Loving a Princess

18. Would I ever be able to get over him?

The flight back home was exhausting. As soon as we reached the airport, we started looking for Asif and Arif, but typically, they hadn't come.

"Zakir, did you actually tell them what time we'd be landing?" Mum asked.

"Yes, Marwa, I did. I told them several times! But you know how your lazy sons are! They don't know their priorities. They probably forgot or just simply felt lazy, and are probably with their friends or lazing about at home!" Dad replied, furious.

"Useless!" I muttered under my breath. My brothers, honestly, could really get annoying! I mean, they are 21 years old, yet they behave like kids! They couldn't even come to the airport to pick us up!

"I should have told one of the chauffeurs to come. At least they are reliable!" Dad said.

"Let's just hire a taxi or something," Mum said. "I'm honestly beyond exhausted and I don't have the energy to stand here, expecting those two to come!"

"Yes, dad, I'm with mum here!" I said, and Asiyah nodded in agreement.

Dad walked over to the taxi-hire desk while the three of us lingered behind, waiting for him. After two minutes or so, dad came back with a man, and we all followed the man out of the arrivals area and into the parking lot.

We got into the taxi and drove off, as dad gave directions to the driver. When we finally reached our home, and the driver saw it, his mouth hung open, as he turned to dad who was sitting in the passenger seat.

"Sir, are you...are you Mr. Hamid?" He asked, wide-eyed.

Dad chuckled. "Yes, I am."

"I actually just drove Mr. Hamid! I can't believe it! I gave a ride to the Hamid family!" The driver mumbled in excitement, mostly to himself.

I felt like face-palming. Not because of the driver. He was a nice guy and all, but because this was typical, and I was back to my hometown where these kind of reactions were inevitable. This was precise evidence that I was really back home!

"How much will it be?" Dad asked. The driver looked at the meter and told dad, and dad paid, as we all got out and walked through the gigantic gates into our boundary.

Wow! I was finally back home! Over the course of the four years while I was away, I came once every year to visit but I only stayed for a maximum of two weeks. But now, now I was back, and I was here to stay! It felt amazing, doubtlessly, but somehow, I had grown so accustomed to my simple life, and I was so used to seeing
the hostel building as my home, that this humungous palace-like mansion felt unfamiliar and foreign, although I had grown up and spent my entire life before my studies here.

But albeit everything feeling so large and strange, I knew this was my actual home after all. At the end of the day, I can't run away from my identity! I had tried to get away, but those four years were just a mere break from all this. At the end of the day, I had to return to everything that was always there. That had always been there. At the end of the day, I was a princess and my status was going to remain, no matter how far I tried to go. And obviously, this status had revealed itself somehow even when I was away in that other country.

As we walked to the mansion, my eyes roamed over the huge flawless green lawns, the neatly manicured hedges that lined the pathway we were walking on, the swings on the lawns, the hundreds of different flowers and just generally everything there. Nothing had changed over the four years, and I was glad.

Just as we neared the doors of the mansion, they burst open before we could reach there, and Asif and Arif suddenly rushed out, and their eyes widened as soon as they zeroed in on us, and their identical faces wore identical shocked expressions.