He stopped wiggling.
“One more word from you and I will send you out of this window directly.”
He glanced back at the window. “It’s closed.”
“That’s it!” She pushed her hand to his back and shoved him until he was moving, walking, on his door.
“Ritu…” he dug his feet in, throwing Kedar off.
“Nilay, it is a heart attack.”
He froze. Their eyes met.
“Now I don’t care what your staff thinks. You have one minute to get down to your car.” She held up his keys. “We are admitting you to the hospital and you are getting an emergency angiography. I spoke to Dr. Shravan, he is already at the Cath Lab. We will get you in by 3. Now move.”
————————————————————
The thing with emergencies was that your brain stopped working. Fear consumed you, and yet it did not register. As he was walked into the hospital, stable on his own two feet, Nilay thought he could still get out of the angiography. As he was asked to use a wheelchair, he thought he could fight it. As he was shoved into it by Ritu and hauled up to the 12th-floor room and asked to change into hospital clothes, he believed he could beg his way out of it.
But now, as he sat in bed, in the most horrendous blue hospital shirt and bottoms, staring out of the picture window at the horizon beyond the Arabian Sea, Nilay knew there was no getting out of this.
The door clicked open, and he turned his head to see her walk in. She set her bag down on the table and came to stand beside him, snaking her arm around his shoulder. Her breath, her scent, her presence were so close. He inhaled.
“Nilay,” she leaned close to his face. Her hand came to his chest and she held it steady there. “In twenty minutes, we will take you down for an angiography. A radial approach has been finalised. It means that a nick will be made in your wrist, from there, they will inject a catheter tube through your artery, throw a dye in and take a video. If they find more than 70% plaque, then stenting will be required. A stent will be set in the artery to open it up and keep it distended. That’s lifesaving. If there are more than three blockages with 70% or more plaque, then they will close and look at other options. More than three stents is not recommended…”
“What other options? CABG?”
Her mouth pursed. She nodded.
He let out a bitter chuckle — “So finally we are here, ready for a bypass surgery.”
“No, we are not. We haven’t seen what’s going on in there.” She patted his chest. “Chances are, you will require one stent and be done.”
He scoffed, looking away — “Chances and me haven’t worked where this heart is concerned.”
A hand on his jaw tugged it back to her. Her face was closer now, her eyes centimetres away.
“Listen, Nilay, if there are more than three blocks then I am getting you the best cardiothoracic surgeon and booking you for a CABG and you will not say no. I am standing with you, inside and outside the OT. I am taking care of you. However obnoxious you want to be, go be. It’s a challenge, in fact. Do your worst. I am not leaving you alone in this, ok?”
His eyes blurred. Nilay found the wrist of the hand that was holding his jaw. “I am not scared of being alone or weak anymore,” his voice broke. “I am scared of dying. Now that you are here, I don’t want to go.”
Her mouth closed over his. He inhaled.
She kissed him, slow and deep, thumbing the edge of his eye and pulling back.
“You will not go anywhere,” she asserted.
He nodded.
“It will be over before you even know it.”
“I want you to perform it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s a conflict of interest.”
