The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 143 : Recovery

Catherine slept fitfully the entire evening and the night. Dusk did not dare to leave her. In the end, both of them missed dinner that night. Dusk managed with some fruits and aerated juices. She slept there, fully dressed.

Catherine's recovery from self-pity took the next 3 days. She felt better when she woke up to find Dusk sleeping next to her, still fully dressed. However, she was still listless and uncaring, which worried Dusk as much as it worried Crystala.

Dawn, who had learned the details from Lady Crystala over the previous evening, still felt that the Princess was lucky to have what she had... A few setbacks, one guy not liking her, or having fooled her... well, what diff?

Dusk convinced Catherine to have a proper breakfast in exchange of allowing her to follow her everywhere, even when she was attending her remote classes. That obviously meant that Dusk was not leaving the Palace. She wanted to return to Ci'gazze because she had critical classes but at that point, it was not an option.

Scarlet returned to Ci'gazze because she had work with her task force, as much as she wanted to stay and watch the drama and learn how Dusk handled things. Besides, Rusks was not in Regis, but in Ci'gazze... Luckily Julien had instructed him to stay close to her to ensure her safety.

Dawn, on her part, tried to help Catherine by showing her that they were still friends. But she had not seen such sissies in her life, so she was a little short of patience. There were fights back in Longburn among friends. There were breakups, some of them nasty, but after some time, people got back to normal life.

To see someone rich, surrounded by all things anyone could ask for in life, and still wallowing like that, stumped Dawn, who still considered material things as important for happiness. She could not empathise with Catherine as much as she tried.

On the second day, Dusk took the teens to the mall. They spent 2 hours at the Central Mall, allowing Catherine to show off to Dawn all the designer shops that she used to frequent. She got new clothes for all three of them, shoes, purse bags and fancy hats. The total amount of money spent by Catherine gave Dawn a heartache, but she ignored the problem for the moment. After all, Catherine was rich enough to spend that money.

Then they went to Ambrosia because Catherine wanted fast food again. More importantly, she wanted crush-ice candies, for which, Dusk put her foot down and refused. That led to a shouting match between them in the middle of the plaza, with people looking (and probably recording for putting on pictorial).

In the end, Dusk convinced her to go to Harmony Café, in exchange for another mall visit post lunch. She knew there had to be a Harmony café at Ambrosia square and Imperial Security found it quickly for them. Catherine's fascination for the system at Harmony was just as Dusk had expected it would be.

Dawn also had never seen such an outlet and found it interesting. For Dawn, an auto-chef who would cook what the customer said instead of cooking good food was a waste of material and the auto-chef itself!

Since her plan was to divert Catherine with new things, Dusk allowed Catherine to place her own order, knowing she would make it a complete inedible mess. Of course, the robo-chefs would make the food exactly the way the guest instructed, and in spite of her exposure to Dawn's breakfast skills, she had not the slightest idea of what cooking involved. In the end, since Dawn's food looked and smelled perfectly good, Catherine browbeat her and took most of it away.

Dusk had expected something like that, so she had placed order for food for more than she needed and also shared from her sister. Dusk's relation with Harmony was an old one. Among the students at Uni-Viva, Dusk was in the minority who knew how to cook. She often got free food from her friends at Uni-Viva who forced her to come to Harmony as she could instruct the robo-chefs the right way so that the food was properly prepared, and they could eat. Though, money was not a problem for Dusk anymore, she still accompanied her few friends there from time to time.