His eyes darted across the audience, his hands gesturing toward the slide projected on the screen.
“AI in regulatory science simplifies data, but its processing and application to advanced therapies need supervision, human expertise in treating… AI can’t do that.”
The summit ended.
He loosened his tie while scrolling through his emails, his fingers moving quickly. His team in Chennai had been working; he needed to assist with the proceedings.
But that one e-mail.
His hand tightened; his brows furrowed. “Where are you, Sneh? Anyway… I don’t care,” he whispered.
A voice cut across his racing thoughts.
“Well done, Riteish. You raised pertinent points. Dr Phogat was impressed,” Dr Jigjianni said.
“Thank you, Sir,” Riteish replied.
“Did you check the revised HR policies?” Dr Jigjianni added.
“Yes, Sir,” Riteish said.
“At Glaxo, we believe safety does not end with drugs. The policy highlights the ethics and moral conduct of employees. It’s a welcome change. I appreciate the anti-harassment rules, and I agree.”
The sounds trailed off. A beat replaced them.
He typed frantically, the words forming, fading on the screen, as he tried to cross a barrier. Her denial had felt like a loss.
That one email he had never deleted. That one name he never wanted to forget.
Sneha.
“How are you? Hope. Why?” He deleted it. He wrote again. Erased.
Wrote something again. Then – “I am happy now.”
He pressed send.
Her phone flashed. The light dimmed as she typed, “OK, Good.”
E-mail sent.
Riteish skimmed through all the work before submitting it. He closed his eyes, his laptop half-open.
A memory surfaced. Unbidden. One he thought he had buried.
Once, her messages changed the rhythm of the day.
He clenched his fist, tracing the crease beneath his palm.
A stack of freshly ironed clothes lay neatly arranged beside him. Pallavi moved in with a strip of medicine and a glass of milk.
“Here,” she said, smiling as she placed both on the bedside table.
Their home hummed with her energy.
Two little feet crawled over his legs as Shivam climbed onto his lap.
“Papa!” he said playfully.
Riteish smiled faintly and turned towards his phone, reading it once more. Fully. In the dark, quiet house.
“She answered.”
His heart raced.
He typed again.
“Sneh. If you want… we can talk more!!!”
A silence threatened him.
Time flew. Work took over. But something remained stalled, as if waiting.
Riteish strung together the ECRP reports.
“Danish, deadline,” he ordered.
His hands and eyes moved in coordination, formatting, revising and guiding the submission.
Suddenly, a note slipped from the pages of his old notebook, frayed at its edges, slightly discoloured. Handwritten.
“Let the noise of our hearts flutter, drowning the mundane. Let the sky… the rain.”
Her love came through words, pristine and clear, but her voice was his pull – his oxygen. “We can talk More!!!” Below it, he typed his number.
Nothing came.
For days. Weeks. Months. It robbed him of air.
He ran on treadmills. Completed his advanced clinical research course. Taught and led teams.
Filled up.
“It’s over,” he told himself. Smoke curled from his cigarette. He looked away to rest his eyes from the glowing screen. Pallavi interrupted his restless mind.
“You left your lunch box on the table today,” she said, waiting for his reply.
“Riteish, all, okay?” she pressed.
“No… yeah. I won’t again,” he quickly said without meeting her eyes.
The cigarette reached his fingers. He threw it away, his fingers stinging from the burn.
A ripple rose inside him like a dormant volcano that never cooled. It mirrored in her – ‘Sneh’
The kitchen slab was spotlessly clean. Sneha’s tears reflected on its surface.
Her fingers scrolled through the phone.
“Why now?” she murmured.
Nishant slept peacefully with their daughter.
She did not disturb them. Silently, she slipped into the other room, hearing her own footsteps follow her.
Those letters were still there. Waiting. Like a still pond being stirred again. She read them. Wanting, not wanting to feel it anymore.
“How are you, Sneh?
Hope everything…
How is your kid?”
Then.
“Almighty has been kind… joined Glaxo. Cancer research. Senior manager. Blessed with a great partner. Thrilling journey. House. Travel.”
She kept reading.
Her finger loosened around the phone before she reached the end of the letter.
“You left. I am happy now.” His words stabbed her.
“Happy?” Her mind replayed his voice and the tremble in it.
“I will die. Don’t leave.”
She stopped.
“We can talk more!!!”
Why? Her mind looped. She paced in her room.
Has he changed? Another letter he had sent years ago, uncoiled before her eyes. The one she had pushed aside.
“How can you walk away, Sneh… after all I did? I need your yes. You know what I am asking of you. Don’t make it difficult now.”
She flinched. The pattern repeated itself. A tremor ran through her body. An old wound resurfaced, cutting through her present calmness.
She bolted the doors, the windows. And pulled off the rug at the threshold.
Her fingers moved hastily on the screen.
“My No wasn’t a weakness.
My No wasn’t impulsive.
My No, wasn’t fear.
My No stands.
No matter what you say.
A decision I made.
Then. Now. Always.”
She exhaled. The mail was sent. His phone beeped.
