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"Fine. I will approve," Reena declares that night when they come home. There was a conviction in her tone as if she resigned herself to Aadhya's fate. "Even if I don't like his insolent face or tone, I believe he will take good care of you."
Aadhya stayed mum, however. Sprawled on her bed, not making a sound of protest or exasperation. She found herself trying to just barely breathe around it. The beginning of a thought tickled at the edge of her mind, wanting to resolve everything with Reena. But she pushed it firmly down and away. She couldn't afford to give her resources and energy to anything but the issue immediately at hand.
Her Future.
"Reena," Aadhya finally calls out, looking as though all is lost. When her sister makes a sound of acknowledgment at the back of her throat, Aadhya continues. "I think I screwed everything up."
Even if she doesn't see it, Aadhya knows Reena was rolling her eyes. It was terrifying how well she knew the stranger from a month ago. Aadhya had always wondered how her life would be when she finally does go back to her timeline without the older girl beside her... comforting her. Every time she thought about how she would be missing out on the kindness and fond exasperation in Reena's tone, Aadhya's heart ached.
But that's not to say she wanted to stay here either. She has her two parents and a dog waiting back home for her. People with whom she lived together with all her life. People who she loved and taught her how to love. And she won't be able to see them or talk to them until a lifetime because the universe decided to screw up her life and dump her into a foreign world.
"Oh, come on," Reena takes a seat on the couch before her. "Your lover isn't gonna stop talking to you for something I did. He doesn't sound that fickle."
At the mention of Rocky, a wave of uncharacteristic anger rose in her chest, threatening to knock her off her feet. Because it was partly his fault too... isn't it. If he had only followed the script. And Aadhya knew she could no more change his feelings than she could command the sky to rain or demand that the sunrise at the stroke of the midnight. And she knows she's being terribly, unimaginably unfair about someone's genuine feelings, but she just needed someone to blame.
"Hey," Reena's soft voice made her prop herself on the elbows to get a clear look. She reached up, her fingers brushing lightly through Aadhya's hair. And though she was just two years older than her, there's something so universally motherly in her touch that Aadhya leaned into it against her will. "Everything's going to be okay," Reena tells the younger girl as soothingly as she possibly can.
