dead girls don't love [dgdl]

chapter 09 \d

IVAN HAS ALWAYS KEPT HIS LIFE unveiling but when Ashna started knowing parts of him nobody knew, he did not feel an itch to forbade like he always had. Even when those were not-so-simple things.

He realised somehow he had started to accept everything as long as it meant Ashna.

Even his parents knew so little about him. So little about what he wanted, and if they knew, they only hid it.

Behaved like it was not something that needed attention or appreciation or any sort of support. For studies and studies were all they had ever considered important.

They saw him like every twenty-year-old boy who needed to get into a good college and study to secure a job. And that was that only.

But Ashna saw him like he was. His true self.

She never judged him. She did not even flinch when he told her about how he did not want to study, and how he had very different dreams and did not pester him to express those dreams he struggled with.

He thought she should be a little surprised at least for she was the topper of their class, the best at studies. Academics and studies were what she had always loved and still does. It keeps her sane the same way the gym does for Ivan.

But no matter how it felt on her skin, Ivan was the gush of winds Ashna unknowingly learnt to embrace.

Ivan loved to learn. Just that he had no interest in higher academic studies and getting jobs. He wanted to create, he loved to create: beautiful edits, damned poetries, altra youtube videos and information-yielding blogs.

But there is a thing with hard work. It is not valued in society until it yields success.

Ivan was just not there. He was close to it with an involved audience, social media marketing made him some money too but still he was not there yet. He knew he had a long way to go and he was more than willing to.

If let free, he knew he would go far but he was being kept back. He was being left alone in his dreams and his pursuits.

Earlier he had his friends help him, but now they were dispersed, busy and taken by life to draw circles of their own. They supported him and yet he felt alone as soon as he came home.

Not that he was not loved in the family. He was. But he had dreams of which they were not ready supporters. And this brought differences.

It was as if one goes long and long but in a spiral, life draws back to that one point. From the beginning, it all needs to be started. Ivan was there. He had started and went a long way, but he was drawn back. To point one.

This sucked all life out of him. New things, new places, adventures and creativity were at the core of him. Even when he stayed silent most of the time, his mind painted the most beautiful pictures ever. He was full of art. Skills he had acquired and talent he seemed to be born with.

The only thing that kept him sane now was the gym. It was as if a portal to release all his aggression towards life's traitorous plans, to forget all the sadness that comes with trying to live any differently, which scarred his heart. To let out all which horrified his mind. With intense workouts, boxing and running, he felt every thought that pained his soul to go away.

Strength training, endurance, cardio, all of this became a way for him to escape the horrors of his mind and the patched darkness of his life.
Even if it was momentarily, it elated him. Or at the least, it kept him sane.

He was the most intriguing person ever. And his perfectly carved bodily features supported the statement. Ivan thought he could never get out of the spiral. He could never pursue his dreams again, never start, never have a life for himself.