The Surgeon Without a Heart
“BP dropping, sir.”
“Charge to 200.”
The tension inside the operation theatre was suffocating. Doctors stood frozen while the monitor beeped loudly through the silent room.
At the center of it all stood Dr. Arjun.
Calm.
Sharp.
Untouched by panic.
A mask covered half his face, but his eyes remained steady on the patient lying unconscious before him. Blood stained his gloves while the junior surgeons beside him struggled to keep up with his speed.
“Scalpel.”
The nurse immediately placed it in his hand.
Nobody wasted time around him.
Nobody dared to.
For the next few minutes, the entire room moved according to his commands alone.
Then finally—
The monitor stabilized.
A long breath escaped the doctors around him.
Arjun slowly removed his gloves before stepping away from the operation table.
“Operation successful.”
Relief spread across the room instantly.
Some interns exchanged impressed looks while a few junior doctors almost smiled in victory.
“He actually saved him…”
“He was declared impossible outside.”
“That’s Dr. Arjun for you.”
The whispers followed him everywhere.
As Arjun walked out of the operation theatre, nurses standing near the corridor immediately moved aside. Some greeted him respectfully while others stared at him with quiet admiration.
At thirty, he was already one of the most famous cardiothoracic surgeons in the country.
Patients waited months just to get treated by him.
Hospitals competed for him.
Medical students worshipped him.
And women…
Women fell for him too easily.
But Arjun never noticed any of it.
Or maybe he simply stopped caring long ago.
“Coffee, sir.”
A nurse nervously handed him a cup near his cabin.
“Thank you.”
The simple reply alone shocked her.
“God,” another nurse whispered after he walked away. “Even his thank you sounds attractive.”
Inside the doctors’ lounge, laughter filled the room as Arjun’s closest friends sat discussing the surgery.
“He hasn’t slept properly in three days,” one doctor muttered.
“And still performs like a machine,” another added.
A third doctor leaned back against the chair before sighing quietly.
“He wasn’t always like this.”
The room slowly fell silent.
Everyone there knew.
Years ago, during his master’s degree , Arjun was completely different.
He smiled easily.
Believed in love.
Stayed awake all night talking with friends.
And somewhere during those exhausting medical college days, an unknown girl slowly became part of his life through handwritten letters.
No name.
No face.
Just words.
Words that somehow understood him better than people around him.
She used to leave letters near the library, inside old medical books, or sometimes on his study desk when nobody was watching.
At first, Arjun ignored them.
Then he started waiting for them.
Those letters stayed with him through sleepless nights, academic pressure, and the fear of losing his mother to illness.
The mysterious girl never asked him for anything.
She only motivated him.
Supported him.
Believed in him.
And for the first time in years, Arjun had started believing maybe life could still become beautiful again.
But everything changed too quickly.
First, he lost his mother.
And before he could even recover from that pain…
The letters stopped coming too.
Just like that.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
The girl disappeared from his life completely.
Arjun searched for her for months during college.
But he never found out who she was.
That was the year something inside him broke permanently.
After that, he buried himself in work, surgeries, and responsibilities until feelings slowly stopped mattering to him altogether.
Love became meaningless.
Attachments became temporary.
And Arjun decided he would never depend emotionally on anyone again.
“Dr. Arjun?”
A soft feminine voice interrupted their conversation.
Every doctor in the room looked up instantly.
Dr. Rhea.
Rich.
Beautiful.
Confident.
The daughter of one of the hospital board members.
She walked toward Arjun with a smile almost everyone in the hospital recognized by now.
“Dinner tonight?” she asked casually.
One of his friends immediately smirked.
Again.
The entire hospital knew Rhea liked him.
Unfortunately for her, Arjun treated her the same way he treated everyone else.
With distance.
“I’m busy,” he answered calmly without even looking up from the file in his hands.
Her smile faded slightly.
“You’re always busy.”
“I know.”
That was it.
No apology.
No explanation.
Rhea stared at him for a second before finally walking away in embarrassment.
The second she left, one of his friends burst into laughter.
“You rejected the hottest woman in this hospital again.”
Arjun closed the patient file calmly.
“I came here to work. Not entertain people.”
“Brother, one day you’ll die alone.”
Arjun stood up silently.
“That’s still better than depending on people who eventually leave.”
The joking atmosphere disappeared instantly.
His friends exchanged quiet looks.
Because deep down, they knew.
Arjun never truly moved on from the girl behind those letters and from mother's death.
Outside his cabin window, heavy rain poured across the city while doctors and nurses rushed through the corridors carrying files and reports.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the same city—
A girl carefully opened an old box filled with handwritten letters.
Letters addressed to only one person.
Dr. Arjun.
