dead girls don't love [dgdl]

chapter 28 \o

IT WAS UNTIMELY TO RAIN TODAY; the season to pour has passed and the bright sunshine which glared from the day onwards was in no way a signal to the oncoming of weather so wild, and dark like this, as the onsetting afternoon brings.

Ashna and Ivan, too, did not expect it to rain. After her practicals were done, Ashna did not go back home, and there were two specific reasons for it. One, she did not want to go home after what had happened earlier in the morning, and two, she did not hope when else she would be allowed to leave the house.

Even if her mother says that she just 'asks' about her whereabouts and where and with whom she intends to go, Ashna knows well it's a curfew.

Maybe not officially, but in a way, like a curfew, it is intended to ground her to the house. Because going out to just hang out alone does not hold a reason for her parents, and she can never, at least not yet, tell her parents about Ivan.

Ivan, who is sitting behind her on the scooty, holding on to her waist and asking her to calm down as she tries to look for a place to hide as drop by drop, timid and slow drops of rain fall on them. As she looks ahead, driving on the road not so much in traffic, she observes dark clouds shadowing the clear sky, waiting to pour their hearts out. It is going to rain heavily.

"Where are we going?" Ivan questions.

"I don't know, where ever we are led to," Ashna says, turning to cross the railway crossing before going on the desolatory path which answers his question. Droplets fall on them, and Ivan stretches his arm a little to feel those drops on his palm.

"Did something happen?" He asks, softly. Ashna stays silent and shakes her head.

"You have been silent all the while," Ivan points. 'Else you would have been speaking nonchalantly' he does not say ahead.

For the whole time which ticked about two hours they have been together, only roaming around through roads and chatting, buzzing with people and vehicles lost in their business keeping them occupied and busy, and all the while the sun winked goodbye before they reached back to this road above where the sky was painted grey in presence of the clouds, Ashna had barely open her mouth.

She did talk, and yet it felt something was missing, her spark which she had as they chatted. As if something bothered her.

Ivan tried to argue with himself, but something irked him that she was bothered about something. Even when tired, she always had something to say to him. It could even be nonsense, not so important and extremely basic things.

Their talks varied from the moon to the ground, from politics to international relations, morality to fantasies, favourites to worsts. From nothing important to everything that mattered.

"The practicals were boring," Ashna says, and maybe the clouds catch her lie that the little timely drops turn into heavy downpours, very capable to drench them. "Oh my God, what do we do now," Ashna exclaims worriedly, while Ivan laughs as the word leaves his mouth, "woah, wow!" rugged yet sweet.

"We are going to get drenched, look for a place," Ashna says and all the while to the road to the hill, their forever place, there were only a few places to take a shade. Ashna guides her scooty, driving as fast as the muddy road allows, towards the hill and stops under a tree.

Ashna smiles at him as she watches Ivan watch the sky roaring and pouring water down in quick, small and heavy droplets, as he gets down the scooty.

She smiles at the wildness of the rain, and the winds which blew harnessing the numerous trees that covered the space at the floor of the hill, one of which provided them a shade. They were both, already, a little soaked. The rain pours more wildly.