YOU CAN STAY
YUVAAN
The bedside lamp casts a soft amber glow across the room, leaving the corners in gentle shadow.
It's late, the palace has finally gone quiet, and yet our bedroom is anything but peaceful.
Sara is standing right in the middle of the mattress with both hands planted on her hips, looking like a tiny lawyer arguing the case of her life.
Across from her, Anamika is trying very hard to be the responsible parent. Trying being the important word.
I've watched enough of these little battles over the last few weeks to know exactly how they end.
I have realized when Sara truly wants something, she doesn't throw tantrums or cry until people give in.
She negotiates. She reasons. She presents her arguments with such absolute sincerity that refusing her somehow feels like you're the unreasonable one.
"Mister," she says, stamping one tiny foot against the mattress for emphasis, "all the children in my class sleep with their parents." She folds her arms. "So why can't I?"
I glance toward Anamika. She's standing beside the bed, clearly trying to think of an explanation that will satisfy a five-year-old without encouraging a habit she probably doesn't want to start.
Her expression alone almost makes me smile.
She catches my eye over Sara's head and gives me the smallest apologetic look, already expecting me to step in and say no.
Perhaps because this is my room. Perhaps because I'm the Maharaja. Perhaps because she still believes there are rules I care about far more than I actually do.
I look back at Sara. She's only five. She's in a new home. A new family. A new life. Wanting to sleep beside the two people she now calls hers doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Not even a little.
"Okay," I say simply. Her eyes widen. "We can do that, Princess."
For one heartbeat she just stares. Then excitement explodes across her entire face. "Really?" She practically bounces. "Yay!" She throws herself backward onto the bed with enough enthusiasm to make the mattress wobble.
Anamika sighs, somewhere between exasperated and amused, climbing onto the bed after her. "Come on," she says gently. "You wanted to sleep in the middle, didn't you?"
Sara immediately shakes her head. "No."
"No?"
She points decisively. "Mumma, you sleep there." Then she points at me. "Mister sleeps there." Anamika blinks.
"But I thought you wanted—"
Sara cuts her off with all the confidence in the world. "Big children don't sleep between their parents."
"I'll sleep on the side." Silence. It lasts only a second. But in that second, the word settles somewhere deep inside me.
Parents.
She says it so naturally. Without hesitation. Without thinking twice. Not carefully. Not experimentally. Just . . . As though that's simply who we are.
I don't know if she even realises what she's just done.
Judging by the way Anamika goes completely still, I don't think she does.
Before either of us manages to respond, Sara has already wriggled underneath the blanket, arranging herself happily along one side of the bed.
The decision has apparently been made. Anamika gives me one helpless look before climbing into the middle.
I follow a moment later, lowering myself carefully onto the opposite side, suddenly far more aware of my own movements than I've ever been in this room.
The bed feels strangely smaller tonight. Or perhaps . . . It finally feels the size it was always meant to be. For a while, none of us says anything. The only sounds are the silent hum of the air conditioner and Sara's constant little movements as she tries to find the perfect sleeping position.
She wiggles. Turns over. Pulls the blanket higher.
Kicks one foot free again. Children seem to perform an entire dance before finally surrendering to sleep.
Eventually she settles. One arm stretched above her head.
One tiny foot resting close to Anamika’s leg.
Within minutes her breathing deepens into that steady rhythm children somehow find so effortlessly.
I lie there quietly. Looking at the ceiling.
Listening. Thinking. I've slept in this room alone for years.
Long enough that solitude became part of the furniture.
This bed was always too large. Too quiet.
Every night I'd return after meetings and paperwork and endless conversations about responsibilities and governance .
. . Only to be greeted by silence. The kind that grows louder the longer you listen to it.
I used to think I'd become accustomed to it. Maybe I had.
People can get used to almost anything if it lasts long enough. The council always spoke about loneliness as though it were another duty of the crown. An unavoidable cost. Something a ruler simply learned to live with. None of them ever imagined that its cure might look like this.
A child occasionally demanding to sleep in my bedroom.
Lavender drifting faintly through the room because Sara insists on putting oil on her pillow every night.
Anamika lying only an arm's length away, her hair loose across the pillow instead of tied back into the neat braid she wears every day.
The room feels . . . Lived in. Warm. Human. Home.
Sara lets out one tiny sleepy sigh. I smile to myself. She's asleep. Really asleep. "I'll go once she's settled," I whisper quietly, already beginning to shift. The old habit rises automatically.
Give space. Keep distance. Don't take more than you're offered.
It's the same instinct that's carried me through years of loving Anamika quietly. The same discipline that taught me how to stand beside her without reaching for her. The mattress moves slightly.
"No." Her voice is barely above a whisper. So soft I almost think I imagined it. I turn my head. She's looking at me. The dim light catches her eyes. There's tiredness there. A little hesitation. But not fear. Not tonight. "You can stay."
Three simple words.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing poetic.
And yet they travel through me with astonishing force.
For a moment I simply look at her. Really look.
The guardedness she's carried ever since returning to Devgarh hasn't disappeared.
It's still there. But tonight . . . it isn't standing between us quite so firmly.
The walls seem lower somehow. Not gone. Just .
. . Open enough for me to see beyond them.
A thought comes quietly.
Unexpectedly.
If someone offered me everything this palace possesses . . . The title. The estate. The history. Every acre of land. Every jewel locked away in its vaults.
Or this. This room. This bed. A sleepy five-year-old. A woman who has finally looked at me and said . . . You can stay.
I know exactly which one I'd choose. Every single time. I don't tell her that. Some feelings don't need to be spoken the moment they're felt. Instead, I give the smallest nod. "Okay."
One word. She smiles. Just a little. Almost too small to notice.
But I do. I settle back against my pillow, careful not to disturb Sara.
For another few moments, I simply watch Anamika.
The soft rise and fall of her breathing.
The strands of hair resting across her cheek.
The exhaustion that's finally beginning to give way to something gentler.
Peace, perhaps. Or trust. Maybe both.
Eventually, she closes her eyes. I wait until her breathing begins to slow. Only then do I let mine follow.
Sara sleeps with the complete certainty only children possess, utterly convinced that the two people she loves most are exactly where they belong.
And lying there in the quiet, listening to her gentle breathing fill the room . . . For the first time in years . . . The silence doesn't feel empty anymore.