Page 13 of Mrs. Pandey
It had been six months since the accident, and finally, I was starting to feel a little like myself again. My arms, legs, and abdomen had healed well enough, and for the first time in a long time, a small sense of peace settled in my head. I had been staying at home with my mother for most of my recovery, and honestly, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. No father to scold or question me. No brother to pretend like everything was fine. And definitely no Patel, thank God. Just me and my mom.
During those long, quiet days, I began to see my mother differently. She cared. She really did. She looked after me day and night, especially during the first few weeks when I couldn’t even stand properly, let alone walk. I had pushed her away so many times before, but she never left. Not once. She cooked, massaged my legs, helped me bathe, and sat beside me when the pain made me cry in the middle of the night. She was there through it all: silent, steady, and strong.
Aryan… Well, he was there too, surprisingly so. He showed up when I needed help the most. He drove me to the hospital for check-ups, sat with me during physiotherapy, and even arranged for the best specialist in town to look at my injuries. We didn’t talk much about what happened between us, and I was grateful for that. We just focused on healing. Slowly, I began to walk again. Then jog. Then I even ran, though my back still protested some days. It still held a deep, dull ache that flared up when Isat too long or lifted something heavy. But I was better and I was surviving.
Eventually, I was posted to Barmer close enough to home to feel grounded, but far enough to breathe. I was relieved, honestly. Relieved that Aryan wasn’t around. Relieved that Prashant was nowhere in sight. They just stayed out of my life, giving me the space I desperately needed. Finally, I could breathe again. Just me and my duties. No drama and no heartbreak.
Barmer wasn’t so bad. The terrain was rough, the sun unforgiving, but I had settled in quickly. I had good colleagues, decent people, sharp soldiers and my own little quarter that I actually enjoyed coming back to. I built a routine and lived by it. I woke up every morning at four, went for a jog, did my cardio and yoga under the faint desert sky. Then I got ready, reached the office by nine, and worked until seven. After work, we usually played a game of volleyball, shared some laughs, and returned to our quarters. I would cook a simple meal for myself, curl up in bed with Netflix humming in the background, and fall asleep by ten. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was peaceful, predictable and mine.
I was transferred here because of my injuries; it was safer, more administrative, with less physical strain. But if I was being honest, I didn’t like the desk job. Office work bored me to death. I missed the field. They had the adrenaline, the discipline, and the rawness of real action. I missed guiding my juniors, yelling over wind and dust, and feeling like I was doing something that mattered. Staring at a screen all day, typing reports and handling paperwork, just didn’t give me the same rush.
Still, I knew I had no choice, not yet. My back hadn’t healed completely, and I wasn’t ready to be back in the field. Anothercouple of months, maybe. That’s what the doctor said. And I was holding onto that timeline like it was a lifeline. I needed to go back. Because in the field, I felt alive. In the office, I just felt contained.
But I was trying. Healing takes time. And for the first time, I wasn’t rushing it.
The ceiling fan overhead groaned, barely stirring the hot, dry air in my small office. My desk was buried under logistics reports: papers on troop movements, fuel orders, and training schedules. A black pen clicked nervously between my fingers, keeping time with the silence that clung to the room like a second skin. I was trying to focus on my work, trying to drown myself in routine, but the cruel ache in my back kept pulling me out of it.
Ever since the accident, I could barely stay on my feet for more than five hours at a stretch. I had to keep moving, walk every now and then, stretch and massage my back like an old woman. Some days, I even had to wear a belt around my waist just to make it through my shift. It was humiliating, this constant reminder that I wasn’t the same anymore.
I never imagined I would be hit by a car, of all things, and end up spending six long, torturous months in bed, learning to walk again, learning to breathe through the pain. If time decides to be cruel, it doesn’t stop at one wound. It comes for everything. The last time I had truly smiled was with Aryan at that club, just hours before everything spun out of control. Since then, my life had been on a downhill spiral. One hit after another.
I looked out the window, squinting into the heat waves rising from the scorched land. Barmer was brutal. The sun beat down relentlessly, sandstorms rolled in like ancient ghosts, and thesilence, God, the silence was heavier than any gunfire I had ever trained for. But I managed. I found my rhythm here. I made peace with the quiet. I made peace with myself.
Until now.
A sharp knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. My orderly stepped in, straightening into a salute. I nodded for him to speak, already feeling a strange unease crawling up my spine.
“Ma’am, the new company commander just arrived. Captain Prashant Pandey.”
Everything inside me went still.
The pen slipped from my fingers and rolled off the desk, hitting the floor with a soft clatter that felt deafening in the moment. My breath caught in my throat. My heart seemed to stop, then start again in an erratic thunder. The world around me faded, blurred, like I had just been pulled into a memory I had buried deep, far from daylight.
My eyes locked onto the orderly, but I wasn’t really seeing him. His words had already done their damage.
“Captain… who?” I asked, though I had heard him clearly. Every syllable of that name echoed in my bones.
“Captain Prashant Pandey, Ma’am. He’s taking over Bravo Company and will be in charge of your sector too.”
His tone was calm, routine. But the storm that had erupted inside me wasn’t. He had no idea what that name did to me,how it curled under my skin and sparked fire in every nerve. He didn’t know that just hearing it felt like being branded. Again.
God, no.
“Dismissed,” I said quickly, barely managing to find my voice.
The door closed behind him, and I collapsed into my chair like something heavy had just slammed into my chest. My hands gripped the edge of the desk, knuckles turning white, nails digging into the wood. My heart was no longer beating but it was hammering. Loud enough to drown out the creaks of the fan and the distant sounds of boots on gravel outside.
I was not ready to see him again.
I had promised myself I never would. I had made that decision in blood and tears and silence. But fate had other plans. It brought him here. For war, maybe. For duty, definitely. But it felt like he was coming for me. For everything we had left unsaid.
It had been years since that night when he stormed into my room, uninvited but expected, he kissed me on my bed like it was the last time. His hands in my hair, his mouth on my lips, his breath desperate. He had grabbed my wrist like he was trying to hold onto something already slipping through his fingers. His eyes had begged me to stay, to speak, and to feel.
But I didn’t. I gave him what he feared most. Hate. And now, he was here. Not just in the same city, not even in the same base he was my superior. My commander.
A million memories came rushing in like floodwaters. His voice, low and rough. His sad, lopsided smile when he was hurt. Theway his fingers traced patterns on my palm when we sat in silence. The night I found that letter he never sent, the one where he told me he loved me, that he was afraid of losing me, that he didn’t know how to fight me and love me at the same time.
I shot to my feet, feeling like I couldn’t breathe in that room anymore. My back screamed at the sudden movement, but I ignored the pain and went to the small window that overlooked the training grounds.
