A Heart of Stone with a Coat of Gold

When Life Puts You Down

Author's Note - Hello Friends, firstly I apologise for the short length and maybe for the quality too. I honestly am not too sure. 

Well, the reason is, this chapter is not for you dear readers, it is for me. I apologise if I'm being ungrateful. Forgive me, just this one time.

You know how sometimes when life puts you down, and you don't know what to do at the moment, because all you can see is hopelessness? That is where I am right at the moment, and when I am there, I write. I hope you please understand and forgive my action.

*********************************************************************************************

All of it had been meaningless.

Her hopes, dreams and aspiration, all of them seemed to be sucked in front of her eyes into a nightmarish cyclone. The world spiralled with that cyclone pulling her to its core. History repeats itself and she believed it now. All of a sudden Anu felt out of breath, her throat dry, sweat trickling down her brows. .

Her eyes shifted focus and glanced at the empty digits on her mobile screen. She had failed. Like the last time, life was showing her that fate couldn't be overturned, however hard you may try. Her hands trembled as she hastily gulped down a glass of water in a vain attempt to calm herself, she still needed to take care of Aryan. Honestly, if at the moment, he had woken up from his sleep, Anu wasn't sure that she would have been able to do anything.

How could God,if he existed, be so cruel? She hadn't given up when her father had passed away. Nor when her brother, who had so much light left, had been mercilessly snatched away from her. But a person can only get up so many times when pushed down. And this has been the final shove. Her entrance result.

It was not abysmally poor, still, was barely satisfactory. No decent college would accept her on such a score, she was sure. Where had she failed? Last time it had been exemplary. What had changed in the span of 1 year? A lot, her heart answered.

Neel's face flashed in front of her eyes. 'Become my equal then talk to me in a loud voice', his voice echoed in the insides of her head. She placed her head on the table and engulfed them with her arms, trying to shield herself from his piercing words of ice.

Try as she might, she couldn't help but loathe Neel at the moment. Yesterday, she had put in everything on the table, with the hope that maybe he would understand her. What she wanted, what Shruti wanted, what her mother wanted. But all it had done was show her how beneath himself he saw her as. His harsh words churned in her guts like bile, suddenly making her want to puke.

He was a lost cause. She couldn't help him. Hell, she couldn't help herself. Anger rose inside. Anger at herself. Maybe if she had minded her own business, instead of worrying about a man who couldn't be redeemed, things might have been different. Maybe she was wrong, he was right.

"I steal smiles Anu," another voice said to her. A sad lonely voice, crumbling with pathos. Yes, he was right.

A man so consumed in his darkness that he cannot possibly see the light. That man had finally succeeded in pulling her to the darkness too.

**********************************************************************************

Anu hadn't moved an inch from the table since she had seen the results. As they entered, back from the day, a very unusual sight met Anu's eyes as they entered. Reema chirpily retelling her day at school to Neel, who was nodding absentmindedly. Although his eyes showed his disinterest, him even doing this much to humour Reema was a big deal. Anu might have been interested some other day in the reason for this change, but today she was beyond such things.

They both stopped dead in their tracks as they saw the mess she was. Her eyes red, hairs dishevelled, half of them covering her left side of the face, as she leaned on the table, her palms clasped tight.

Reema ran and hugged her. "What happened Di?"

"Yes, what happened?" Another deep soft voice rang in her eyes. Without sparing him a glance, she unlocked her phone and passed it to him.

He stared silently at it for a moment. And then he scoffed.

The final nail in the coffin had been put. Anu had been trying to withhold her tears for so long, but they finally broke free. Hot warm water sprang free from the wells of her eyes, silently dripping down her cheeks. One by one on the table.

She looked up to meet his eyes. "You must be happy, now you can show me my place for the rest of my life?" Her voice was soft, yet full of cold rage.

Neel didn't reply. He just looked, his blue fixated at her, his face not stone for once. It had an expression, a strange one. Pity, Scorn, Contempt? She couldn't tell.

He opened his mouth as if to speak. A moment of hesitation, then he closed it. She waited but all she got was silence. No words of derision but no words of comfort either. Just a stony silence.  

He threw one final look with his deep blue eyes; his eyes seemed to be trying to talk in their own incomprehensible language, attempting to tell her something.  They failed. He turned around, entered his study, closing the door shut behind him.

**********************************************************************************************