Love And Lies Are Red

3

As she came down the stairs, she saw her trophy lying worthlessly beside the telephone. It did not matter to her anymore. Whatever she did had to evaporate into nothingness, and there was no place for her dreams. Only struggle could pave the way for her. Her mind created vague scenes of her mother being scolded brutally by the two. She felt like being absorbed by her thoughts, and then she suddenly got confused seeing her trophy standing perfectly on the decoration shelf. When she became a bit aware, there was Tasha standing by the television shelf, and smiling at her.

"You should learn to take care of precious things", she said to her daughter and started polishing the trophy with a cloth. Now it shined perfectly, more than any amount of gold or silver. Tasha was busy in mopping the floor when her eyes fell on an album being shown by her daughter. When she opened it and examined the photographs one by one, she had a deep frown on her face. Arshia was waiting for her reaction.
"Do you see the same? Ghanendra chacha is nowhere in this album!", Arshia said. Tasha took a moment to think and then assured Arshia by what her mind told her,
"Your uncle and your father always used to have petty fights between them. It was mainly because Wasim being the eldest, was given the major portion of their joint family's political business. When your father's diabetes took him down, your uncle's ascendancy in our business left us in a pauper state. We don't have pictures of both of them together because Ghanendra and Wasim never favoured each other much. Neither did their families or their parents".
Arshia now understood that even though under the same roof, this family always had their floors divided. And this deep fissure was never filled. The only solution was to completely break the grounds, and the roofs, between them.

Arshia had the least sleep of her life the previous night, as she planned harder for escaping successfully from this netherworld hidden behind the name of a family. Ghanendra and Pragati had always been greedy for wealth and power. It was no doubt that they had turned selfish since the moment Arshia's father fell ill. Basically, Ghanendra's motive was to kick out Tasha and Arshia but he wasn't doing so. It wasn't that Arshia knew about her grandparents from either side that would help them, neither were the police benevolent enough to support the right cause these days. Money could suppress everyone. Then what was Ghanendra still waiting for? Perhaps, a free helping hand had become too costly for them that Tasha's family was enough to suffice for that need.

"Still angry, meri jaan?",
"Mhmm, no",
"You know I always think for your good", Nuthvik said. Arshia sighed, being tired of always having to fulfill ton of expectations of everyone.
"You know this friend of mine Rahul and his item Gareema, they send each other their private stuff. I was thinking that it has been a while in our relationship too to...", Nuthvik was fishing for the correct word when Arshia came up,
"You mean nudes?". She said the last word in a whisper so that no one could hear what was going on, on a call with her made-up school friend.
"Yeah, you are smart. Have you ever wondered how big mine...",
"Nuthvik, please. We aren't that advanced to do this", she said, even though she thought that they weren't that deep in love to share their bodies with each other. Or if there was any love.
"Then how are we going to work on our relationship? I promise, the first time won't hurt that much", Arshia could imagine Nuthvik drooling while saying that. How quickly he escalated from nudes to actual sex. She wondered if she could ever find a healthy balance in their relationship. Nuthvik was adamant to not work on anything better in his life than just washing and fixing cars every day. Arshia wanted to pursue an MBA degree, and for that she was hoping to get a good college soon for the completion of her undergraduate course. She often urged Nuthvik to atleast pick up on a better job with a sustainable pay. She knew their marriage would be impossible if he remained a car-washer. Their status needed to be matched in order to survive the grave comments of the society after their marriage, if it were to ever happen. Fortunately, Tasha did not hear Nuthvik's wet kisses on Arshia's phone, when he was doing it too loud. He was left dissatisfied when she hung up.