We're Married, After All - Chapter 34
A soft groan escaped from between my lips. No matter how I thought about it, there were simply too many drawings. The few months I had spent at the Count’s estate were documented in obsessively meticulous detail.
And yet…
Despite the amateur skill, I recognized myself in the drawings immediately. It was because every line in the sketches conveyed an intense focus. A focus that, in its own way, could be described as affection—a devotion sustained over a very long time.
My mind was a tangle of emotions. The fact that Danel had been watching me for so long, observing me so closely that he captured it all in drawings, left me bewildered.
What was I supposed to feel about this? Embarrassed? Or horrified? I couldn’t tell, so I simply kept flipping through the pages.
The increasingly detailed sketches now seemed less about polish and more about capturing moments. Some were static, like landscapes, while others were dynamic croquis, such as the moment I threw a lance. Occasionally, Petios appeared in the drawings, but most of them featured only me.
I gazed quietly at the endless stream of sketches. Ironically, the less polished the drawings were, the more clearly they revealed the artist’s emotions.
Danel was utterly consumed by me. He didn’t seem to want to miss a single thing I did, not even for a moment.
And it was that obsessive focus that made me notice the change. At some point, the drawings began to shift. Next to the half-finished sketches, strange shapes started appearing. They resembled distorted forms, and as time passed, the lines grew heavier, eventually turning into blotches of solid black.
At first, I couldn’t discern what they were. I just let my eyes take them in.
Me walking through the garden, paired with a grotesquely twisted shape.
Me admiring the flowerbeds, accompanied by something chaotically drawn.
Me standing under an umbrella, with the umbrella held by…
I stopped, my heart pounding as the images clawed at my mind. The presence of the figure—silent yet intrusive—begged for recognition.
My hand hesitated as I flipped the page. Memories began to surface, slowly taking shape in my mind.
Soon, a vivid scene appeared in my recollection. It was a spring day. I was sitting on the ground, and it was beside me. Under the shade of the side house canopy—a place we only visited when indulging in secret, shared moments of rebellion.
A chill ran down my spine. Now, I was certain of the black figure’s identity.
It was Petios.
With trembling hands, I turned the page. As I continued, familiar scenes unfolded before me.
The day when our clothes got tangled, and my skirt ended up wrinkled beyond repair.
The day in the woods when we leaned against a tree.
The day we forgot to bring a blanket, and my hair became matted with dirt from the ground.
The memories came back vividly. We were adults by then, practically a married couple in all but name. We didn’t have the patience to restrain the impulses of our youth. Whenever Petios felt well enough, we went for walks together. Anywhere we could be alone, we went—and there, we shared the pleasures we had only recently discovered.
“But how…?”
When? Where had Danel been watching? No matter how much I searched my memories, I couldn’t recall a single instance of him being there. He hadn’t even spoken to me more than a few times back then.
I felt a sudden shortness of breath. The lines depicting the strange mass grew even more aggressive, as if mirroring my realization of its identity.
Though the drawings of me became increasingly refined, Petios’s form grew more distorted with each page. The once-shaky lines turned grotesque, chaotic, and wild.
The violent frenzy of the lines finally ended many pages later. The turning point was a crumpled, torn page.
It was a rare drawing without Petios in it.
In the image, I filled the entire page, my hair cascading wildly as I lay somewhere, eyes closed. Judging by the position, I seemed to be asleep.
I couldn’t be certain because the drawing was incomplete. The obsessive and intricate lines stopped midway, having detailed the strands of hair across my forehead, my closed eyelids, and the bridge of my nose extending from my eyebrows. But the lower half of my face, where my lips and jawline should have been, was left entirely blank.
As I stared at the unfinished depiction of myself, an uncomfortable realization surfaced.
Danel had been close enough to me—while I was asleep and without Petios nearby—to sketch even the fine baby hairs on my forehead.
What had he done at that moment? What had happened to make him leave this drawing unfinished?
Suddenly, countless nights when I had been asleep came rushing back to me. Along with all the things Danel might have done during those times.
With shaky hands, I closed the sketchbook. I shoved it back into the deepest corner of the drawer and hastily gathered the scattered drawings from the floor. Holding my breath, I returned everything to its original place. The pressure in my chest tightened unbearably.
Only after locking the drawer again, as if nothing had happened, did I finally exhale. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear. All I knew was that I needed to stop thinking about the truth I had just uncovered.
I picked up the wire again and inserted it into the lock of the other drawer—the long, shallow one beneath the desktop that I hadn’t checked yet.
I tried to focus on opening the lock, but it was impossible. My trembling hands caused the wire to slip repeatedly.
Thud.
I banged my forehead against the closed drawer. The searing pain in my head filled the chaos in my mind.
Seventeen. The spring and summer of the year I became an adult.
So much had happened that year. It was when I first shared intimacy with Petios, and I became utterly consumed by the pleasure he introduced me to. It was fascinating that something as simple as our bodies entwined could bring such bliss.
