❝ time gets tough, but i don’t give up. ❞ / for anjali !
her heart falls. yes, there is a smile on her face, anjali knows, and her cheeks follow with the action: plumping up until it rounds into a new shape, but it does not meet her eyes, this smile. any other time, she knows deep in her chest that she would share the same sentiment, she would share the same strength; eyes crinkling from her effort of being fierce and stubborn and determined like her family has always dubbed her to be, and shoulders of theirs would be pressed together as though in support. i am standing besides you, as you are with me. but she is not. she is across from him, and they are a feet apart. oh, her dearest friend, she thinks, as she reaches up her hand - but it’s so very different from how they’ve met only months ago. this time, it is not followed by a squeal or a chest rattling with laughter. only wide, saddened brown eyes and a wish that no magic can grant. how funny is that - there is something, after all, no matter how gifted people claim she to be, that anjali cannot do.
‘ i have to return home. ’ is what she tells newt in an almost cracked voice. but i want to fight with you. i want to fight with my students. i have loved them so that my heart is over-pouring with it, my lovely newton. tell me what to do. tell me how should i go from here? tell me how would you face me again, now that you’ve seen me as a coward. nothing but a ditzy silly thing now running away at the first sign of trouble. oh, newt would hate her now, wouldn’t he ? a tear drops, wet against her lips when it falls from her lashes, and anjali brings back the hand that’s trailed his familiar freckled cheek to her own, wiping it away, but with her heart this time filled with hatred of every action she’s made. ‘ my father, he - there’s a political unrest, my most generous newt, among the wizarding government of india regarding that — that — that crazy psychopath, grindelwald! oh, he’s ruining everything, my friend, i’ve never met the man and he’s ruining absolutely everything, and - ’
a breath. a sigh. nothing to be done. if you fall on foreign soil, battling for another’s battle when the war has not reached out country, anjali, would the english bring your body back to me? would they send you home or buried you with graves unmarked? was what daddy said, before she heard ma’s sobs in the background and knew she is running out of excuses. ‘ and my father wants me back, my starry-skin friend. i am a disgrace, i know, but — आप मजबूत और बहादुर हैं, newt. the bravest i know. you will not give up you say, and, well — ’ this time when she smiles, she means it. fully and wide and apologetic but laced with relief, all flooded into this one simple expression. ‘ — you have my complete faith. ’
