Chapter 35 Created Her Presence
After being dragged away by William to London in his private jet as he knew she would cause a tantrum and he must quietly take her with him.
The second she stepped on that foreign land with emptiness and disappointment gleaming in her eyes, she had nowhere to run or escape anymore.
Exhausted and dismayed to fight or resist, she mindlessly followed as they reached his apartment.
“Welcome to our world, Arabella Grayson,”
Whispering temptingly in her ear, he led her to their room in his opulent apartment and to her extreme shock…
She found her picture from her eighteenth birthday hanging on his wall.
Eyes widening, a quiver evoked, pushing her mind towards a turmoil of distress with endless questions like-
‘When did he take this?’
‘For how long has he been this crazy?’
‘What the fuck is wrong with him?’
Left at her edge, she glanced at William who proudly, with an impish smirk, showed her picture taken without her cognition six years ago, as if it was a masterpiece- it was, to him.
Shivering with stumbling steps, she apprehensively gripped her dress, maintaining a distance from the intimidating man, stammering.
“W-When did you…?”
Tittering at her innocently trailing off in horror, he took a large step to stand in her proximity, to sense the sound of her faint, unstable breathing.
“When did I take this picture?”
Considering it a dark chance to unveil his fantasies.
The world he created with patience, he opened his wardrobe and took out a beautiful black mermaid dress.
“When did I manage to get your prom dress?”
“What the-”
Showing it to her with a hysterical flicker, the widened smile frightening her to the core when he explicitly showed how far he had gone.
Trembling, she moved back, tears pricking in the corner, heart hammering against her ribcage as things she only wondered about were present in his room.
For how long? She had absolutely no idea.
“Or when did I get the bits of jewelry you forget about? This earring when you got your first ear piercing at sixteen?”
Laughing, he showed the jewelry he decorated in a glass box to ensure he treasured it, showing everything he collected.
“H-How? When did you…?”
Stunned, her mind went blank, absolutely startled at the revelation of his madness burning slowly over the years in his desolated heart.
Tears began to mutely rolled down when he opened a drawer and showed her another possession of hers, the ones she couldn’t care less about.
“Remember these lace gloves you absolutely loved?”
The one she forgot about and never cared…
He kept them as a treasure, as her reminder to ensure her thoughts would dwell within his soul.
“Do you remember this tissue? You especially kept a small packet of scented ones with you and gave it to me when I had flu,”
Showing it to her, he was about to go back to his wardrobe but she held his sleeves weakly, shaking her head in denial, breaking into a miserable sob.
“William, stop it, please, stop, stop,”
Afraid, she couldn’t bear witnessing his obstinacy further. He had done worse already, further of his so-called prideful show would devastate her.
“Please, please, don’t, don’t don’t-”
Grabbing her one arm harshly, he yanked her body into his.
“Too late,”
She shrieked in pain as his other hand was possessively pressed against her wet cheeks.
Forcing her to stare into his fiercity, unstoppable and profound madness. The hysterical smirk, panting, messy hair, unstable condition.
He was happy… happy that he had finally caged her in his darkness.
“Look, look, my sweetheart, I have created your spiritual presence here. Can you feel it?”
Whispering mindlessly, breathlessly, he roughly pulled away, opening his hands out to show his room, decorated to her liking, smelling like her, everything about her there.
HER.
That was all there.
Laughing at his flawlessly created room, he yelled that broke her completely.
“CAN YOU FEEL YOURSELF HERE, ARABELLA!?”
Deprived of strength, she fell on her knees. Tears stealing her sight, his obsession, his insensate condition was suffocating her.
The slightest imagination of what web of complexity she was caught into so immaculately drew a whimper as she crawled back.
“... You…”
Tremendously shaking at his craziness, she ended up sobbing, shaking her head in denial to reject this reality.
He hid this so perfectly that none doubted that the heart throbbing man would hold such a demented side.
Even during video calls, none was able to tell, his room was adorned in such a way that apart from her physical presence.
“When did you…?”
He smiled. Dangerously.
Arabella existed here, she lived here, in his mind, in his room, in his veins.
Clutching her dress, to be as far as she could which was no longer possible, her tears smeared across her cheeks, highly perturbed about the scenario.
“You have gone crazy… you are out of your mind, William,”
‘What have I done?! What the fuck have I done?!’
Yelling internally, the sound of her breaths echoed in the room, staring at the man who stood, uncaring if his hidden side finally got revealed because-
“You know what? I don’t fucking care at this point,”
Before she could get up and run out of the room, he grabbed her ankle, shifting to his knees to pull her down, hovering over her startled body.
Trailing his fingers on her side, she growled from the undesirable sensation, endeavoring to yank his hand back as he shifted to all fours.
“This is place I have created bits by bits, piece by piece so it feels like you, smell like you,”
“Leave me,”
“I told you, Arabella, didn’t I? You are going to enter our home in the end after all,”
To his vile chuckle, an endless sensation of being disheartened flared in her eyes as they gradually pulled back and sat on the ground.
Hugging her knees close to her chest, she stared at the man, who pushed his hair behind, shutting his eyes after an unimaginably long time.
On his knees, he kept his head lowered. Covering his face with his hands, he exhaled loudly, roughly, allowing the moment to sink in where he exposed his hidden side.
Certainly not in a way he imagined he would.
“What have you done to yourself, William?! What the hell have you just become?!”
She whisper-yelled, sniffling to stop her cries.
“You were the type of person who never hurt a soul, who devoted his whole life to his siblings, you sacrificed your whole life for them…”
He had no answer.
He knew he perished all sources to regain the life of an ideal man he once led nor he was that person anymore.
“And look where did you end up? Is their hatred and detachment making you feel better that you won?”
He didn’t react, eyes coated with thick unreadable clouds, becoming a cryptic person, he merely rose from the ground as she continued expressing her grief and hatred.
“Are you happy about tricking me into marrying you?!”
“I am not obliged to answer anymore. As long as you are here, nothing else matters,”
Exhaling to forge a cold frontage, he got up.
Leaving the packet of tissues in his hand on the bed and walking away, leaving her all alone and miserable in the room where all she could find… was herself.