Royal with Rebel (Royal #2: Book 2)

2

-• trapped in a past •-

10th September, 2000

Sara Rajawat

Wreaths of steam escape the food my sister is cooking. She's the most beautiful when she's occupied doing things that she loves. Doesn't matter what it is. Dancing, cooking, embroidering, or worshipping. She blooms like a different flower during each. It's the mundane, most normal things of day-to-day life that she trudges along harmoniously with, that's what defines her. The things that we often take for granted, the crooked, broken things that we find less beauty in; loving them, accepting them, caring for them, that's her, she won't judge. The little, insignificant changes meandering between two seasons that we never even notice; acknowledging them, waiting for them, that's her, she's patient. She's so happy with the usual nature of life, she never expects for more, for anything unique, or for something different. Maybe because it's her, the eccentric difference in life. She'd make you fall for the most common things because of how devotedly she loves them.

I'm one of those things. The forgotten, lonely, unlucky daughter of the Rajawat Palace who killed her mother the day she was born. I was broken, and she didn't judge. I was forgotten, and she noticed. I needed love, and she loved me devotedly.

"What?" She asks, lifting a spoonful of curry to taste it. "You always watch me like this when I'm busy doing something. Do you know how much that creeps me out? Are you planning my murder or something in that little head of yours?" Reaching to wash the spoon in the sink, she glances at me playfully. I smile. Her face breaks out in a tender smile. "What?" She chuckles. I shake my head. "You're weird." She moves towards the gas stove again. I look down at my lap in embarrassment, swaying my legs awkwardly.

I just love her so much I cannot imagine my life without her. She looks exactly like our late mother. The same slender eyes, sweet like honey when they gaze at you. She has the face like the sun, round, with hefty, chubby cheeks I always wish to pinch. Bow shaped lips that when smile at you hits you right in the chest. Her hair, so shiny, voluptuous, they are like a river, following the course of her movements, always attuned with her grace. And the duskiness of her skin, so like the evening, dwelling between a beginning and an end, like how life does. My sister is a poem personified, and yet, somehow, I can never describe her in words. They fall short, no combination of twenty six letters are enough to surmise what she means to me. Her life is a blessing to mine, as if her favourite Lord Ganesha knew I'd be all alone without her, so he sent her a few years prior. My life started with this woman. How can I not love her when she taught me what love is. My existence does not know how to exist without her.

"Try this," she brings a spoonful to my mouth. I go to swallow it when she pulls away with a jerk. I frown. "It's hot, babu, you gotta blow on it first." She tsks, typical mother like, and blows on it on my behalf, "There you go, try now." I taste the curry and scrunch my nose, feigning distaste. Her brows plunge together, concern pooling in her honey brown eyes. "That bad?" I nod in reply. "Your Jiju is gonna kill me, gosh!" She slaps her forehead in panic.

My heart lurches forward painfully in my chest. I hate it. I hate how her first reaction is fear. Fear of that monster she calls her husband. I know he beats her. But I don't understand why she's suffering at the hands of his cruel atrocities. She doesn't need to. She's a princess! She's the woman I'm growing with dreams for, because it's her happiness that I often dream about.

I grab her wrist when she tries to pull away from me in haste, perhaps to look for ways to fix the 'supposed' mess. "What?" She looks up at me, wide eyes blinking up at me in worry.

"It's not bad. It's amazing." I tell her softly.

She sighs, almost melts to the floor, her hand dropping to her side in relief. "Don't pull my leg like that, Sara. I almost had a heart attack."