If Only

C H A P T E R 39

KING AND QUEEN

MIRANDA

Head looking down, I traced the flowers drawn on the blanket and ignored Ruen.

"I knew it the moment I told you that she was the one driving the car that caused your accident." She chuckled. "You already knew about it and kept mum. You even begged me not to do anything to her."

I don't know how I came to feel this strongly for Raven. The exact date, place and time - I do not know.

"The second thing you asked me for–was Raven." She was smiling brightly.

Raven?

I begged for Raven.

"There was a soldier who has agreed to wait below the balcony of the princess. A hundred days as the princess asked of him then she will be his." Ruen started to tell a story. She has loved reading, a hobby I came to grow fond of too. She also loved watching movies. She's got millions of stories in her arsenal.

"Under the heat of the sun and in the coldest nights, the soldier waited a day. A week... a month up until the 99th day. The princess knew then that she loved the soldier who weathered the days in wait for her."

I do not know where this is headed.

She stood and slowly walked to the window. "On the 100th day, the princess, happy to tell the soldier how she felt ran down and found that the soldier had already left." She drew the curtains to the side. A move I knew would show Raven and her camp below.

I used to watch her from up here. Through the window as I hid behind the curtain.

When no one else was looking...

"Am I being likened to the princess who realized how she felt far too late?"

Did she leave?

I feel like drowning.

"Raven was no soldier and neither was I the princess who demanded her stay for more than 100 days to wait." She sweated in the sunny days and was drenched on stormy days when her tent did not hold. Fifth, the tent pitched on Amelia's lawn was the fifth Aaron bought.

"Even though clearly, Raven was almost close to being on her ninetieth day," she laughed. I didn't mean to say that one out loud.

"So, you were counting the days," she teased.

I tenderly rubbed my belly and wished that I could hug my baby boy.

Wish he would look like Raven.

"That princess was just playing a prank. Just so happens that the soldier was gullible." I said just to stop the talk.

"A few weeks of tormenting the poor man would have sufficed. The princess would not have spared him time much longer than that." She played with the unsolved Rubix that I left on the dresser. "I was done tormenting Raven after a month at most."

"Oh, come on! You bullied her for much longer than that."

"I was doing it to gauge a reaction from you." She moved the pieces to solve the puzzle. "As expected, you hid it quite well. I won't be far off the mark if I said that Raven believes you don't give a flying fuck about her too."

"The princess only wanted the soldier's proof of affection. Her means was just terrible. If not, there could have been princes and men of nobler ranks and not just the soldier." She continued.

"She wanted revenge," I said.

That was what has got us here.

"Raven's the princess and you, the soldier." She put the solved Rubix cube down.