The Promised Queen

𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑒

"Mumma. I'm going for a walk again." I tell my mother who is still in the bathroom.

Ever since Hruday told us to move into our old rooms my mother has been so happy. After all, this was the room that she shared with Baba and all her pretty memories must be attached to it. She even hung up their marriage photos at the same place they were hanging before.

"Come back soon." She yells from inside the bathroom and I tell her okay, before stepping outside and closing the door behind me.

I reach the garden and walk on my own and after wandering here and there, I find my way to the pink roses. But as soon as I reach there, I am taken back by what I see. Near the plants of roses, is a man sitting on the bare ground with no worry of getting his clothes dirty. He is humming a song to himself and looking at the roses. That man is none other than the Yuvraaj of Suryagarh himself and the man I will be getting engaged to in less than a week now.

Hruday Singh Tanwar is sitting on the bare ground of the Raj Palace Garden. This man is beyond anyone's understanding.

"Hruday?" I call his name. He looks at me suddenly and then an annoyed expression crosses his face.

"You again! Get out of my thoughts!" He says angrily and just from hearing his voice I know that he is drunk. So, this is how Ishaan took him to celebrate? Men will always be men; I sigh and walk closer to him.

"Get up from the ground. It will cause trouble if anyone sees you like this."

"Don't worry." He says all of a sudden. He turns back to look at the roses, a distant look on his face. "No one ever sees me, anyway."

"What do you mean? You are the Yuvraaj. Everyone's eyes are always on you." I say trying to reason him.

"Not on me," he says, pointing to himself. "The Yuvraaj. They are always looking at what the Yuvraaj says, what he wears, where he goes, whom he meets. But nobody ever sees me. It is like I am invisible."

His words, they break my heart into a million tiny pieces. All this time, I was one of those people too. I was only seeing what the rest of them were seeing. But surely being under such a big responsibility must not be easy. Especially after losing his mother and taking care of his sick father. Everybody must always expect him to act like the Yuvraaj to fulfill his responsibility. Between, all of this, did Hruday ever get a chance to do all the things that someone else of his age must have wanted to do?

Hruday's father's words echo in my head.

He is not as strong as he seems.

"I am sorry." I say, sitting down beside him.

"Why?"

"Maybe I became one of those people too." I admit and Hruday looks at me with a surprised look. "But from now on, I will try. Try to look at you, see you and understand you."

He keeps looking at my eyes. We stare at each other for a long moment, the sky full of stars the only thing to witness it. Hruday's eyes are glossy and his water line is a bit red from probably drinking. The top few buttons to his shirt are undone and he is holding his coat in his hands. He looks so vulnerable like this, all of his coldness and harshness nowhere to be found.

"Why?" He suddenly asks, getting up from where he was standing. The coat falls from his hands and on the ground. "Why are you in my life again, Ridhima?! Why are you saying such things now when I am trying to forget my feelings!? Why did you not say these things when I actually wanted to hear them!?"

"Rudra-" I began, his old name accidentally slipping from my tongue.

As soon as he hears it, something in his expression changes. Without saying anything, he walks closer to me until Hruday's face is so close to me that I can smell the hint of whisky on his breath and the cologne from his clothes. My face begins burning up when his hand reaches onto my waist but pulls me closer, completely caught under his hold with no escape. Now our bodies are pressed together and I cannot look at anywhere but his eyes. But they are not the same. These eyes that I am looking at today, they are tinged with hurt and anger and pain. They do not stare at me with love and adoration.