Chapter 1 - Oh darling, bring me lilies, not roses

ASHNA ABSOLUTELY HATED LOVE, with every bated breath inside her that had somehow kept her undead for twenty years of her life. More or so, it was romantic love she despised. Especially romantic love.

The concept seemed bizarre to her, trusting a full-fledged lie. She could never believe that any such relation blooming was anything more than a dissembling dalliance, which with its doom also planned the withering of the two persons involved into it, scrunching the unlucky one under the other's feet.

Love, for all she has known, was promising ruination.

Reasons why she was denying her reduced to a frail sister, why she was not willing to marry, 'yet', she has added for an effect.

Her boney body was painted terrifyingly beautiful with violets all around her body, unable to hide marks that announced the cowardness of continuing to be in love.

The place she was in felt unbearably cold to her. The house was large enough for two people and the third, only today, was her. She was sitting in the guest room after having turned down her sister's offer to go on in her room.

Ivanya, her sister who felt completely unlike how she really used to be, swallowed an embarrassed sigh as she nodded and then got up to bring her little sister something to eat.

It has been as long as two years since Ashna last came to Ivanya's place. She just never found a good enough reason or that she always found, even if little, reasons to avoid visiting her. She came around once in a while, only to meet her, check on her, or cause she missed her which she does not admit to her sister though. But today when Ivanya invited her, she could not deny it.

Her night-black eyes roamed around the strange room, well furnished and swept perfectly clean by her sister; wedding pictures and flower vases the only decorations. Ashna chuckles mockingly as she traces those happy faces in the pictures, which are deceptive.

Her eyes stop at the wedding photographs when Ivanya emerges through the door, the curtains fluttering, a tray with sweets in her hand and a large smile on her face, tears pressed back into her eyes.

Her dark eyes dart to Ivanya's and she avoids eye contact. She keeps the tray on the table and sits beside her on the sofa, closer this time yet more hideous as she has now come up with a scarf wrapped around her neck and shoulders. Ashna mentally scoffs at the foolishness of her sister.

Two times in three years of her marriage with her husband, she had been brought on shoulders to her home, almost dead. For what she calls love, she returned back again, each time.

Even if she has not been home for more than half a year, there is hardly any doubt that she was not bashed heads with walls as a result of someone's uncontrolled rage.

Though at various times, Ashna considered her sister deserving of all she received, and oh well, she did not even complain so it's totally fine, right? Still, Ashna could not help caring about her even when she knew she couldn't do a thing, after all, she had tried.

"Why don't you eat?" Ivanya nudges her sister lovingly and Ashna smiles, gritting her teeth behind her pursed lips, picking up a kalakand from the tray, its sweetness odd to her tongue.

"Where is -" Ashna struggles with what to call this man, her sister's husband, one she has once happily called brother-in-law until she did not feel the need or want to do so anymore.

"He is out for some work?" Ivanya does not answer, rather questions making it easy for her like she usually did. Now, it is hard for her own self, and Ashna nods, not prying any further.

Ashna eats the leftover sweet in her hand as she answers her sister's little questions about her studies and all; a little shocked as to how time changes things so drastically.

Once, they two were two happy sisters, against all odds and then Shekhar made an entry into Ivanya's life and she fell in love, like the idiot she was. She married him when he proposed, and then began the continuous cacophony of his returning home drunk and her lying lifeless on some cold floor.

Ivanya went past the limits. She could never consider it 'romantic', or ever believe in love if love anywhere meant being beaten to death every time and left with only a breath to survive, all to be marked violet with belts, wilted red with several slaps and scratches and blood gushing through numerous cuts and slashes.

As cruel as it sounds, sometimes Ashna wished Ivanya should, for better, just die.

"Asha," Ivanya calls her name in a way that saddens her heart; you are my hope, she used to say. "I am so happy you came, I missed you," Ivanya says through a little smile, a defying sadness glinting her eyes.

And Ashna only smiles back a faint smile, further fading into nothingness. She missed her sister, too. She misses her, even now.

She understood that her husband, for blood's sake, had property worth lakhs or more, so what if not earned on his own accord.

What Ashna never understood was how the heck can she go so low as to throw her own personal dignity and be with a man who treats her like some fucking slave. He did not love her. No one beats someone they love, never.

But Ivanya was too gone to be reasoned anymore, Ashna knows. She loved him always as she says, and he loved her when sober. Worse, Ivanya did not love herself enough.

The doorbell rings and a shudder goes through Ivanya which Ashna does not fail to notice like she did not fail to notice the purple bruises on her hands, red wilts around her wrists and the roughness of her palms.

Her eyes dart to her left to the window as she sees darkness take over the world. Was it time? She wonders.

She watches her sister rush out nervously, such that the scarf falls down on the ground and in panic, she doesn't even notice. Ashna lies her head back on the backrest of the sofa and sighs as she closes her eyes, waiting to hear something she wished she would not have to.

It will be the second time, if it happens when she will see her sister being beaten to shreds mercilessly, and hear her screams that would chill her to the bones.

The first time it happened was somewhere around two years ago when it was made sure that her sister had purple bruises and piercing marks not because of falling or anything as Ivanya had lied through her teeth.

Shekhar, even if drunk he was, had cared to stop beating his wife he clearly treated like she was some bloody thing of his which he can break or play with as he desired, when he saw Ashna standing, bewildered and frozen with fear, at the door of his house.

Love in this world, for all she has known, was never the red promised in the books she has read, numerous times, times and times; if anything, it was violet.

Ashna hears the click of the door as it opens and fists her hands tightly, as if ready to knock the guts out of him but then a voice enrolls, of her sister's, "thank you!" she says.

Her hand loosens before her nails would pierce through her skin, and she sighs in relief when that utterly sweet voice makes way, "Darling, Happy birthday." She does not hear any more for the next two minutes. There was brooding silence as if thunder awaited.

Ashna tightens her fists as she walks out in the hall to find Ivanya with her sober husband's hand around her waist. He was asking her something, "Who sent these?" Ashna's eyes move to the bouquet of fresh lilies in Ivanya's hands, her favourites.

She smiles softly knowing who sent it for her. It was her birthday after all, and it was sent to her every year. Like a promise was being kept.

She did not smile for love, but for the safety and unalterable care some friendships have, and maybe, some people do actually love. Even when it remains unreciprocated.

Ashna walks ahead making herself visible and his brother-in-law smiles with that well-defined face of his, happy to see her. He greets her and she reciprocates.

Ashna notices the way his hand reaches Ivanya's upper arm and his grip tightens painfully as he asks again, teeth-gritting, "Who sent these?" Ivanya shudders.

"I did," Ashna says and Ivanya breathes a sigh of relief while her husband's smile grows larger.

"You already bought her flowers, look I brought my darling roses too," he says cheerfully, grip loosening, and Ivanya smiles almost happily, surprising Ashna.

"Her favorites are lilies though," she says, shuddering at the thought that someone knew Ivanya better than her own husband.

"I like roses much better now," Ivanya turns to her husband whose smug smile comes back as soon as it is lost. When her eyes meet Ashna's, there is only a pitiful sorry in them.

"I will pass then," Ashna smiles and walks to the door even after, especially after her so-called brother-in-law asks her to stay for dinner, greeting him out of some compulsion she is not so sure of.

She stops to hug her sister who bites back her winces as Ashna's hands caress her back lovingly, against her want and whispers in her ear, tauntingly, "It must be thorns you like better."

Before she is out of the door into the dark, the world darkening into the black night, she knows someone would be painted purple tonight yet again, as she hears a voice order,

"Bring me some wine, let us celebrate."