Dheer was taken aback by his one sentence. For any incidence to be able to change someone's life, it must be a big incidence. His curiosity piqued.
Rudra continued, "It was always a dream of Anaya to be a great cardiologist and treat people with heart diseases. But that incident almost ruined her medical carrier. If not for Doctor Shah and his wife she might have already given up on becoming a doctor and would be a regular civilian in her village."
Dheer was shocked by this revelation. For Anaya to be able to work in New Life hospital she must be the best in her field. For such an amazing doctor to almost give up on her carrier, what in the world would have caused that? Dheer began to contemplate.
Silence engulfed the room. Rudra took a few deep breaths as if shrugging off some nasty memories riding the emotions of fury and vulnerability within him. After steadying his emotions, he drank a glass of water from the table in front. After downing the entire glass of water in a go, he cleared his throat and continued.
As Dheer was speculating, he heard deep breathing beside him. When he looked up, he saw a grave expression on Rudra's face. It was like he was going through a turmoil of emotions at once. There was fury, pain, vulnerability, and fear all at once. Dheer became even more vigilant. He now badly wanted to know what happened back then. He wanted to do something, anything to ease their worries and fears. Just then Rudra downed the water from the glass and continued.
"Back then due to a certain incident, Anaya was greatly disturbed. She was on the verge of depression. Nonetheless, she tried to overcome that and engrossed herself in her studies. As a result, she became less cheerful and hardly spoke with anyone. But as if this was not enough of suffering for her. Someone started some nasty rumors about her in college. Again, I am not the right person to disclose the subject of the rumors, but it greatly affected her. Although we promptly traced the source of the rumor and cleared her name at once, it was too late for her."
"You do not know how filthy the rumor mill is, Dheer. To have all the eyes on you, to be the subject of every discussion around you, to have a constant fear of stalkers around you and whatnot. Heh…" Rudra snickered. "Just because someone got bored and wanted to have some excitement in his life, he created those rumors. Sitting behind the keyboards, not knowing the extent of their cruelty to the person involved as if it was the most natural thing to do" He clenched the glass he was holding as a murderous aura surrounded him as he thought of the past.
"It would not have affected her this deeply if not for that incident earlier, but life was playing a game with her. At last, depression hit her, and it took her a year to overcome it. She almost lost herself and was on the brink of going insane. It was a dark period for her. That is why Anaya is afraid to be the center of discussions ever since. She hates rumors the most. It was also the reason I rejected her idea at first. But she is a headstrong and stubborn woman once she decided on something. So, I could only comply and be ready to pull her out of the darkness if she fell again." He put down the glass he was holding with a forlorn look on his face. Dheer noticed a few cracks on the glass, evident of Rudra's anger and frustration from that time.
"Even though the current rumors about us in the hospital did not affect her as much as I expected, but it still bothered her. That is why I am grateful that you helped Anaya to ease her mind and soothe her fears. She needed a good laugh and something to take her mind off the things happening in the hospital right now." Rudra gently looked at Dheer as he finished his last sentence. "Thank you. Thank you for staying with Anaya today."
Dheer was speechless by the sudden heart-wrenching bomb that Rudra threw on him in the name of Anaya's past. It was just a small snippet of her past and it was enough to clench his heart in agony. What would happen if he heard the entire story? He could guess that the entire story was going to be much painful than this based on Rudra's expression alone. He could not fathom the extent of pain that Anaya had to go through back then.
He regretted!