I couldn't believe that there was a time that I was jealous of Noor because Omar made biryani for her. Now, as I stood in front of my fridge which was brimming with groceries and all sorts of cooked dishes that Omar had made himself or had gotten delivered to my apartment, I couldn't help but feel a little silly at my reluctance to accept that he was over his ex-fiancé.

"I made some egg salad sandwiches for you. Eat them please!", he had said as he placed the tupperware in my fridge.

Before I could answer, he gently scolded me as he peered into my fridge, "Madi, seriously? Why haven't you even touched the food I brought yesterday?"

"Because Omar...I am still trying to finish the food that you brought 4 days ago. I am just one person, how much do you think I can eat?", I had replied, silently enjoying being treated like a child. I never got to do that at my parent's home. There, I was always the responsible, grown-up sibling. Here, I had this wonderful man cook me dinner almost everyday unless he was on overnight call, and then deliver it himself after work.

"Fine...I'll take the older leftovers back with me. You eat this pasta I made yesterday, and these fresh sandwiches from today", he had given me that serious look that made me feel like a little kid again.

I smiled at the memories of him as I grabbed one of those egg salad sandwiches for breakfast and packed a small lunch for myself, before heading out of my apartment. And then I let my mind wander back to how caring and attentive he had been throughout my COVID isolation period. Even though I had been recovering reasonably well, he had insisted on coming to check up on me every evening and always bearing food and groceries I didn't even know I needed. And then one time he brought his handyman kit so he could fix the hinges on one of my windows.

He never stayed long, and was always respectful when he was here. We kept our masks on, and stayed as far apart as possible, and before he came I would always make sure to open all my windows to increase air circulation in my small apartment. But I think my tearful confession of wanting to live with him had really affected him.

It was the truth, though, I could have relayed that without the waterworks. But he had always had that effect on me, I just couldn't hold anything in around him. He was my safe space, my comfort zone. Being around him anchored me, and gave me hope, and everyday he had made me fall deeper in love with him.

I was tempted to tell him that, but a part of me was too timid to say those words to him. As confident and assertive as I pretended to be, I was an introvert at heart. Yet, another bolder part of me wanted to intentionally reserve those words for the moment when we weren't bound by any boundaries. When I could reach out and touch him and be touched him, without any constraints.

My cheeks burned at that thought. As much as I tried to ignore the fire that he lit inside me, it wasn't that easy to put that out. Omar was a good-looking guy. I had thought that even before he got here. There was a reason Kylie put 'dibs' on him when we were peering over the new intern photographs in our weekly newsletter.

Sorry Kylie...'dibs' or not, he is mine now!

But there was something about the way he stood in my kitchen, in his scrubs, his hair all tousled from a day's worth or work, his voice slightly muffled from the mask but still deep and soothing, that was just so damn attractive. He had always been a frequent visitor to the gym, but with those closed now he had switched to virtual weight training exercises at home and running out in the open. And it showed...

Oh boy, Madi...can't go there yet. Think of something else!

Turns out thinking, and praying, is something I had a lot of time for during isolation. And I had come to conclusion that I needed to stop being afraid of the 'what if', and just tell my parents about us. Now that I likely had COVID antibodies, and I had been negative on repeat testing, I would be relatively low risk for transmitting the virus to my parents. So I told them that I would come visit them that weekend, even if we just sat outside, and I had every intention of laying out everything in front of them. And then I prayed that they would looked past Omar's family and see him for who he was.

Before, the weekend came though, I had to go back to work. I still felt worn out, and had a weird metallic taste in my mouth but my cough was much better. Driving into work I glanced at my day's schedule as I stood at a red light.

I was on service in the cardiac unit today. Over the last few months, the number of patients with heart diseases had significantly dropped for some reason. Many of us suspected that this was just due to resources being so stretched, and people being fearful of coming into the hospital. Many patients either suffered at home, or worse passed away at home without coming to our attention.

The relatively light cardiac service meant that I would have some time to break an unfortunate news to Omar. Yesterday we had a meeting of the chief residents with Dr Kumar on the resident schedules for the next few weeks. And then we had talked about the leave requests submitted by a couple of residents and an intern.

Omar is not going to be happy, but he might as well hear it from me.

My phone rang just as I entered the parking lot. I was hoping it would be Omar, but it wasn't. I picked it up anyway.

'Salaam Faraz, everything ok?"

"Walaikum Asalaam. Yes, yes everything is fine on my end. I just wanted to check up on you and see how you were feeling. Maliha said you're back at work today. Isn't that too soon? I bet you could use some more time to rest"

Faraz sounded genuine, but after what Omar had told me about their conversation a few days ago and the flowers he had sent last week, I was wary of being too friendly with him. I had gotten rid of those flowers as soon as they were delivered, and decided not to mention them to Omar, even though I felt bad doing that. I just didn't see any reason to make him more paranoid.

There was nothing wrong with Faraz, he was a decent guy. And the flowers just had a generic 'Get Well Soon" card. I just didn't want him getting the wrong idea about me. Especially, since he was my sister's brother-in-law. Things could get very messy for her, if any of Omar's concerns were true.

"I am fine Faraz, thanks for checking up on me. I am just following the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines. Besides the hospital is very busy, we can't really spare anyone", I replied to him, keeping my voice as flat and uninterested as possible.

"That is good to know. Then I suppose then it would also be ok for us to meet later in the day outside the hospital to go over some feedback I had received about the telemedicine platform"

Seriously? Again with the meeting in-person?

"Faraz, I would hate to drag you out all the way here...do you want to just do a zoom meeting?"

"It's no big deal at all, Madi. I wouldn't mind having a reason to get out of the house..."

"Ok, I'll tell Omar to come too. He was actually asking if you had received feedback on the educational sessions he had done a few days ago", I replied, there was no way I was going to meet with him alone.

He seemed to hesitate but then agreed, and we set up a time and place to meet at the end of the day.

Cardiology rounds went quickly with the few patients we had that were admitted for cardiac procedures. Even though we were in the middle of a COVID surge, our hospital had started to allow some elective surgeries and procedures after those had been shut down for almost 2 months. It is said that no surgery or medical procedure is truly 'elective'. By shutting down the hospital for these important medical interventions, important cancer diagnoses were getting delayed, people suffered with painful hip and knee joints, and relevant to my current rotation fewer people were having cardiac by-pass surgeries meaning they would be at higher risk of getting heart attacks later.

Rounds finishing early gave me an opportunity to catch up on all my other work, and text Omar that I needed to talk to him. He was assigned to the COVID ICU again this week and when I texted him I had assumed it would be a while before he could come down.

But he was already waiting for me outside the chiefs office when I got there.

"Hi Madi...", he said in a hushed tone. The lower half of his face was covered but the brightness in his eyes told me without doubt that under his mask he had that same charming smile I had fallen for a long time ago.

His hushed tone or maybe the way he looked at me, made Lisa, my co-chief scramble out of the office leaving me blushing. We hadn't told anyone at work that we were together...or trying to get together permanently, but I think everyone had just accepted that as a fact now.

"Hey Omar...how are you? Done with rounds already?", I asked as I put my bag down.

"No...but I needed to see you, and Kylie was sweet enough to let me go", he said as he took a few steps, moving a bit closer to me. A lot closer than he had been recently, now that I was out of isolation. And that made my cheeks burn more, and I thanked God silently for the mask mandate. No one liked wearing them but they were a great way to hide the effect someone was having on you.

"Kylie is not sweet, you probably just finished rounding on your patients earlier than others...", I looked away from his brown eyes, ignoring the twinge of jealousy in me. How come she gets to be sweet?

"Are you jealous of her?", he asked coyly.

"No! Of course not...why would you think that?"

How does he see right through me?

"Because she told me that she had 'dibs' on me, and you swooped in and stole me", he chuckled.

"She did WHAT? Is she out of her mind?", I was incredulous. Why would Kylie say that to him?

"That was a joke a long time ago. And may I remind you...and you can go and tell her this too, I never stole anything...you were the one who kept hounding me, not the other way around..."

Omar held my gaze for a few seconds, before saying in a low, deep voice, "You did steal my heart, Madi..."

That nearly stopped my heart, and it took me a few seconds to say, "Uff tauba...stop with the filmy dialogue. No more Indian movies for you"

"Fine...fine", he laughed loudly, "How was your first day back at work?"

"Ok...I got somewhat out of breath when we used the stairs to go up and down between the cardiac floors. But other than that I am not too bad"

"I am glad to hear that...so why did you want to see me?"

I took a breath and closed my eyes for a second. Why must our happy moments like this always get interrupted by more bad news?

"Wait...what is that expression on your face? What happened?", he asked me in a worried tone.

"You're not going to like this, but your request to take leave was denied...", I told him as his eyes widened.

"What? Madi, you're kidding, right? How could you let that happen? This pandemic isn't going anywhere soon...I have to go meet my parents and try to convince them. We can't keep doing this forever", he waved his hand between us.

"Omar...I tried to..."

He interrupted me with a frown and his eyes narrowed, as he took a few steps back, "Well...you clearly don't want this badly enough..."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"That means you are not invested in us...first you won't talk to your parents and then you won't stand up for me"

How can he say that?

"I did stand up for you...repeatedly", I was furious at Omar's accusation, "But we are in the middle of a surge, Omar. We cannot spare anyone right now. We were literally debating if there was a way to get physicians back into work sooner than 10 days after being COVID positive, because we are so short-staffed. How did you expect anyone to agree with your leave request? That too all the way to Pakistan, knowing how difficult international travel is right now"

He closed his eyes and stood there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head slowly. I could feel his disappointment. It wasn't any different than what I felt at the end of our meeting yesterday with Dr Kumar. But I wasn't going around throwing unfair accusations.

Though, I also understood his frustration. Last week when his sister had called me, she made it sound like his mom may be coming around to the idea of us being together. And he had hoped that by flying to Pakistan and meeting his dad, he could convince him too.

Me getting frustrated at him as well won't help anyone, so I softened my tone when I spoke up again.

"Omar I am invested in us. I have been from the moment you asked me to marry you", I sighed, "If I could stop the world just long enough that we could figure out our problems, I would. But I can't and your leave is out of my hands"

He had moisture in his eyes which he promptly wiped away when he looked up at me, "This is so fucking hard...excuse my language...I am going to be honest with you Madi, sometimes I just wish we never had that ICU rotation together. Maybe we've just been fooling ourselves that we even have a future"

What? That ICU rotation changed me in ways that I never thought was possible. And we fell in love with each other. How could he wish that had never happened.

"No...no, Omar", I couldn't hide the undertones of panic in my voice, "You can't say these kinds of things. You are the one who keeps telling me we'll find a way...you can't give up on us now..."

I could see the instant regret in his eyes, "Madi...I am sorry..."

"I was planning to talk to my parents this weekend. Omar, just hang on for a little while longer...please", I blurted out.

He paused to look at me and then nodded slowly, "I am sorry, I didn't mean to say what I just did. I am hanging on, literally...for my life. I will never not be in love with you...ok? But that makes this all the more harder"

"I know...", I was out of words for him.

Just then his pager went off, "I need to go back up now...", then he quietly added, "For the sake of our sanity, I hope the talk with your parents goes well..."

I nodded, I hope so too...because after that we are out of options.

But before he could leave, I remembered something, "Omar wait...Faraz was going to meet us after 5 today. Would you be able to make it?"

"Madi...I can't deal with him right now. And I told Dr Sanders that I would be in the lab today, since I hadn't been going the last week or so", he turned to walk out of the room, but then paused and added, "But...if he tries to do anything stupid, call me..."

I told Omar I would be fine, but was really just thinking: If he tries to do anything stupid, I would punch him and call the police!

Later that evening I wished I had insisted Omar attend that meeting with me. Though, in reality wheels of the disaster to come had already been in motion long before that evening, even if they were set in motion with the best of intentions.

'The couples that are meant to be are the ones that go through everything that is meant to tear them apart and come out even stronger' - Anonymous

Question is...are we one of those couples?

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