Aru Shahness

Kara Reflecting on Life

*This occurs before Aru's 15th birthday, but after Aru and her friends get the astra and stuff*

Kara's life felt almost perfect. 

Kara searched for the right word to describe her life and settled upon "mollified". Mollified came from the Latin word "mollis" which meant soft. It felt like the recent events had softened the harsh and lonely life she'd had before with her dad.

Her dad was a great dad, but being with him didn't feel entirely complete. It didn't feel entirely like family. First of all, her dad had always left her by herself, and the only time she had felt better about that was the time when her dad brought Aru to her. 

Since Krithika Shah wasn't home yet, Kara and Aru had to rotate between Brynne and Mini's places. And sometimes Aiden's. The Potatoes usually had movie nights on Sundays at his place, when Aiden's mom made dinner. It obviously wasn't as good as Brynne's cooking, but it was delicious nonetheless.

The best part about the movie nights, though, was that she got to see Aiden. He was probably the only nice boy her age that Kara had ever met, and she had admired him ever since the first time they had met when he'd picked up her book of Emily Dickinson poems for her. She didn't know whether Aiden liked her back, though. He seemed to like Aru a lot, but Kara couldn't tell if it was in a platonic or romantic way. Lately, though, Aiden had been avoiding Aru. Kara didn't know what had happened between them, but it seemed to indicate that Aiden couldn't have liked Aru in that way.

And Kara felt that she couldn't keep her feelings secret from Aiden any longer. She would explode if she did. I'll tell him the next time I see him, she thought.

Aru's birthday was in 2 days, and Kara was really looking forward to it. She needed to make her sister's birthday as special as possible. After all, it was only because of Aru's clever thinking that they had even made it to Lanka.

But despite all the good that had happened lately, Kara found herself missing her dad. She missed his warm hugs, his radiant smile, his soothing voice, and his attention. Suyodhana had always told Kara that she was his favorite girl, that she was the one who had always stuck by him when nobody else did, and that together, they would unite their family and live a perfect life.

Does Dad hate me now because I betrayed him? a voice deep inside Kara asked. What if our family will never be together again? What if the Potatoes don't trust me because of him? What if nobody trusts me?  What if I'm alone? 

But Kara took a deep breath and buried all of those questions deep inside her. She had Aru's birthday to look forward to, and nothing was going to stop her from throwing her sister the best party ever. 

Eeeeek, this was shorter than I planned for it to be. On a different note, I feel like there are so many people who hate Kara just because she liked Aiden and was uncertain of which side to be on. But none of those things were her fault. Looking at things from her point of view, I'm just really sorry for her and rather than hating Kara, I just hate how her life turned out. I really wish she'd had a better ending in NOI, but I also feel like it was as good as it could get. At this point, I just hope she redeems herself in the future so she can see the Potatoes again like Garuda said. Hmmm maybe I'll write about that. ;)