“Love loses its purity when control begins to replace care.”

Tara’s fingers grazed the worn spine of another heavy volume as she pulled it from the library shelf, her focus fractured by the magnetic pull of the table a few yards away. Her eyes flickered toward Mihir, who remained deeply entrenched in his own world, his head bowed over a book with a level of concentration that made him seem utterly oblivious to the muffled footsteps and distant whispers of the room.