Chapter 50 - Ghost Behind The Window

NOTE: Dear readers, you can shift all your votes from the other books of mine to this book from this Friday or Saturday. Thank you~

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Julie's eyesight through her glass felt nothing less to a foggy window. Before she could check what Roman had done to her glasses and asked him why Ms. Piper said,

"Action!"

Roman knew the reason why she didn't want to take her glasses off her face. Julie had come to believe that he had stopped bullying her, but instead, he was back to bullying her openly in front of others! Out of nervousness, her hands turned into fists. Thankfully, she had already memorized her dialogues for the scene today, but the only problem was that now she couldn't see Roman's face clearly. 

"Relax," Roman said in a low voice to her, and Julie glared at him even though she doubted he could see her glaring through the blurry glass. 

"Has anyone ever relaxed when they have been told to relax?" Julie whispered to him. "Thankfully, I don't have an eyesight problem."

"There's always the option to remove your glasses off your face, I would be happy to take it out," said Roman.

"Don't!" Julie was quick to take a step backwards so that he wouldn't meddle with it again. Roman's lips twitched on seeing how intent she was on keeping the glasses on her face. He knew well that she wouldn't willingly take it off because of the number of eyes watching her. His little plan had gone as he had thought. 

Ms. Piper and the others didn't know what was going on because neither Roman nor Julie had started rehearsing their scene, with the first dialogue that was yet to be delivered. 

With Roman on the stage, the students who were in the room had turned quiet. During the previous practise sessions, he had delivered every scene with dialogues with precision as if after graduating from here, he was going to pursue his career in acting. Even though the room was filled with a mixture of bullies and only a few innocent ones, he caught most people's attention with his presence. 

Julie heard the piano sound that came from the left side of the stage from where she stood. The music slowly started to fill in the room, and it was something soft and sweet on one's ears.

Gulping, Julie said the dialogues that belonged to Iris Turner's character, "Where is Ms. Campbell? I don't think I saw her today."

"She went shopping for her wedding. You know how women are, when it comes to getting married, Lady Iris," Roman responded to her words. 

"I don't," said Julie, staring at him through her foggy glasses.

"No?" 

"No, my husband and I didn't have a wedding like most of them. It was in front of the magistrate," said Julie. When she turned to the side, she saw Roman looking at her from the corner of her eyes. The way he looked at her right now, it wasn't just intense smouldering, but there was something different in his eyes that Julie couldn't read him.

When he said, "What a pity," Julie turned back to look at him. His voice sounded rich and smooth like his cologne. "Any person who might have wanted to marry you should have held a big wedding. I would have if you were my bride. Or was it your idea? To have a quiet and simple one."

"I didn't mind it, Mr. Cheverell. Not everyone dreams about having a big wedding. I am sure you know that everyone has their preferences," Julie continued to deliver her dialogues, making sure not to make any mistakes. She tried to keep up with Roman, which was hard because his dialogues felt more real and were clear to listen to. Somewhere, having her glasses blurred helped her to concentrate on delivering on Iris' dialogues to Atlas. 

After saying a few more dialogues, Roman said the dialogue to her, which was, "When shall I be seeing you next time?"

"We are living in the same town Mr. Cheverell, I doubt it would be hard to not cross paths with each other when we run in the same circle-" 

According to the scene, Iris was supposed to leave Atlas Cheverell's company so that she could get back to the others in another room. 

Julie turned, ready to leave, but before that, Roman caught hold of her wrist to stop her from walking away. She felt him brush his thumb against the skin of her wrist just like he had done the night she had broken into his dorm. Even though it was just part of the stage-play where they were acting according to what was written in the script, Julie felt her heart skip a beat because of the little contact. 

Roman took a step forward towards her and then asked, "You are leaving?"

"If you can let go of my hand, Mr. Cheverell," Julie didn't know what Ms. Piper was thinking when she was writing this kind of play. 

"What if I don't want to?" Roman's voice lowered down, and Julie's face turned completely red, knowing right now, he was looking at her, but she couldn't see what expression he had worn on his face. 

Did he have to whisper? She asked herself. 

Wait, what was her next dialogue?! Julie tried to rack through her brain. 

Julie stared in Roman's direction, making it look like her character was glaring at him. But in truth, she was only trying to remember what she was supposed to say. Somewhere she understood why Eleanor kept pausing with her dialogues when it came to enacting scenes with him.

"I think you forget that I am a married woman now, Mr. Cheverell. It is impolite to hold-"

"Does that mean you wouldn't mind if we were like before? Before you got married and ran away from my sight," Roman pulled Julie closer so that they stood close to each other without letting go of her hand. Still, in character, he said to her, "I haven't forgotten about you."

With the way, Julie's heart was beating, and Roman seemed like he was too immersed in his character, she felt like she was going to pass out! Why was Ms. Piper not stopping the scene by saying 'cut'?!

While Julie was somewhere in between panicking and trying to make sure to say the same lines in the script and not something irrelevant, Roman stared at Julie's face that had turned red. Standing right in front of her, he could hear every beat of her heart. 

He knew this was going to happen, which was precisely why he had put a white sheen of grease over her glasses so that she wouldn't turn flustered.

There weren't many who could resist Roman's presence and charm, and he noticed how Julie was trying to keep her calm while also hoping for the scene to get over as quickly as it could. 

"I-I don't know what you are talking about," replied Julie, and she looked down for a moment to get her composure back. Julianne was natural to this role because her reaction was too pure and innocent, thought Roman, his eyes fixed on her face. 

"Let me remind you then," said Roman, gripping her hand. 

Julie's heart rate spiked, and to her relief, Ms. Piper said, "Cut! That was good Roman and Julianne. Maybe next time try for a less dazed look there, Julie, but the rest of it was good. Who is next?" she asked, her head turning left and right before calling the other students on the stage. 

With the scene that had ended, so did the spell on the stage between the two characters. On hearing Ms. Piper's words, Roman immediately let go of Julie's wrist, and he took two steps backwards. 

For two seconds, Julie stood there, slightly shaken by the exchange of the dialogues. She quickly removed her glasses and cleaned it with the hem of her sweater. And during that time, she noticed Roman had turned around and made his way down the stairs. Wearing her cleaned glasses which were still slightly blurry but manageable, she saw herself off the stage. 

One of the girls who stood near to where Ms. Piper was so that she wouldn't be bullied by others like Julie, said to her, "That was good acting there. You didn't forget any lines," the girl smiled at her. 

Julie returned the smile, "Thank you, all the best up there," she said, knowing it was the girl's turn. Internally, she wondered how people had missed that she had forgotten to deliver her dialogue on time, which was why she had paused for such long seconds. To hide the mistakes on stage was an art! She praised herself, thankful that people had not jeered or picked on her. 

Walking to the side, Julie came to stand near the wall again to be a wallflower. She watched the students who were on the stage. Thanks to Roman's head breaking Caleb's nose, the boy was no more around her, bothering her like an annoying fly. Her eyes slowly moved from the stage to look at Roman, who was talking to Maximus. 

What was he thinking smudging her glasses like that?

As if sensing Julie's glare, Roman's eyes turned to look at her, and he tilted his head to the side and stared back at her as if he hadn't attempted to cause trouble for her. Pursing her lips, she turned her eyes back on the stage. 

Forget about Roman being a warm blanket. This was burning charcoal, thought Julie in her mind. 

On returning to her dorm later, Julie was quick to write a letter to Roman —

'Why did you do that? Smudging my glasses so that I couldn't see anything?'

Julie left her dorm to have dinner in the lunchroom, and once she was back, Roman's reply was waiting for her as if he had written to her before entering the lunchroom. It was because when she was leaving the lunchroom with her friends, he was still sitting at another table with his friends. 

Unfolding the three folds of the letter, Julie read—

'It is said that blocking one of the senses heightens the other senses. I was testing to see if it would help. 

It seemed like you forgot your lines. Did your memory capacity run out?'

"Pfft, of course not," reacted Julie on reading the last line. "I was just too involved in my character and forgot about it," she reasoned before picking up her pen and writing a reply to him. Once she was done, she folded and placed it next to the window. 

With the drama practice taking her time, Julie had tried to squeeze and push her time to make space for her studies. She sat at the desk as hours passed to twelve in the night. She continued studying when she heard the sound of something click in her room. 

Julie turned around and for the first time, she caught sight of the window being slowly opened as if there was a ghost behind it.