1 Chapter 1 - In This Past Life
I never treated my wife well.
Not once did I look at her.
He honestly thought she liked it better that way, but was wrong all this time.
The man was truly ignorant. Ignorant to the shame and humiliation she suffered soon after their marriage.
"The Duke doesn't even care about her."
"It's like she's not the Duchess at all."
"She must've displeased him."
If he'd known. No, if he'd bothered to even ask, He would've done something. She never once complained. Never complained when she was ignored, mistreated, or forgotten. The fineries of the other noble women, the niceties, were all but a distant dream to her. So neglectful, that he couldn't send her a jewel to compensate. Though, a single jewel would just be a mockery.
At age 23, she conceived a child. And when the child was born, he didn't hold it.
He looked at it from a distance.
"He's yours to take care of." He had said coldly.
Why did he say that?
His own parents never showed him love. What you were never given, you can't give. Incapable of receiving too.
Stay out of the picture like your father did. He thought. You grew up just fine.
Stay out of it. Your father never treated her right when he talked to her anyways, what makes you any less likely?
You can't love.
No. You're just the same.
She only looked at him blankly, a dim light fading from her eyes. The look of a woman who had stopped hoping for anything. Like a doll, she gave him a mechanical response.
"I see."
At age 27, on his son's 4th birthday, he lost them both to a carriage accident.
You're like your father. Just like him. Neglectful bastard. You didn't deserve either of them. Just die.
The words of his mother came to haunt him as they always did, but unlike before, they were so loud and clear. It was the truth, wasn't it? So why did it hurt when it was expected?
You don't deserve to be loved or forgiven.
That's right. He thought. The emptiness sinks in. This is what I deserve.
The numbness of loss takes root in a heart that beats for the sake of beating.
It should just stop doing so.
-
It was sudden, but he awoke to the bright sun rays in a familiar room. A familiar feeling of complete loneliness, and the scent of jasmine.
"Leyena?" She was fast asleep, on the other side of the bed.
It must've been a dream.
He saw her corpse that day. How it was caked in a color 5 shades too pale. How it was put in the ground and left in the rain. How his son's lie right next to hers. It was laughable. How he missed their first night, every single one of their birthdays, but didn't miss the funeral. How he pretended to care, and how he wore a solemn expression he didn't deserve to in front of her parents.
Everyone knew how to feel but he didn't.
He stroked the hair upon her head.
A cruel dream. It feels all too real.
He lifted the covers and draped them over her so that they keep her completely engulfed within them. There was a mole under her eye he never noticed.
He didn't know her.
The woman he married was simply a stranger.
"I'm sorry." He whispered.
"For everything."
He quickly walked out the door, and shut it behind him, carefully as to not wake her.
The estate was decorated meticulously like it always was. Cleaned until it sparkled day and night, windows so clear that it seemed there was no glass. In the hazy afternoon light of the hallway, he saw Henry, his son.
They looked so similar. The same jet black hair and dark eyes, but he had his mother's demeanor. Calm, collected, yet so melancholy and distant.
"Greetings father." The boys eyes were so cold. He never thought a child would be capable of such an expression, especially a three year old one.
"Hello." Shame. He felt so much of it. His own child didn't seem like his own.
A product of neglect.
"I'll be going father." His small frame began to walk towards the master's bedroom, where his mother was sleeping. It was only natural that they stuck together.
He did this to himself after all.
"Wait," He called.
"Yes father?"
"How are your," He muttered, "your classes going?"
The boy looked taken aback, mortified even.
"They're okay."
"I see."
Before he could finish speaking, the child disappeared into the room.
He stood facing the door, the closed door.
It was closed because of him.
It was a door he didn't deserve to open.
-
