Page 32 of The Defiant Wife

I stare. Again.

Nobody told me this either.The children continue talking. Story after story.Little things.Tiny moments. Helping with homework. Listening to stories. Remembering names. Fixing toys. Explaining school projects. None of it sounds extraordinary.

Yet judging by the way they're talking, it meant everything.And suddenly something painful settles inside my chest.

Because they're right.

He has been kind. Awkward. Quiet. Emotionally constipated. But kind. Always kind.

Maybe that's why they've grown attached. Not because he's a prince and it fascinates them.Because he listens.Because he remembers.Because he shows up.

My gaze drifts toward the door.Toward the hallway where he disappeared.A realization begins forming slowly.

Uncomfortably.

The children are attached.Not just to him.To everyone.Every volunteer.Every teacher.Every visitor who stays long enough to matter.

And eventually those people leave.

Always.

They leave. While the children stay behind. Waiting.

Missing them. Hurting.

I think about the excitement whenever volunteers arrive.The tears when some of them leave.The disappointment.The heartbreak.The way I always tell myself that love is worth it.

Maybe it is.Maybe it isn't.Maybe both things can be true.Maybe that's what Veeraj was trying to say.

Not that love is wrong.Not that affection is dangerous.Just that attachment has consequences.Consequences I've never fully considered because I kept viewing it through my own perspective.

What would I have wanted as a child?

Love.

Attention.

Connection.

Wanting someone to choose me even for a minute.

But he wasn't looking at it from my perspective.He was looking at it from theirs.From what happens after people leave.From the hurt that follows.

The realization lands heavily.

I hate it.

Because it means he wasn't being cold.He wasn't being heartless.He wasn't reducing children to numbers.He was trying to protect them.In his own frustratingly logical way.

And somehow that's worse.

Because if he was awful, I could keep disliking him.

Simple.

Easy.

Comfortable.