"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."

― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

***

Kabir sat on the bed, his hands clutching the end of the laces, fastening a basic knot after several attempts. His lips twitched upwards, slightly into a small smile as he tautened the knot. He pulled back and stared at his shoes, a victorious smile adorning his young face. Step one, done. Lines of confusion engraved on his forehead as he held the end of the shoelace again and tried to create a loop, proceeding to wrap the other lace into the coil. Utterly confused about how to tie them together, he let go of them and hefted a loud sigh.

A low groan escaped at the back of his throat as he gave up on attempting and plunged off his shoes.

"Why so annoyed, brother?"

Kabir's head spun toward the door, hearing the soprano of his sister, his face splitting into a wide grin at the sight of her leaning against the door with hands folded over her chest, staring at him tenderly.

"Di." The young boy exclaimed with excitement glinting in his eyes. "You're back!"

(Di = elder sister)

Avni chortled, settling next to him.

"I missed you," He whispered ever so softly, embracing his elder sister into a tight hug.

"I missed you too, kiddo."

They both pulled away. Avni took time to admire the young boy who gazed at her through his big, wide doe eyes the same color as hers, except that there more radiant. They twinkled with innocence, in contrast to hers that held the magnitude of darkness shimmering underneath them. Kabir was slightly cherubic with bronze skin lit with the celibacy of a lamb, possessing their father's facial features though they began to evolve prominent after hitting puberty. With dark floppy hair and a towering height of five feet eight inches, there was no doubt Kabir Desai was growing into a heartthrob at sixteen.

He still had a broad smile embellished on his face and eyes shining, warming Avni's heart. It terrified her to what extent she would go to retain his innocence. Kabir was the brightest rainbow, grazing the clouds and smearing the barren canvas of her life with his sinless yet fascinated paint.

Three years ago~

Avni trundled her wheelchair near the window when the mild breeze penetrated the blackened empyrean. Even though her lips slightly quirked upward, her expressions were still stormy, akin to the night. The lightning streaked the sky, following a rumble of roaring thunder as the rain fell in torrents. The sound of hissing from the violent gust of wind reached her ear like a melody as they swayed and creaked the trees on their command. She tilted her head on the wheelchair as nature exploded, assumably because it couldn't endure the coercion, drenching the Earth with agony. Sometimes she would find serenity in them, something she desperately craved.

Suddenly she heard a whimper coming from her room. She grimaced, loathing any other camaraderie at the moment.

"I want to be left alone." She said without taking her eyes off the scenery outside.

"But I don't want you to be alone anymore." The person cried, walking closer to her.

She closed her eyes briefly at the sound of the approaching footsteps. "Leave me alone, Kabir."

Kabir stopped, wincing at her loud voice, but that didn't stop him from stepping closer to his elder sister. Reaching nigher to her, the thirteen-year-old boy crouched down to be at her eye level, trying his best not to be dimly intimidated by her burning stares.

The boy stared at her for a fleeting moment. Various emotions flickered on his countenance before his lips formed into a slight pout. "Aren't you afraid?" He queried cautiously.

Avni turned her head, intending to shut him up with a glare but paused as he peered at her with his brown eyes big with curiosity. She found herself asking, "Of what?"

"Of being alone." He muttered, his face scrunching up, scanning the room. His sister's room was beautiful, but he wondered if it entices her to stay locked up unaided and isolated. His conscience quickly shattered when a peal of thunder struck the ground, frightening him, and he clenched Avni's legs desperately, squashing his face on her lap, "and of thunderstorms." His muffled voice rendered Avni motionless for a while.

She pursued her lips, not replying to him. Instead, she raised her right hand very slowly, gently reaching out to touch him, her bejeweled fingers caressing his head as another whimper parted his mouth.

They didn't say anything to each other for a while. The woman's eyes drifted to her baby brother now and then to see him flinch as a bolt of lightning raced across the dark sky. For as long as Avni could remember, Kabir was petrified of thunderstorms just like someone she knew. Wordlessly, she kept stroking his hair to calm him down.

Avni wasn't sure how long it had taken until the storm eventually eased into a steady rain. She stifled a yawn, readjusting herself in her wheelchair as sleep started to overtake her. Her back protested at the sudden move, and she shrieked in pain that had Kabir lifting his head.

"Are you okay?" The boy questioned in a soft voice that Avni almost didn't catch owing to her half-asleep and half-agonized state.

She hummed a yes, looking away from his concerned gaze.

Kabir laid his head on her lap again. He took a moment to weigh his thoughts before saying, "Mom would fondle my head too." He slowly held her hand, placing it on his crown, and Avni's hands twitched unconsciously, caressing it. "Like this." He uttered in a shaky voice as the wind wailed deafeningly in the distance, "whenever I would get scared of the rumble."

"Kabir..." Avni whispered, watching her brother raise his head meekly, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"I miss Mom," Kabir said in a faint, mournful tone.

Kabir was shy of twelve when their mother passed away. Even though it had been around a year, no one in the family could heal from the demise of a beloved family member. Somewhere they all knew they would grieve her forever.

Avni felt her heart pain in her chest, and she reached out to lay a comforting hand on his trembling shoulder, finally conceding, "I miss her too."

His brown eyes were disquietingly direct as if I could get nothing past him. "I miss you too." He began, his voice low. "Dad says you're hurt. He also said that you got too many wounds and scars and would need more time to recover."

"No, Kabir. My wounds won't stop bleeding, and my scars will never fade," She voiced, trying to suppress bitterness in her tone.

A frown creased the boy's forehead as he pondered his sister's words. "Remember, when I fell off the bicycle, I had this big scar on my knee," He said slowly, visibly shuddering, not liking his mind reeling to that horrible memory. "I thought it won't disappear, but mom implored me to keep patience. She said it withers with time." His face split up in a boyish grin as he added, "And it did. Yours will fade away too. I promise."

Avni chuckled. What about the ones that are etched on my heart?

She raised her hands, scuffing his cheeks as she questioned. "Aren't you being too chatty today?"

"Am I?" He gasped before snapping his mouth shut and looking anywhere but her.

"Uhuh," Avni affirmed.

"It's almost morning."

Avni's gaze unhurriedly drifted to the sight outside, the one which Kabir gestured. She bent slightly for a fairer view, ignoring the shaft of pain on her spine at the sudden twist of her torso. Water droplets cascaded down the transparent window glass like a runnel gleaming like jewels as thick clouds whisked away and the sun poured the light earthward. She observed wondrously as the glint of white glare streaked the surface of the raindrops, reflecting off the droplet and dispersing a bright curved prism in the vault of heaven.

"Ah, look, a rainbow," Kabir almost yelled, his stares drinking in every tiny detail of the serene panorama that left him amazed.

Avni's lips lifted in a smile, staring at her brother's face, who still had his gaze pinned outside. His eyes sparkled with excitement, a feeling of awe flickering underneath and his cheeks stretching in happiness as he faced her and began describing the composition of the band of color. She sat back quietly, listening to him, her chest tightening with a rare feeling of not being alone anymore. Finally, after many ferocious nights, a rainbow foisted her forlorn sky.

Present time~

Avni's attention shifted to his legs, and she reclined to peek. The Egyptian cotton fiber felt exceptionally smooth, like a feather against her palm, as she positioned herself on the bed and tilted her head to stare at the pair of shoes decked on the footstool.

"Are you going somewhere?" She queried her brother.

Kabir nodded a yes. "I'm going to work on my new school project, and if my time permits, I might scour my workspace as well."

Avni stared at him proudly. Kabir Desai, glorified as a genius at the age of ten, despite being autistic, always remained skulked up in his workshop. His father set up a spare room as his workshop when the boy seared the desk and coated the windows of his room with black carbon soot in one of his experiments. The young teen knew it was due to overloading the circuit, but he was too far gone to back out.

"Can you please help me to fasten my sh-shoelaces?" The young boy appealed, trying to keep his voice steady, secretly despising for being a stuttering mess.

Kabir was diagnosed with dyspraxia, a disorder often associated with a clumsiness that refrained him from performing motor tasks requiring coordination skills. The ineptitude of executing the same piece of work at the same pace as other teens his age left him disheartened. As days went by, Kabir started growing frustrated with not being able to catch up with basic errands like his other friends despite his father and elder sister requesting him to stop being hard on himself.

"You know you don't have to ask." Avni ruffled his hair before crouching in front of the footstool, clutching two ends of the thin cord.

Kabir watched his sister fold the thin cables of his shoes. Suddenly she looked up and held his gaze. She raised her delicate eyebrows at his curious eyes drowned in thoughts.

"What is it, Kabir?" She gently asked, encircling her fingers on his fragile warm wrist.

He looked away and squirmed uncomfortably in his sister's penetrating stare, and Avni's gaze softened, catching a sheen of what suspiciously looked like anguish in the boy's eyes. The young boy took his time, mulling his thought. Taking a deep breath, he confessed in a timid voice, still not meeting her eyes, "Sometimes I wish I could be a conventional human, like others. Dadi tells me I'm a black spot on a beautiful painting, unwanted and unfortunate." His lips tilted downwards as he gazed at her.

( Dadi =  paternal grandmother)

Avni's heart pinched at the resigned melancholy that flickered her baby brother's face. She shuddered at the thought of the torment he had kept to himself in the last few days, furthermore, anger flooded her system at the thought of their grandmother sprouting malicious assertions into the boy's brain. She quickly tied the knot of his shoe and tugged herself up.

Her hands reached out and brushed the fallen strand of hair away from his forehead. "Well, in that possibility of you yearning to be a conventional soul, just because you can't do certain things or Dadi maims you with her utterances, then you need to start rewriting the morales of your life." Her lips tightened together. "Remember, If Thomas Edison never got knocked out of the class, you and I would be having this conversation under a lantern."

Avni grinned as the usual glint emerged into his doe eyes at her mention of one of his favorite scientists. She took hold of his hands, squeezing them as she continued, "Black is considered tragic, and not even being a proper color, it's just a shade, yet it incorporates all the hues and becomes their queen."

"You always have solutions to my every affliction," Kabir watched her for a few seconds before a faint smile crossed his face again. "And people tell me I have an answer for everything."

She smiled and placed her hands on his shoulder, gazing at his face. "Don't give her power to make you feel inferior."

"I will try not to," Kabir said with a frown, inwardly still tensed on encountering his grandmother next time.

Amile's smile broadened, comprehending the boy's dilemma. She stretched her laced fingers, clicking them. "Next time, if she pulls such acts, send her straight to me, and I'll knock some sense into her."

He nodded, gulping down at the devilish glint in his sister's eyes. However, he wrapped his arms around her, safeness sheathing his warm body.

When he gently pulled back, he queried, "I forgot to ask you about your trip. How was it?"

"Eventful." She said with a laugh.

"Did you have fun?"

Avni's smile faltered. Her heart clenched as everything devised in the last few days reeled against her eyes, beginning with her swirling in Viransh's arms and getting drowned in the chasm of his glowing amber irises. She instinctively bit her lip, reliving how he would stare at her tentatively with eyes bright and smiling and crinkling at the corners lightly like they always did when he wasn't holding back. The way he would stare at her, all serious and attentive, made her heart skip a beat each time.

Underneath the sky embroidered with the brightest star, he kissed her with such passion and vigor that for just a moment, the world stopped turning. Emboldened by the lust in his eyes and her gnawing want, she felt her head explode to a pure, pounding white, and she felt the dark curtain of desire begin to twist inside her. A tender ache shot through my body when she noted a reverent expression on his face. She swallowed against the painful lump in my throat, biting the inside of my lower lip to keep it from trembling as she raised her eyes to meet Viransh's gaze that burned with dismay and remorse when she pulled back. She recalled laying her head upon his chest, burying her ears into the calmness of his heartbeat, and in a matter of seconds, the soft tune soothed her soul.

Avni closed her eyes, recollecting the hope dying in Viransh's fiery amber shards when she freed herself from his grasp. She slightly shook her head since it was better to maintain distance from him than to accumulate another beautiful flower and let the bitterness of her past decimate its charm. But she couldn't deny that there had to be a reason she stumbled into him because stumbling into someone like Viransh was no accident.

At the same time, Samarth's presence overwhelmed her, sending her disoriented nerves haywire. Amid the hustle-bustle of the airport, she stared at him in silence. There were so many things she wanted to say. Like, how was his stay in a foreign country? Why didn't he stay in touch with her? Or did he miss her? Her lips repositioned in a thin line. In the past six years, she learned that some things couldn't be put back together, and some can't be fixed. The remorse of shattering him had been carved on her heart like an overpass graffiti. Even if he'd forgiven her, she knew that she had not forgiven herself yet.

She jerked off her daze when she felt a soft, warm hand on her cheeks. Her brown eyes locked with Kabir's concerned gaze as he asked, "Di, you okay?"

She cleared her throat and nodded. "Yeah, of course. Sorry, I was just distracted."

His brown irises were perturbed when his sister's words did not convince him, "You look sad."

For a brief moment, Avni forgot that her baby brother had a convention of scrutinizing every single entity under the lenses of his microscope. She shook her head. A short, bitter laugh escaped her mouth before she sobered up and whispered, "I'm just tired."

His eyes widened. "Oh, yes. You must be tired and jetlagged. I'm sure you'll feel better after taking some rest."

Avni smiled, tilting her head and leaning against his palm, staring at his concerned gaze. "I hope so."

"Please don't let me hold you back. I'll directly see you at dinner."

Avni hummed a reply before walking out of his room. She flung the door open, shuffling her feet to the bathroom. Her gaze caught her reflection in the large floor-to-ceiling mirror. In the past, when she'd looked at her reflection, she'd seen the little girl smiling back, her eyes glistening with warmth and mischievousness. Her lips twitched into a sneer. The poor little girl still waiting for her happy ending.

Her hands tugged the hem of her blouse, yanking it off her head, discarding it in the nearby hamper. Slowly, she peeled off her denim pants before unclasping her bra. Her brown irises gazed down at her body which was now only covered by a thin scrap of white silk and lace between her legs. Her eyes flew down to her bare body, and she noticed a scar horizontally carved on her lower abdomen reminded her too much of memories she would rather forget completely. She sucked in a long breath, lowering her head, and pressing it against the mirror.

The mirror prospered so well in concealing the scattered chunks of her soul, that's probably a million in number, sheathed onto the strings of pain that never withered. If only she could find a void beneath this reflector that could swallow them, untangling her so that she could rummage for her portions of happiness.

Pulling away, she quickly made her way to the white bath runner. She let it fill with water before stepping into it, feeling the moisture smearing her body. Leaning against the bathtub, she unfurled her legs, and her fingers unhurriedly scuffed her inner thighs. She closed her eyes briefly, aware of the jagged portion of her skin where each scar, the blemish marks marred by her laid. They retained a tale of pure agony and torment, holding an unbearable pain from which she wanted an escape when life tried to break her.

Her scars never healed. Oh, but they don't heal when one keeps cutting.

***

A sigh of contentment parted Avni's lips as she stepped out of the bathroom, squeaky clean, scrubbing all the traces of intrusive thoughts from her mind for the day. She beamed and left her damp hair cascading down her back as she charged from her room, taking the steps two at a time and reaching the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, pulling out a ben and jerry's ice cream tub.

"I see the prodigal granddaughter returned."

A squawking voice heckled her cheerful mood.

Avni turned around and a coy smile immediately pulled at her lips, seeing her seventy-five-year-old grandmother walking toward her, "I couldn't stay away from my prodigal grandmother."

"Mind your tongue, Avni," she said, folding her arms across her chest, and pearl bracelets lined her arms that hid the clear blue tint of her veins. The pleasant jiggle sound of pearls reached her ears as Shobha stepped closer.

Avni arched her brow. "Well, I can't help. You see, made from your blood." Her hold on the ice cream tub tightened, "If you can excuse me, I would rather enjoy flavoring dessert than engage in a conversation with you." She smiled extra sweetly and made her way to the doorway.

"Why did it take you a week to