One Last Time

His hand felt cold. Rohan started rubbing Aarav's hand against his. The constant beeps from the bedside monitor woke him up a few seconds ago. Aarav was still asleep, may be the heavy doses of medicine numbed these beeps for him, he thought. He gently placed Aarav's hand back on the bed. It was almost 2AM, Rohan noticed that he was asleep for last 2 hours. He got up, rubbed his eyes, drank a glass of water and sat back on the bedside stool, taking Aarav's hand back in his hand. 

He looked at Aarav's face, his eyes were again in tears. This was the third time he cried since the doctors told him earlier that this might be the last night for Aarav, as the infection has affected all his crucial organs and most of them have already failed. Rohan hated that Aarav was heavily sedated and asleep even when there were only a few moments left that he could spend with Aarav. He wanted to see his smile again, may be one last time. But, waking him up now will be very painful for Aarav. 

Rohan still remembered the big smile Aarav had on his face when he told Aarav that he was going to adopt him, almost 2 years ago. Aarav was 6 at that time. Rohan was a single father and he knew it would be very difficult, but for Aarav he was ready to make the effort. Aarav was detected with a rare genetic disease which caused deadly infection in his organs. These last few months have been the worst of the disease. Before that, Rohan and Aarav had the time of their life, late night movies, ice cream cravings, guitar lessons and even a trip to ice capped mountains of Shimla. All these beautiful memories with Aarav came rushing to him as he gripped Aarav's hand harder, he was losing him, his partner, his best friend, his son. His head dropped and a stream of tears rolled down. He lifted his head back immediately, he did not want to lose even a single moment with Aarav. He was looking desperately at Aarav's eyes, he wanted him to open his eyes once and look at him for one last time. 

Aarav never opened his eyes again and left Rohan & the world in his deep sleep. He held his hand till the end. 

One year later, Rohan adopted Ruhi, who had blood cancer and had one more year left, one more year for Rohan.

Comments

Shishir Barethiya (SCB) said…
Touched my heart! ❤️ Truly a deep one! Your variety of the subjects covered in the last 3 short stories is commendable. 👏👏
December 26, 2020 at 6:16 PM
Rohan Ambastha said…
The last five words gave me goosebumps! How can you even come up with all this?

I know I suggested long stories but somehow I am getting addicted to these small pieces which leaves me to imagine alot about the world that you create for the readers.

Just love the way it's written.❤️
December 27, 2020 at 1:55 AM
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