dead girls don't love [dgdl]

chapter 10 \i

LOVE WAS SOMETHING ASHNA wanted to stay away from. Particularly, from the horrors and screeches of pain that it brought along with itself wrapped as a gift.

She knew the feeling of love made people weak, and stupid even. She had imprinted in her mind how it sucked away peace, how it created chaos, how it makes someone want a person so much to throw everything else away. Everyone else, away. As to how Ivanya threw all away for the sake of love and love alone.

And what did she get in return? Battered body and doomed life? She has seen Ivanya turn from a pretty flower to bristles and scars. She had seen her go from perfection to a mere scarred beauty. Her life turned into a living Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry, but only the cruelties of it.

If thou must love me, love me for not,
But for love's sake only…

It was her choice that Ashna had known pain, loneliness and the condescending feeling of being left behind. She had not felt the strikes on her own body but the scars on Ivanya's body felt like her own. As her painstaking violets and red.

The moments she spent with Ivan, she knew it was not for love. And this much, Ivan knew too and accepted even when it hurt and felt painful. It was for companionship, friendship, and for the happiness that he brought, for the peace he shared that Ashna loved his presence.

Even when Ashna keeps lying to herself and especially Rishika that she's fine the way she has become, she knows her mind has sunken into darkness, and her heart desires to be understood. She might be afraid to love. But, love alone could save her.

When she goes to meet Ivan today, after almost a month of not meeting, she feels elated even if she does not accept it. No matter how much she lies and tries to deceive herself, Ivan has become the safe place she wants to run to every time. Her home.

She must not tell him everything. Not yet told him what the past few years had been like but in traces, pieces and half-truths, she had let him know that her home was chaos, her sister's life doom and her own, was darkness. And he had heard the most mischievous hideous story with only care and acceptance to offer.

Every time she had to leave, Ashna wanted to be with him, ask him to stay and not ever go away. Yet, they met barely. Once in a few weeks.

Why they did not meet a lot had many reasons. They feared that society would shoot daggers at them to be roaming around together, that's how the world judges. People, who made them both feel uncomfortable but now they were just okay. Ashna did not care much about other people's views. Her own parents, she did though.

So, avoidance from everyone who could know her came naturally. To add to the disaster of her life, Ashna also had a curfew.

Ashna does not remember a day since they started calling each other that the calls have not been made. When they were busy, it could just be ten minutes or two, but there it was. As foolish as it sounds, they could not resist not hearing from each other.

Like a rainbow coming to sight whenever rain splattered through sunlight, they were holding on to each other, without any real clarification of what they were, to fill light into each other's life.

No clarification was needed. Because Ashna, even if she talked to him like his moon, wanted to never name herself to him. To never love, to never accept love if she did.

And Ivan, if he loved her and had her with himself, all to him, he did not care what name she called their relation. If it is friendship, be it.

Ashna was selfish. Anyone would call her that for what she was doing to Ivan.

Ivan came to her life like a fresh breeze which was sudden yet most needed. When she found companionship in Ivan, when his embrace coaxed her, and when her words he could understand, when her pains he could soothe, she did not want to let go of it. She wanted to keep it, the love, but she did not want to give it the name. The commitment.