Rags To Royals (Royal #1: Book 1) | ✔

23

-• the bedtime story •-

I step out of the room with tears streaming down my eyes. And the more I wipe them, the more they pour out. Everything around me is watery, blurry and unclear. Is this how a waterfall sees the world? Uncertain, a confusing mess of colors, incomprehensible and vague. I sniffle in my hands, brushing off the comforting touch of Juyi as she reaches out to me hesitantly.

"Go," I whisper to her.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes and bows, respecting my wish to be left alone.

I'm not crying because I'm sad or heartbroken. Neither because I did not expect this level of detachment from my own brother. His treatment hurt me, but not to the point I would burst out in tears. I'm crying because of the pressure he put on my mind. For a moment back inside, I felt I was being crushed under something heavy. He instills fear in people to make them obey. And it's absolutely cruel.

I suck in a sharp breath and exhale through my mouth.

"You keep my secret safe, I'll keep yours."

I don't know what business he has with that mystery man that he went as far as to make a deal with me so I keep my silence but whatever it is, it's none of my business. And from now onwards, if I ever see someone suspicious roaming in the palace corridors, taking the advantage of darkness, I'm going to turn about and march right back to my room.

"Tara?"

I startle and look up. The sight of my father melts down my recently built walls.

"Dad," I walk up to him.

"Are you crying, little star?" He touches under my left eye, brushing off the stray tear on my cheek.

I quickly wipe my cheeks and sniff to clear my nose before plastering a smile on my face for his sake. He smiles back, his arm goes to wrap around my shoulders and he invites me to his room for a cup of coffee.

I agree reluctantly.

His room befits his title as the King. Well, titular but still the King. It's gold and beige, the furniture is made of walnut wood and cushioned with velvet. It's beautiful, like a set stolen from a Hollywood sixties movies, starring someone like Marilyn Monroe. Such firm fragility suits people like her. And it suits my father. He stands out in the room, a gentle reminder of a beautiful, controlled, but justified gentleman. Nothing like my brother. Dark, imposing, intimidating and scary.

But something that leaves me stricken is the painting of the woman that gave me birth, hanging on the left wall of the room, above the chest of drawers. I walk to it and stand a few feet away, feeling an overwhelming urge to jump into the frozen moment just so I can hug the smiling woman. She looks so lively, a deep contrast to what I remember her as in her last days. Pale, with sunken cheeks and purple lips, her hair thinning, the lost beauty shines like a gem in the painting. I feel a sob bubble up in my throat and sniffle softly, my chin trembling at the onslaught of emotions abusing me with the memories of her.

A gentle touch on my back has me turning around and I throw myself in my father's arms.

"I miss her," I confess. "I miss her so much," my words are incoherently blubbered, spoken brokenly, strung together with hiccups but I hear my father hum, agreeing with me, agreeing with whatever incomprehensible bullshit I say, because rather than words, we communicate through grief, our sorrow, our loss. "Why did she have to leave so soon?" I ask through my cries, questioning the unfairness of the world, of the God, so if he's listening somewhere in some corner of the universe, he would let her know how much I hate it without her.