Chapter 23

✧Tore It Out, Crushed It Up, and Threw It✧

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*

Whenever Leila struggled, Matthias increased the strength of his hold and Leyla desperately resisted as he did so.

What was plastered over her sight every time she opened her tightly closed eyes was only a fickle scene.

The shaking leaves…

The unfolding sky…

and Matthias….

The dirty floor, wherein the leaves’ silhouettes flickered over it, and him again.

The yellowish dust clumped onto and canopied them in a sandy shroud. Their passionate kissing came perilously close to a brawl.

At some point, Leyla didn’t even know what she was up to. The fear of not breathing and the necessity of needing to do so were grouped into one.

On the flip side, the duke’s attempt to suck her lips and tangle her tongue with his only seemed to flare more. Leyla had no choice but to resigned herself defeatedly as if she were a living prey that was being had been consumed by a predator.

Her breath became weak and thready at the brachial. She cried out in heartbreak when Matthias’ desirous lips started to travel her scruff quickly and strongly.

A flurry of buttons scattered as he tore off her blouse, revealing her slender clavicle. His lips persistently provoked one specific spot on her neck where her pulse was beating.

His hand that had fondled her thighs and waist, tardily made its way up and grappled her luscious bosoms.

“Ah… !”

Leyla shook her head hard and yanked on Matthias’ shirt. The ripped button on his shirt bounced on the ground. She scratched his skin with her sharp nails, stamping red streaks on his neck several times.

The red hickey engraved by Matthias’ lips one by one began to garnish her clavicle. Tears sprung to her eyes as his lips began to trail down her collarbone.

Leyla’s mind went numb.

Matthias’s body heat, which came into contact with hers, did give her a discombobulation and novel feeling.

She was afraid and baffled as to why she had to go through this nightmare.

Matthias, thankfully, was able to put a stop to his deeds. He bowed his head and glanced down at her, one arm supporting his body.

Leyla opened her eyes; Matthias’ gasp was still erratically rough, but his eyes didn’t seem to be those of a man engrossed in lust.

His eyes were deep and serene. Akin to the day he stomped on a coin or the moment he calmly shot a bird to death. The way he looked at her made Leyla’s face flush in indignation.

Matthias placed his stare on her for a few seconds. He drew his eyes closed and slowly opened them. The wriggling of his Adam’s apple had ceased as he got a grip on his breathing a little.

The forest wind randomly fluttered Leyla’s hair into a complete mess. The smooth golden waves hovered in front of him as he lowered his gaze.

Matthias wiped off the dirt from his hands, then twisted his body to the side.

He carefully took in his surroundings.

A woman who was lying under the shade of a tree and sobbing.

A yard with a clothesline loaded with freshly dried laundry.

The old cottage that stood alone.

And he who was seated in this ludicrous world with a screwed-up appearance.

Matthias scoffed faintly and swept his drooping hair off his forehead. Beside him, Leyla curled up her body in a circle, trying to suck in more air.

” Pfft..Ha..ha..ha…”

The moment he saw her battered figure riddled with dust, Matthias’s laughter, became more and more devastating to her ears.

‘You.’

Drawing in a long breath, Matthias wiped his damp lips with the back of his hand. There was a splotch of blood.

‘Just because of a nobody like you.’

When he turned to look behind him, Leyla had already bolted to the bottom of the tree. She glared at him vehemently and scrunched the picked-up tree branch with her quivering hands.

Tears were still dripping from her gleaming eyes.

Matthias lifted himself from the ground after receiving such a menacing glare from a woman who was doing the same thing to him. He gazed down, hushedly, at his hand, which had recently grabbed a handful of toasty soil.

‘You may not know. I truly wanted to wring your little neck with this hand.’

Mathias turned around unhesitatingly after having grabbed his coat.

Summer in Berg was brief.

When the time was ripe, a cold breeze would blow, and the seasons would change in a jiffy.

Mathias was no stranger to it.

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*

Leyla was only able to get up after Duke Herhardt was no longer in sight.

She picked up her glasses and put them on. Both of her legs seemed to rumble. She walked stumbling, trembling, tripping, and had to take several break before she finally reached the cottage.

‘I shouldn’t have fallen to the ground.’

The tears beaded down her cheeks with great regrets. The unpleasant taste was still there, no matter how many times she cleaned her lips with her hand or her apron.

Leyla strolled over to the water tap and pumped it hard. The cold water spilled out of the bucket because of the pressure, soaking her clothes but she didn’t care.

“…No.”

She muttered, unsure about what exactly she was trying to deny.

‘No. No. No.’

Leyla shook her head. The bucket was full as her irregular breathing mingled with those repetitive sentences.

She covered her shaking hands and looked around nervously as if she were being hunted by something.

But, everything was the same.

It was Uncle Bill’s cottage. The homiest place in the world. The place she endlessly loved.

The wind ruffled the leaves, and birds sang while perched on the tree’s slats. The backdrop of the forest looked beautifully dazzling and still as the time neared the sunset, bathing everything in a golden shaft of light.

But Leyla’s heart kept throbbing uneasily. She was mystified with what she denied but also didn’t know what she was afraid of.

One thing was clear though. She had to get away from all this.

Leyla took off her glasses and washed her face repeatedly with the water-filled bucket. She wiped the nape of her neck which was mottled with red marks. She continued to clean her ears, yet the finer traces that he left behind were still vivid.

The overcast sky appeared so buff, Leyla stared at it with a blank look on her face.

She suddenly clenched her teeth, lifted the bucket, and submerged herself with cold water. Her body trembled with a chill as the water washed her down from the head to toe.

Leyla drew water from the tap again, shaking, as she was fed up with the unpleasant memory of her persistent survival. This time, she thoroughly rinsed all over her mouth with her palms full of water.

Cough!

Splashing water, she thought, would flush away those memories. But it was no use. She still recalled that nasty and absurd things.

Cough! Cough!

Leyla stopped washing. Her throat choked as she had accidentally swallowed the water.

She crouched, crying, before pumping more water from the tap.

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*

Matthias took a leisurely walk around the garden before stopping at the periphery where the rose flower bed garden and the marble stairwell leading to the manor were assembled.

Though he had brushed the dust off his clothing, the remnants of it still could be seen in every place. For it was of no account to him. The problem was his memory. Those memories only became more clear whenever he took a step at a time.

When Leyla huddled in his arms, any semblance of his rationality evanesced. There was nothing but a hunger-like thirstiness to have her; as if he had morphed into a wild beast.

Matthias licked his lips and batted his bangs aside from his forehead. He sought to see how and where this lascivious desire would stop.

If that nobody woman, Leyla, hadn’t cried, it would have been meaningless, vain, and ultimately insignificant.

If only he could restrain himself. If only he could refrain from hurling abuse at such a woman. Perhaps…..

Rearing his head, Matthias saw the mansion sitting in the tawny sun of the afternoon. Behind him, the forest across the garden seemed to be a desolate world cloaked in stillness.

It was quiet.

Something stood by itself in a place of nothingness.

A hankering interest and ruling passion for a beautiful woman. Matthias haltingly closed his eyes as if erasing something silly that was bothering him.

He opened them again and plucked a cluster of roses in full bloom which resembled her tears.

From his grasp, the pungent scent of crushed roses spread thickly, poking the nose. It had a pleasing redolence that reminded him of that woman’s body odor.

He tore it, crushed it, and threw it.

The torn and broken rose petals fell scattered strand by strand at his feet in a lumbering pace.

The memory of a girl passing through this garden came to his mind one after another along with the fallen petals.

Every time he returned home to the Arvis manor, that child always grew up more hearty.

A full-blooming rose meadow had become a familiar sight in the neighborhood where the child resided.

As the winter months came, the flower bed was peacefully carpeted with snow. Seasons continued to be repeated, the time elapsed, and the girl did grow up and turned into woman like a sequence of scenes.

By the end of the day, however, it was all for naught.

Matthias fondled his lips with the rose-scented hand and strode over the flake of petals.

As the sun began to set, a cool breeze blew clemently, foretelling the end of the summer.

Matthias never looked back as he climbed the stairwell and entered the blinding artificial light of the mansion.

*.·:·.✧.·:·.*

The sky on the western horizon, where the sun had returned to its nest like the doves was now tinged with deep purple hues.

The darkness ploddingly inked across the room, but Kyle didn’t switch the lamplights on. He leaned deeply on a chair by the window, his gaze reared at the sky, which was continuously shifting its radiant shade.

Ever since coming back from the Arvis’ cottage, Kyle had been confined to his room. Without a playful grin teased on his lips, his grayish eyes gave a shady cold nuance.

He ate lunch with Leyla in a friendly setting. Kyle didn’t say no because she was trying to act as usual.

But he knew. Their time together wasn’t the same as before.

If he can’t find a solution any sooner, he’d have to let her go.

Kyle wiped down his dry face with his hand as if washing it.

Leyla said that she wished for them to remain good friends for a long time. And to stay as friends, they should keep their distance.

He finally grasped the meaning of it. Yet, Kyle had a very different plan. Surely, he wanted to spend a long time with her, but not as a good friend in disguise.

Thereby, he was unable to wait for long.

Kyle took a hard stance after he came to that conclusion. He didn’t want to squander those happy days with Leyla, so it was time to let go of his unseeable feelings.

Taking a deep breath, Kyle opened the door and stomped down through the corridor.

A dim light glinted, seeping beyond the door of his father’s study. Kyle reassured himself in front of the door before drawing yet another breath.

At the duke’s party, Kyle got the gist of his mother’s reason for presenting him to the aristocracy. He didn’t have the faintest notion of what was going through his mother’s mind when she was considering engagement or marriage at the time, but today, he was rather grateful for that, somehow.

‘I can’t lose you. Or be apart from each other. How can we do that?’

Mulling on the words he said to Leyla, Kyle knocked on the door vigorously.

“Father, it’s me.”

“Come on in, Kyle.”

He heard his father’s warm and loving voice beyond the door. Encouraged by his sweetness, Kyle slowly opened the door to the study. Dr. Etman, who sat in front of the desk, smiled as he welcomed his son.

Instead of slumping in the chair across his father’s desk like he usually did, Kyle stood upright in front of his father.

“I have something to tell you, father,” he said.

“This isn’t something you usually do. It’s quite a serious thing to say, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Kyle clenched his fists tightly to muster up his courage.

When push came to shove, he was going to say this anyway.

He heartened himself and swallowed.

Next year, he will enroll in the college and leave for the capital. And Leyla, on the other hand, had planned on staying in this city and pursuing a career as a teacher.

Distance would separate them for a long time.

Kyle, however, wasn’t quite convinced with just that. The fact that there would come a day when Kyle Etman wouldn’t be standing next to Leyla Lewellin.

He pondered upon this.

What if they both went to college together? How about they studied as medical and ornithology students at the same time? And what if they lived together for the rest of their lives as they had been? As friends, lovers, and family.

“Mother seems to be thinking about my marriage nowdays.”

Dr. Etman soon let loose a short lived barking yet delightful laugh at what Kyle said.

“That day, your mother went a little ahead of herself. Don’t let it bother you too much, Kyle. I understand your mother’s feelings, but I disagree with her. There’s no need to hurry.”

“No, father.”

Kyle looked at his father with a determined glance.

“I’ve been thinking of getting married.”

“Marriage? Kyle? You?” Dr. Etman’s eyes creased slowly as he faced his son.

“Yes.”

Kyle replied with a nervous but laid-back voice.

“I want to marry Leyla and go to college with her.”