dead girls don't love [dgdl]

chapter 16 \e

LOVE REMAINED A BEAUTIFUL DREAM for some, for others it became a curse.

It has been twenty-four hours since Ashna had met Ivanya, and she still could not get past all the information she was made aware of. While it solved so many questions she had always had, it all made her feel so empty and uncanny inside.

The entire day in her college, she spent thinking about Ivanya. When she was just a flower, her life was dropping grenades only. When to destroy her, it needed no bombs.

Everything in her life made Ashna feel unsettled. She still had questions, and she was afraid of the answers.

She was also upset because Ivanya did not tell her, not even their mother told her. But it was also true, maybe she would not have understood or reacted as well as she had now.

In reality, though, she had not even reacted. She was still getting it inside her. She could not believe Ivanya had a child and that child could have died. More than unbelievable, it was painful to Ashna.

Yesterday when Ashna had returned home, she had remained silent and this silence was much different than any other. At the dining table during dinner, her eyes would often dart to her mother.

She pondered on how she knew and had kept the secret. So finely that no one ever guessed.

She had mixed feelings for her on this, she was happy that Ramya took the stand for her, but angry and disheartened that Ivanya was still left alone, discarded from the family.

Ashna looked at her father, who sat there with his powerful composure maintained. She wondered how he would have reacted and the image that got created in her mind made her shudder.

Ashna sat on her bed, trying to submerge herself in writing answers to questions of Comparative Government when all her mind did was overthink every little thing that had created a major impact in their life.

~

"Hey," Ivan called, signalling to look at him.

He loved taking pictures and here she was standing on the top mount of the hill.

She was not so comfortable at first, for she barely looked good in pictures, but then she knew Ivan was going to keep those to himself only and she just let him click. Also, he clicked pretty nice pictures of her, which she loved.

The hill was a large piece of rocks and mitti, trees and stones merged which resembled a broken part of the mountain and the only such thing here in the city which was in the plains.

It was a place on the outskirts, at a deviated path which not everyone knew of and it was beautiful with no crowd, silence and greenery. The hill had something like a mandir, and that was what it was for. Worship.

Ashna had called Ivan, after her college, when the late afternoon sun was shining and going down, inviting the moon to come shine for her.

She missed him.

She would not accept as much to herself but Ashna thought of Ivan a lot. While she was anywhere, doing anything, he filled a major portion of her thoughts. She liked talking to him and even if it was occasional, she loved to meet him.

The first time Ivan had guided her here, and she had driven the scooty on this secluded path, it intimidated her. She had even joked, "Are you going to kill and bury me here or what?" And he had, in a serious but funny manner agreed.

When Ashna had seen the hill, she was stunned. It was beautiful. More so because she had no idea a place like that existed in her city. But then, she had barely known her city.