❝The only kind of love I want is one where even if it is just for a short moment, it feels like I have lived a lifetime in that moment with that person. ❞ - Jhanvi Raichand.
**You CANNOT read this as standalone. Read Dare to Be before reading this...
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2.35 No Escape Left
There is this unsettling feeling in my heart. As if something bad is about to happen. Even as I keep running away to safety, the depth of my heart keeps screaming at me that I should go back for Aarush. It keeps telling me it was wrong to leave him behind. Yet, it is the rational part and the one who believes in him that keeps me on the path he set for me by asking me to run back to the palace.
Running out of the woods and reaching the road, I look left and right. Empty. Not a single car or another human to be spotted on the endless road. Pausing for a brief second to catch my breathing, I walk the next few steps... hoping, praying, that Aarush was okay. I keep looking back towards the clearing I had walked out of moments ago, just hoping to see him but every time, look ahead again in disappointment when I don't catch his familiar glimpse.
The fourth time I turn back, it's when I hear an oncoming vehicle. A white car. As it approaches, I pause at the side of the road, thinking of waving my hand to stop it, hoping for a lift. But, as it nears, I catch the face of Mr. Khatri in the passenger seat.
All thoughts of asking for help flies away. What was it that he had said? He had to join hands with the village heads for their mutual goal of wanting me gone. Mr. Khatri was one of them.
That fight or flight instinct kicks in. Instead of staying on the cement road leading to the palace, I run down the slope to return to the dirt road going through the woods so they wouldn't spot me. It's like I am afraid they would see me if I even breathed. So, I hold it in till the car zips through and assured I was unnoticed, I exhale deeply.
Deciding to not waste another second, worrying about everyone back at the palace, I take off running once again.
I would be safest there.
After a constant run of almost half an hour, relief washes over on seeing the palace gates just several yards away. Though my aching body protests, I jog over telling myself it was almost over.
As I near the gates, I slow down to a walk on seeing the crowd gathered up front on the other side of the gates, inside the palace grounds but out of the doors. A security guard must have seen me approaching from the top tower for the gates swung open and seconds later, he started coming down. As I walk through the gates, the crowd disperses from the center in two and turn back to face me.
From the space they clear while dividing in two, the familiar faces emerge. Aarav running towards me followed me Arnav and Eva.
Oh, I have never been happier!
Even with my harsh breathing and heaving chest, I run ahead the few steps to meet him halfway and throw my arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. Even though Aarush was there and I felt safe then, since I ran and our ways parted, I have never been this afraid in my life. There is a whole new level of relief being in the arms of the man who has always made me feel safe even when I did not remember him a year and a half ago.
