4

After college came med school, where she finished as top of her class, and then her residency at the hospital started. On her third year as intern, Lauren was paged to look at a patient for a possible tetanus infection from a dog bite. That was when she met Nadia. When Nadia tells this story, she insists that it was love at first sight but Lauren would not accept such cheesy, imprecise description. She won't deny though, that she was instantly attracted and if pressed, she will admit that for a couple of seconds upon seeing Nadia she had felt like she'd already known her for forever and couldn't help the smiling at her accordingly (Nadia will jump in at this point in the story and tell everyone that it was Lauren's smile made her fall for her).

The bite wasn't infected and was easily cleaned. Unfortunately for Lauren, she had in hand a determined and smitten journalist (the dog bite was from a trespassing gone bad in pursuit of a story). Unfortunately for Nadia, Lauren was currently in dating a nurse from the Pediatrics ward.

The attraction between them proved too much to deter and in 2 weeks the nurse was history. Nadia and Lauren became NadiaandLauren and everyone would say that they were madly in love (with an emphasis on mad). There was a strange magnetism between them that was too irresistible. Lauren realized that she'd never been in love because what she felt now surpassed anything she'd ever felt for any (or all) of her previous relationships. Nadia reminded her of that first week in college. Of feeling uncertain but excited, feeling almost itchy and frenzied (a strange feeling even now for her, who believed in controlled excitement). She wanted to do and share everything all at once with Nadia, envelop her in her life (another strange feeling for her who highly valued her privacy) and be with her all the time.

Their friends were suspicious and didn't believe it would last (mostly Nadia's friends because Lauren only had Ollie -who was simply happy for her, and the other residents -who started a betting game on them). In four months they were living together. After two years they were still together.

5

Nadia was outgoing and gregarious, lively and social. She was a curious creature and loved her job of meeting new people and writing news and feature articles. Lauren was her usual self, contained and graceful, gentle and private. They shouldn't have worked together but they did. Nadia brought Lauren out whenever she found herself too immersed in her work, let her have a social life and made her enjoy the little things in life. Lauren restrained Nadia from her impulsive fervor to right injustice and save the world. They grounded each other and accepted the other completely. They were each other's best friends and favorite person.

Every naysayer from the past admired their relationship now. Nadia's friends liked Lauren and she got along well with them. They liked her quirky sense of humour and her quiet charm, although sometimes, they did find her too cool. Lauren's colleagues similarly liked Nadia, who was an atypical partner. In their eyes, Lauren won the proverbial jackpot with Nadia, who not only was a workaholic (like all of them) but also not a hypocrite (she didn't mind that Lauren worked long hours too.)

That wasn't to say that they didn't fight or that everything was smooth sailing. They both loved their work and were passionate on their beliefs. Sometimes they were just too different from each other. They would fight on the smallest things ("You were supposed to clean the tub! I almost broke my neck on that soap scum this morning!") to the big issues ("Why do you hate my parents?")

It didn't help that they would get too busy in their jobs and did not see each other for days. With Lauren's erratic 48-72 hour shifts in the hospital or the days Nadia had to go abroad for a story, they had to compromise and made sure that they have 'sacrosanct' days to spend time with each other. Curiously enough, they never had a problem with cheating issues. With the amount of time they spent apart, (compounded by Nadia's natural social ease) people who knew their situation would often wonder if they felt insecure or paranoid at all. Yet cheating was never an issue; they were both loyal people and they were both very much in love with each other (after all this time). If they had a mistress on the side it would be their work, Lauren would joke. People would laugh and nod, because knowing them, it only made sense.