Ruin In Royals (Royal #1: Book 2) | ✔

44

-• the distance between us •-

Maybe I have attachment issues?

Maybe it's because I was so deprived of attention and love, that it's hard to ignore the people, whether good or bad, once they show me attention. Maybe it's not them making me feel important, maybe it's I, who longs to feel important, that a fleeting glance feels like a lasting gaze.

Then he beams, holds my hand and gently steers me to the chair beside him. I sit down reluctantly.

Or maybe it's him.

Just him.

"I heard what your coworker said. You were about to clock out for the day. Let me drop you home?"

"What are you doing here?" I ask instead.

He shrugs. "I wanted to see you."

My heart flutters. I grip the notepad tightly to stop myself from touching my chest, to see whether it's slamming hard enough to let me feel it physically.

"I thought you were busy for the next few days?"

He nods, playing with the tip of the tissues and arranging them properly. Then he folds his arms on the table and regards me with warm eyes over. "I am, but it's your first day at work. I wanted to check whether someone's bullying the Princess of Jaigarh or not."

I snort, looking away to hold back my tears. The fact that he came, my friends came, but not my brothers and dad hurts. Do they not care? It's my first time doing something on my own, entering a world I'm still unaware of, but after last night nobody bothered to check on me. At least Agastya texted to see how I was doing. But I didn't expect this level of detachment from Vivaan and Dad. I really thought they'd come.

I sniffle.

"Tara?" He places a hand on my fist. I realise I had been clenching my knuckles so hard they were starting to tremble. Under his tender touch, my hand relaxes. I look at him, and noticing the sheen layer of unshed tears in my eyes, his strong arm wraps around my shoulders before he pulls me closer, my head falls on his chest with a thump. I feel a strange kind of familiar warmth embrace me, as though I'm at home. "Everything will be fine." He mumbles, and then continues repeating it, as if the words were for both of us, and he needed to hear them over and over again too.

The song in the background increases in volume, drowning out the lively chatter of the customers hanging out in the cafe. I stare outside the window, at the cars and shops and buildings that are here everyday, at this time of the day. Then I see people, perhaps on their middling incomes, smiling and talking, to each other, on the phone, having someone to hold hand, look after, long for, the world moving, roving, spinning, with life as a central force, spending lives to buy time, earning life in return, a never ending cycle of living and surviving.

"What are you thinking?" I hear him whisper.

"When I was a kid, I used to think money solves all the problems. And maybe it does. Maybe for some people money is everything." His arm tightens around me. "Maybe it does buy everything, but tell me, which market should I go to, so I buy back the time I lost, so I buy the time I'll spend in future, so I buy the time of my loved ones, keep some to myself, and spend it when I'm feeling alone, stranded, lonely." I murmur. "If money buys everything, then why not time?"

"Didn't you say owning money isn't as powerful as owning time?" He counters. "We only spend our lives working hard to survive."

"Shouldn't we call it a day when we have enough to buy some food back home? Why the greed for more? Why not spend the remaining time with those who wait for you to return home? Why not save a little bit of your day to tell them about the whole of it?" I ask. "And if it's not money they're chasing, then perhaps they are running away. And that's... that's more painful. Work could be excused as a reason, but running away cannot be excused as work."