"---SHE'S STILL NOT HOME!!" Ashna enters her house to the remark of her father.
The same man who once had sweetness for his daughters only, so much that it made up for the little restrictions he put upon them. Now, there are more restrictions, less trust, and deafening screams. And no sweetness.
Even when she wishes not to, she knows what must have been pointed out before these words were yelled.
That 'it's fucking eight-thirty", and 'she is no man', 'why don't you look after your daughter? You want her to follow your elder daughter too?'
As if her mother made their daughters alone. She scoffs at the thought.
But her mother did make something happen his father would have never, even over his dead body, let happen. Maybe that was love too.
The opening of the door had silenced the screams but a taunting comment still floated in the air, coming to hug Ashna when no one in the family did. "Go feed your lovely daughter, like you fed your traitor one, that little bitch of a woman!"
This is not how things used to be.
They were tangled, twisted, and painful before too but that was occasional. Even then, nothing compares to how low of a home this place has become now.
There used to be laughter, happiness, care, and togetherness, and they used to be a family. A flawed one, yet a family. Until it became just a place where some people related by blood live.
This is what love does to a family, or better say, love marriage does, when it should not.
When two years back, Ivanya returned home happily asking to marry the love of her life, she could have never thought what life had in store for her. Or what dearth had in its pit for her?
Nor had she thought she would receive the writhing treatment she did. Even Shekhar's turning into an alcoholic and abuser could not have shocked Ivanya as much as her father's reaction did. Nothing could ever make up for the forever pendant pain of the slap her father had, with all his strength, thrown at her.
Nothing could compare to the betrayal she felt from her parents or the betrayal her parents felt from her most loving daughter.
Nothing could ever fathom the months-long of eternal pain, hatred, disgusted stares, and taunting words until the family finally agreed to marry her to the man she wanted to.
Maybe he belonged to the same caste, or maybe because he was from an extremely well-off family. After all, those things play a role.
Certainly, because her mother could not see her dear daughter in pain anymore and there was a reason which could not be surpassed. It's deafening how the price was the most expensive ever paid.
The worst thing about love marriage, if it's something not widely accepted in society, is that you are not left with an option to return to anyone, not even your own family.
You are abandoned, as Ivanya was.
Because you have chosen it. And Ivanya really had fucked up in making the right choice. Even if she had not as Shekhar was a good man at that time ignoring all the red flags which she misinterpreted for love, fate played its part in making it one extremely flawed choice ever.
YOU ARE READING
dead girls don't love [dgdl]
ChickLit2× FEATURED; By @NA in the "Hold My Stilletos/Chicklit" reading list, and @StoriesUndiscovered in the "Be THAT Girl" reading list for January 2023. * When Ivanya marries a man out of love, things twist in the conservative-minded family of her affec...