dead girls don't love [dgdl]

chapter 06 \t

ASHNA HAD NO IDEA HOW she was going to meet Ivan even when it was her who had asked him. 

When little Maria picked up the call, Ivan did not speak for seconds before he was sure the one mismatched blabber of sweet talk was coming from someone who definitely was not whose voice he called to hear. 

Ashna knew he loved listening to the voice of Maria as she could hear his laugh through the phone which she kept on speaker taking from Maria. God knows, his laugh felt hot. It erupted feelings inside her that nothing ever did. 

Or maybe Ashna was just not thinking straight, as she had not been for quite a few days.

"Are you the boyfriend of Dida?" She had initiated the conversation from here and taken it up to the ringlets, complaining how her sister had not yet shown her more of those shiny things. 

Ivan had talked to Maria as if he knew her for so long as if they were best friends or siblings who had only love for each other. He supported her in his complaint against Ashna.

Ashna was hardly able to take the phone from Maria after giving her the entire box full of different sizes, shapes, designs, and colours of rings. She loved collecting them more than she loved wearing them. 

Most of those were plain steel, bronze, and silver rings. One of them was a gold ring. Only a few had gems embedded and those gems were only American diamonds, colored and silver. Those shiny things were pretty even when they did not have much money attached to them. 

She only told Ivan what was going on in the house after she asked him 'what he was doing?' 

Somehow, this has become the question she asks him daily now and most of the days, Ivan just answers 'talking to you', first for an answer. 

Ivan was going to cut the call when Ashna asked him what she was trying to ask for a week now. "I want to meet," she proposed, "---you."

"Hmm?" Ivan was a little shocked at the suddenness of the proposal. He had never thought about meeting Ashna even once, it was another thing that he had desired to meet her quite a few times. In fact, almost always. 

He knew he was talking to Ashna, maybe a little more than friends but he wanted to give himself no other hopes, even when his heart desired more. 

So much, he feared he would never get it. 

"Meet?" Ashna asks softly. "I want to meet you, see you."

Ivan swallows a gulp.

"Ashna!!" Her mother calls from the living room. 

Before Ivan can answer, she says, "Okay, mummy's calling, byee!!" She pulls the phone away to disconnect the call but quickly takes it back to her ear as she adds, "And you should say bye! And think of coming, okay!" 

"Okay," Ivan says and Ashna disconnects the call, a perched smile on her face. Maria looks at her and giggles, "Your boyfriend is nice Dida," making Ashna laugh. 

Ashna wonders if she should warn Maria of not speaking anything about the call to people outside. But she decided otherwise. 'Maria is only a child after all.' She thinks to herself. 

Even if Ivan and she were not anything like that, hell, they did not have even met once until now. But after what happened regarding Ivanya, she knew better than her parents accepting another of their daughters talking about love or anything like that, in any way.

"Ashna!!" Her mother calls again. Ashna looks at Maria cheekily smiling up at her, pointing up three ringlets at her, "I want these", she pouts.