March
It rains frequently nowadays. Something about climate change and the world changing and everyone panicking, except that she doesn't care.
It's slightly cold outside and she's shivering as she picks up a dried, wilted flower and for a second she badly wants to pick the petals apart with a He loves me, He loves me not game. But then the thought is gone and she's filling up with dread, so she sets the flower down but her hand won't stop shaking.
April
April is the cruelest month.
Ranveer comes over one evening and offers to take her out to dinner, and she politely refuses because his gaze is a mixture of pity and something else which she doesn't want to see.
"I don't feel up to going," she says, and he replies with a nod but doesn't leave.
"I don't want to go," she repeats again, and he smiles in a way that's distinctly not him. "Does it matter?" he asks, and she silently goes inside to put on something decent, because he trapped her there and there's nothing she can do.
May
His kiss is harsh and unforgiving and full of pain, but she doesn't care because she's too drunk to remember where this place is.
She wonders how she got here, and when things became so truly messed up, and she desperately wants this growing up phase to stop.
Except it won't.
June
His picture finally catches dust and she almost burns it because dust wasn't supposed to be part of the agenda.
Instead she just throws the picture away from her balcony and doesn't even wince when it crashes into a car below. Maybe it's because she doesn't care or she's somehow become apathetic, but maybe she just wants to be free.
July
Tia lectures her about what's not healthy and how she acts like a zombie and how that's affecting everyone, and she restrains her urge to snap back.
"You're going to lose everyone at this rate," Tia says softly, "What are you living for, Ashi?"
"My dignity," she replies back promptly, but oh wait, she's lost that too.
August
It's her first wedding anniversary and she's happy. She wants to go out and celebrate and she even hugs the first one, two, three people that greet her. She's in a pretty sundress and all she wants to go is enjoy but she doesn't understand why everyone's walking on eggshells around her.
It's the happiest day of her life, and she just doesn't get why everyone looks like they're at a funeral.
September
When she wakes up to the steady beating of the monitor, she tries to tell herself that it's normal, and she hadn't just overdosed on acetaminophen. She gets tired when the sixth visitor comes to see her, offers meaningless words of sympathy and just won't leave, and she almost gets out of bed to kick whoever it is out.
She also pretends not to notice that sharp objects kept far, far away from her and her hands cuffed to the sides of the bed.
October
They make her see a shrink, and she doesn't protest.
"You need to face reality, Anvesha," the shrink says, and maybe it's that comment or maybe it's everything but she just snaps and yells and screams herself hoarse until she has nothing left to scream about.
"Wow, you're really good" she says wryly to the shrink, and it's meant to be ironic but irony doesn't seem to matter when she's kissing him a few hours later.
November
She's reached a point where she can build a beautiful web of deceit and nothingness and exist inside it without any scruples. The days trickle by like sand in an hourglass and she tells herself that it doesn't matter, nothing really matters and she's just….living life.
But then there's a crack of sunshine into her dark abyss, and it's like she's letting her hair down and breathing into a fresh stream of…something, but mostly it's like everything's alright.
December
She's too young to go through this, and to be grateful for a year that held nothing but ungratefulness. She stays awake until the clock ticks midnight even though her eyes are heavy with drowsiness. She bids the year farewell and gets the feeling that it'll never be over between them, even though nothing technically got started.
January
Fire is fire and water is water and oil is oil and you should never mix the three together because the combination is dangerous. Yet she wonders why she keeps doing that at every turn of her life and even after a day of thinking she doesn't come up with the answer.
"Happy New Year" everyone says to her, and a few people that are closer whisper words of encouragement and support. She just stares back and says nothing, because there's nothing else to say.
February
She gets out of bed and marks the day in the calendar. It's a painfully normal day and nothing extraordinary happens, so she decides to visit him anyway.
"I hate you," she enunciates over his gravestone because she really doesn't, but he isn't supposed to take her life away (that's just plain selfish) and she can't forgive him for that. She thinks about whether to say Happy Birthday or Happy Deathday but they're both so much of an oxymoron that she says neither and silently walks out.
March
It's sunny, and the sky is painfully blue and clear.
End
Pretty please reply and make me happy :)
Anupamaa
Naagin 7
