matched by destiny

Chapter 3: The Longest Hallway

Hospitals always smell like they’re trying too hard to be clean—sharp antiseptic threaded with the faint, metallic ghost of blood. Meera had never noticed before. Now, it’s all she can smell.

She sits on a molded plastic chair that has no right to be this cold. A vending machine hums somewhere behind her, its fluorescent belly full of snacks she can’t imagine anyone eating here. The hallway is too bright, too quiet. A television mounted in the corner plays a muted daytime talk show; two women are laughing about something utterly forgettable.

Her hands are still shaking. She tucks them under her thighs to stop the tremor, but it only travels to her knees.

They’ve taken Jatin—her Jatin—behind double doors marked with the heavy black letters: TRAUMA UNIT – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The doors swing open now and then, spilling out brief, vivid slices: a nurse wheeling a tray of instruments, a doctor striding past with a clipboard, the muted beep of machinery like a heartbeat she can’t trust.

She tries to remember the last full thing he said to her. Room you choose. His voice was thinner than she liked, but the words were whole. She keeps turning them over in her mind like worry beads, each pass wearing them smoother, smaller.

A nurse with kind eyes and a high bun approaches. “Miss Ray?”

Meera jerks upright. “Yes? Is he—”

“They’re still working on him,” the nurse says, voice low and careful. “The doctors are doing everything they can.”

Meera nods, though the words are nothing more than a polite curtain. Behind it, she knows the stage is chaos.

“Can I see him?” she asks.

“Not yet. I’ll let you know the moment you can.”

The nurse leaves, and Meera is alone again. The vending machine hums. The television laughs without sound. A man down the hall coughs into a paper cup.

She digs her phone out of her coat pocket and stares at the last thread of messages between her and Jatin.

Cappuccino theft. Arrest me.

Citizen’s arrest. Punishment: fifteen kisses.

Her thumb hovers over the keyboard as if she might reply and the answer will appear. She types nothing. Deletes nothing. Opens the photo gallery instead—sees the foam heart in its cup, his grin on the other side of the table. Her throat closes.

She wants to text Suzy, but she doesn’t know how to start without making it real. She wants to call her parents, but she can’t bear the thought of her mother’s voice breaking.

The doors swing open again. This time, it’s a doctor—mid-forties, deep lines around the eyes that suggest both experience and too many nights without sleep. His coat is unbuttoned, his hands empty. Empty is never good.

“Miss Ray?” he says.

She stands so quickly the chair legs scrape against the tile. “Yes. I’m—yes.”

“Could we speak in private?”

The words are a formality. There is no private here. Just corners of hallways that feel farther away from hope.

He leads her a few steps away, though the bright lights still hum above, and the muted television still pretends that nothing matters. He clears his throat.

“I’m so sorry. The injuries to Mr. Malhotra’s chest and abdomen were severe. We attempted resuscitation multiple times. He went into cardiac arrest and—” He hesitates. “We were unable to bring him back.”

For a moment, her body does nothing. No breath, no blink, no thought. Just the words, lodged and echoing.

“Time of death was 10:47 a.m.,” the doctor adds, as if that’s the fact she needs most.

The number drops into her like a stone in deep water. Somewhere, a clock ticks past it without apology.

She realizes she hasn’t reacted. She’s just standing there, holding her coat too tightly, as if the right grip will rewind the morning. The doctor’s voice is gentle but firm, a hand on her shoulder without touching.

“Would you like to see him?”

She nods. Words are dangerous right now; if she opens her mouth, they might not stop.

The trauma room is colder than the hallway. The lighting is softer here, almost merciful, as if the harsh truth doesn’t need help being sharp. Jatin lies on the bed, pale against the white sheet. They’ve removed most of the wires and tubes, but a faint mark circles his neck where the oxygen mask had been. His hair is mussed, damp at the temples. His lips are just slightly parted, as if he’s about to argue over which train to take.

She steps closer, each footfall measured, unwilling to shatter the thin silence. For a heartbeat—hers, not his—she can pretend he’s sleeping. She almost waits for his eyes to open, to catch her looking, to tease her about hovering.

Instead, she reaches for his hand. It’s cooler now, heavier. Her thumb traces the line where a pulse should be.

“You didn’t finish your coffee,” she whispers. The sentence makes no sense, but she says it again, softer. “You didn’t finish your coffee.”

Her mind keeps tripping over the smallest details: the sugar packet he forgot to take, the scarf she wrapped under his head, the way he said “dentist” like it was the punchline to the world’s longest joke. These are the things that make him him, and she clings to them as the bigger truth slips away.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, until the nurse with the kind eyes steps in and says quietly, “Take your time.”

Time. As if that’s what’s been taken from her.

Eventually, she leans down and presses her lips to his forehead. The skin is cooler than it should be, but it still smells faintly of him—warm spice and the ghost of morning.

“I choose you,” she says, though he can’t hear it, and perhaps because he can’t. The words taste like both a vow and a surrender.

She walks out without looking back, because looking back might root her to the spot forever.

The hallway feels longer this time. She reaches the waiting area and notices her coat is still on the chair, rumpled and abandoned. She picks it up mechanically, slips her arms into the sleeves.

The nurse meets her again. “Do you have someone who can come for you?”

Her throat works around the answer. “My sister. I’ll call her.”

The nurse nods, as if approving the choice, and hands her a small plastic bag. Inside: Jatin’s watch, his wallet, his phone. The sight of them knocks something loose in her chest. Objects that held his warmth this morning now hold nothing but weight.

She presses the bag to her stomach, clutching it as if it might keep her upright.

Outside, the air is startlingly bright, as if the day has gone on without permission. Traffic moves. Pigeons strut on the sidewalk like kings of the city. Somewhere nearby, a busker plays a saxophone, the notes bending under the weight of his breath.

Meera steps into the sunlight and feels none of it. She is walking because standing still feels dangerous. She is breathing because her body insists on it. She has no destination except away—from the hospital smell, from the clock that will forever read 10:47, from the sterile room where he will never move again.

She turns the corner and blends into the slow tide of pedestrians, their conversations small and ordinary. Someone is arguing about lunch. Someone is laughing about a meme. Someone is alive.

A block later, she stops. Her legs have decided they’re done cooperating. She leans against the cold stone of a building, closes her eyes. Behind her lids, she sees the foam heart in the cappuccino, the bear in the puddle, the different sky. She hears his voice: Room you choose.

She opens her eyes, but the world stays blurred.

There’s a thought building in her chest, sharp and certain: she can’t stay here. Not in this city that now has a corner where the morning broke in half. Not in this apartment with his coffee mug still in the sink. Not within reach of the train lines they never got to ride.

She’ll go somewhere the city can’t follow.

Somewhere quiet enough for grief to speak.