Royal with Rebel (Royal #2: Book 2)

7

-• beside you •-

Yuvraaj Singh Chauhan

Sara had always been as emotionally detached as me. She never let herself feel, or maybe she did, but she definitely never showed it. And I used to appreciate that quality of hers. I was a man swarmed with responsibilities that weren't mine, and the last thing I needed was an emotionally dependent partner making it harder for me. So in the moments that she revealed her true feelings, were the moments I used to feel suffocated in. I refused to look at her when she was weakened by the thoughts of her past, or suffering the repercussions of the painful memories she holds within.

I found her anger as a companion to mine. Because I had a lot of rage filled in me too. But grief? I had never allowed myself to feel that. The pain of loss? Never acknowledged it. So I didn't know how to react to that. Anger can be retaliated, grief can only be shared. And sharing was never my thing. It wasn't hers either. So we were two similar individuals, sailing in the same boat, we just had different destinations in mind. And so in the middle of that journey, she left, and I couldn't figure out why I felt so stranded and abandoned. Because that's how it was supposed to be, except that, it didn't feel like it should be.

Sara and I did not fit. The sharp corners of our broken edges only stabbed each other, they did not click in place like pieces of the puzzle do. We weren't two wounded souls coming together to heal each other. We were strangers, and we had no idea where the other had been hurt or scarred, so we poked and prodded, until we realised we don't know each other enough to have something meaningful, neither do we want to create something worth holding on.

She let go first. I clutched onto it solely because of my ego. I didn't want to be tagged as a husband dumped by his wife, my reputation was worth more to me than my relationship at the time. She was braver than me. So in retrospect, I think shooting me was the only way she could have made me sign those divorce papers, and now I'm strangely fine that she did.

I wouldn't say her coming back into my life was destiny. I wouldn't call it a coincidence either. I think it was just us, finding each other again, like you do in a lost crowd. You chase the flash of familiarity, you seek known, you... you follow the way back home. That's what happened with us. Or at least with me.

After my siblings grew up and returned the parts of me they didn't need anymore, I found one missing, and I had no idea she had taken it with herself.

Don't they say home is where the heart is?

No wonder I had been feeling homeless lately. My home was right there in front of me, and instead of just walking in, I kept knocking on the door like strangers do. Obviously the door didn't open, and I stood outside like a fucking fool.

Not anymore though.

And I realised that the moment she cried on the phone to me.

She feels, and she lets me feel it too.

We only fall apart in the vicinity of our walls, nowhere else.

I want to be her wall.

I was the place people sought the feeling of belonging in, I want to be the place that belongs to her now. I might be a perfectionist, but I want us to be imperfect together. I want us to be flawed, I want us to have cracks, and I want us to spend a lifetime filling those cracks. I want us, with each other, in our rawest form, being what we are, being different and still accepting those differences. I don't want anything picture perfect, I don't care if we don't fit each other like missing pieces of puzzle do. I don't care whether we're uneven and unfit or that we don't justify the idea of soulmates.