Office Building. 9:50 am.
The office elevator dinged open, and Sunaina entered it. Sunaina smiled at the two employees already in the elevator, the elevator door closed and it started moving up as soon as she punched the floor number.
Generally, she would use the stairs, but she is way too exhausted to do that today. As the elevator was going up, she heard some murmurs from behind.
"Tch, move your hand." "Shhhh," "Stop."
She tried to the assess the situation, without turning back. The scene reflected hazily on the elevator door made her furious. She turned back assessing the female's face, completely mortified being harassed by a male employee, just behind another female employee. To top that, the male harassing her was the manager, and the female standing in front belonged to some other department, so she barely expected any help, but when Sunaina looked at her, somehow she was highly ashamed.
Sunaina looked at the middle aged man, looked down to the manager tag above his pocket, and squared a straight punch across his face.
"How dare you! Do you know who I am!! How dare you punch me!" The man flared his nostrils holding the cheek, he got punched at.
"How dare you? Dirty swine, People like you deserve to rot in hell!" Sunaina took the female's hand and brought the female to her back, completely shielding her.
"How dare I? Just wait and watch, you will pay for... Ouuuchh!!!" The man couldn't finish his sentence, since Sunaina has kicked his balls. The man crouched down holding his over sensitive sensory parts, groaning in pain.
Sunaina turned to the female now, "You? Couldn't you complain."
The female only looked down. Sunaina huffed in annoyance, by this time the elevator has reached their floor, with spectators outside watching the whole scene. Sunaina just left for her desk, leaving behind the gossiping crowd.
Some hours later
"Hey, superwoman! What's up!" Arjun came and stood beside Sunaina, leaning on her cubicle's wall.
"What do you want, Arjun?"
"Me? I want way too many things, but I am sure you won't be able to afford them!"
"Please leave me alone. I am not in the mood."
"Aye, Sunaina, don't be a bore. You just literally beat the shit, sorry beat the sperm outta manager this morning! The whole office is wondering who the superwoman is, and here you are hiding your face in these measly files! Come on, you are way great than this."
A small smile threatened to come on her face, but she subdued it replying, "Don't you have any work?"
"I surely do and I have done something really special for you. See." He forwarded a pendrive to her.
"What is this?"
"See for yourself."
Sunaina plugged the pendrive to her computer and saw it had only one video. When she opened the file, it showed the CCTV footage of the elevator, where she kicked the manager.
"Are you trying to collect evidence against me?"
Arjun looked hopelessly at her, "You people have this notion right, Arjun can only do bad, he only has evil intentions. Sighs. Look carefully, it also recorded him harassing her. I collected it before the manager sweeps it off, in any case he tries to frame you in any harrassment case. Anyway. I will be leaving."
Sunaina sat dumbfounded, looking at the video over and over again. Yes, it does roughly shows the manager groping the female.
She was highly guilty of just blaming him for just being willing to helping her, but their equation wasn't of saying sorry and make up.
So, it is what it is.
Suddenly, her phone rang. The Caller ID made cold sweat run down her spine. The news she heard after receiving the call, made nothing better.
She literally stuffed her necessities in her bag, and ran from there. Arjun saw her running out of the office in the speed of light. An unknown force, set his feet to race behind her almost immediately. He didn't know why he was following her, where she was headed to, all he knew was to reach to her at that very moment.
When he looked at her, booking can hastily, yelling at any driver that cancelled her trip, he immediately brought his car, he parked by her, commanding her in a dismissing tone, "Argue later, just sit and tell me where to go."
She quickly opened his car door, and sat on the seat telling him to go to the hospital her mother was admitted in. Arjun quickly told her to fasten her seatbelt.
But, her nervousness was at its peak, her fumbling hand was unable to even stretch the seat belt, let alone fasten it. Arjun softly looked at her, he unfastened his seat belt, and went over her, quietly fastening the seat belt for her.
He didn't move from his place, he stayed at the same posture looking at her eyes. He gently put her left hand over her head, stroking it, gently mumbling, "Everything will be okay, hmm. I am with you." As if on cue, streams of fresh tears started raining down her eyes. She sobbed hard, she clutched his shirt in her hand, stuffing her face in his chest, crying loudly. He gently hugged her and kept stroking her.
She choked on her tears, "If anything happens to mom, I swear I will die."
Arjun calmed her, "Shh... You are a fighter, right, that means your mother is even a greater fighter. Everything will be fine. Cry all you want now, then wipe your tears and be the strongest daughter. We will go there, and face everything together, okay."
She cried even harder hugging him tightly. After some minutes, when she was a bit stable, they went to the hospital together.
Since, Arjun wasn't a family, he couldn't enter, but could only wait in the waiting area. He sat there for hours, before a defeated, drained Sunaina slumped down beside her.
He looked at her, and the moment Sunaina too looked at him, Sunaina again started crying. Arjun wasted no seconds to bring her into the safe circle of his arms. "Mom isn't recognizing anybody. She is literally scared of all of us, she is just throwing hands. She is afraid that we might kill her. Can you imagine?" She cried and cried.
Arjun couldn't understand a thing, he was just as shocked as her, he never knew, the strong Sunaina is facing so many things. "What will I do now, Arjun? What will I do?"
Arjun just stroked her head, "Calm down Sunu, we should talk to doctor first."
Sunaina sat straight, wiping her tears, "Yes, he will come in an hour or so."
Sunaina still couldn't stop her cries. She immediately called Niharika, telling her everything. After a minute of her disconnecting, Niharika called Arjun, "Listen, I know, you might be in a daze for so many things are happening suddenly. I am briefing about everything, but please take care of Sunu, till I return back. She is damn sensitive at these times."
Arjun replied, "Yeah, I am here, just tell me what's happening so that I can handle it maturely."
Niharika continued, "Okay, so her mother is suffering chronic kidney disease along with high blood pressure. She needs dialysis now, thrice every week, so she underwent a surgery for the channel to perform dialysis. She was okay, until today, but now she isn't recognizing anybody. She was about to get discharged in two days and now these are happening. Just don't leave her hand and pat her from time to time, okay? And she will not eat anything, please remember to feed her any drink, fruit or energy, whatever till she agrees to take solid food, Okay? We will be reaching there by tomorrow evening. Okay?"
"Yeah okay, don't worry, come back safely. I am here." Arjun replied and disconnected the call. He thought, "Exactly how much do these two love each other? It felt like a master giving a manual to handle her pet. Sheesh."
After about 2 hours the doctor finally came and they met him. As Niharika's words, Arjun held Sunaina's hand althrough the appointment, stroking the back of her hand with his thumbs.
After appointment, Sunaina almost collapsed, "Can you imagine? She is going through psychosis? All this time, she was depressed and I didn't even have a single clue? I am such a bad daughter, " she broke down into tears, "I am such a bad daughter, Arjun. I couldn't save her from the world properly, Arjun I couldn't. I promised her, I would be her shield."
Arjun gently stroked her head and hands telling her, "No, No Sunaina, you can never be a bad daughter. You would've been one, if you have left her with her own misery, but you are here right, fighting along with her, to make her life better again. You are still trying your best right."
She nodded. He patted her head, "See, there, there you are my good girl. Hmm? You are the best daughter anyone can ever get. Even me."
Sunaina slapped his chest in annoyance. He just brought her head closer to his chest, hugging her. "We will get through this, don't worry."
Arjun took care of her althrough, he even dropped her home with some take away food, and promised to pick her up the next day too.