disclaimer: do not read this if you haven't read "A Lot Like Moon and Stars" and you wish to read. it is heavily spoiled in this book. on that note, this book can be read as a standalone :)

posting: end of august 2020

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"He could not love her. 
But at least,
he could teach her." 

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SOME SAID HER madness was because of her mother's sudden death. Others said it was a childhood affliction, because she was always this . . . quiet. Weird. Eccentric.

But in reality, it was rather a culmination. Anmol Sharma had always been a quiet girl since childhood, all because she didn't know how. She never felt at ease with strangers, always had difficulty in expressing herself among kids, stringently followed her routines. She was always so persistent in things she liked, that didn't care if the world crashed and burned around her.

Perhaps, that's why called her selfish. But no one really understood her.

For her life was easy—because she had her mother with her. She was the only who understood Anmol wasn't selfish. She cared . . . enough. It was all a fairy tale until a single bad dream snatched it all away from her.

It was one horrific night, when nightmares turned real. When madness—or something which was a lot like it—surpassed sanity.

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Angry voices awakened the poor child.

She sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Nanny?" she whispered into the sudden silence. She looked across the room to the rocking chair adjacent to the lamp and saw that it was empty. The child quickly squirmed back down under the feathered quilt, trembling with cold and fear. Nanny wasn't where she was supposed to be. 

She turned her gaze to the twin windows, but the eyes followed her, terrifying her by casting eerie shadows of giants and monsters against the windows, giving life to bare branches that scraped against the glass. "Nanny?" the little girl repeated, tears in her whisper. 

She heard her papa's voice then. Her fear increased manifolds when she heard a choked sob. Her elder brother, Arhaan wasn't in the home either. She knew what was happening downstairs but what could she do? How could a wee kid like her protect her mother when it was supposed to be the other way round.

Just one night, she calmed herself. One night, and they would be gone. She had to protect her for one night.

She surreptitiously walked down the stairs, and her eyes widened at the scene. Her mother was holding a vase in her hand, and lunging towards her father. "No, Farah! You cannot." He stalked towards her like a panther, and snatched the vase from her hands gracefully, tossing it away.

Next, his hand held her neck, and her mother choked for a breath.

Breathe, Mama. She urged silently. Breathe because every single breath is so precious. You are precious.

Her mother's eyes glistened with tears as she looked at her. She was going to cross the threshold when she heard her mother yell an exaggerated "No!" 

And so she stopped. Slowly retreated. Sobbed silently.

So useless, cannot even protect the one person you care about. Anmol thought to herself. And then she screamed.

Her father had snapped her mother's neck. Then he turned around. Saw her. Smiled.

She pretended she had not seen her father killing her mother so coldly. She pretended she didn't know her father was nothing but a cold blooded murderer. She pretended her mother wasn't lying on the ground—now a corpse.

Her father stalked towards her, with a dark expression on her face. Anmol in return gripped the staircase railing so hard, she thought the wood might splinter.

Fear. What she felt was a lot like fear. Not meeting his gaze, she closed her eyes. Imagined something else. Kaleidoscopes. Rainbows. Anything but the angry, ferocious, dangerous man in the house.

Instead she saw shards of glasses. Shattered rainbows.

She was so alone. A hand gripped her forearm tightly. She felt the air slowly leaking out of her lungs.

When her father dragged her out of the house, she saw the surroundings for the last time. Her home which was never going to be home again.

As she was shoved inside the car by her dad, she knew that she was not going to see see her home again for a long time.

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For next eight years, no one heard of Anmol Sharma, and her apparent madness. But then she eventually came back with her elder brother, Arhaan—right after her father died.

And then for the next ten years, people began to whisper again. Whenever they saw her, they just noticed her exterior of madness, aloofness and eccentricity.

Crazy Anmol Sharma. Sleeps around a lot like a whore. Doesn't know how to emote. How to love. How to live.

Mad, mad woman.

No one cared to see that inside her was a girl—behind the madness—who was still terrified and lonely. No one saw beyond her madness which was not even madness.

No one until him.