, please vote/comment/share/message/follow (both on here and my Instagram [svts.writes] for updates and announcements regarding my works! See you in the next chapter!

Love you guys,

Shree