Chapter 271: 271/The Morning of Denial
Chapter 271:
Julie’s POV
I literally froze in place. It felt as if the blood had stopped flowing in my veins just hearing that word. I didn’t show any reaction, as if the hands of the clock had suddenly stopped turning to make way for this confession to echo deep within me. For a moment, I thought perhaps I had drowned in a distant rosy dream, or that my exhausted mind had begun to hallucinate what I longed to hear... Was it possible, after all this imprisonment and humiliation, for his tongue to utter the words "I love you"?
In all those desolate nights I spent waiting for him to say it, he said it now in this moment when I expected nothing but more cruelty.
A sweeping wave of joy flooded my being, a joy mingled with a staggering disbelief that paralyzed my movement. I buried my face in his broad chest, inhaling his scent and trying to grasp the reality of what I had heard, while my limbs remained paralyzed partly from the sheer shock, and partly from the remnants of pleasure still coursing through my body like a hidden electric current.
Finally, after a silent struggle to pull myself together and overcome the impact of that word which left me speechless, I raised my head very slowly to look into his eyes, to see the love he had confessed... but I found he had fallen into a deep sleep. His steady breathing told me clearly that he had departed to the world of dreams.
I exhaled in frustration, saying with a slight resentment and disappointment I couldn’t suppress: "Asleep? Did he really fall asleep that fast?" I rested my head back on his chest, deciding within myself not to let anything spoil the radiance of that word. I hugged him tightly as if fearing he would evaporate, and surrendered to a deep sleep beside him, drowning in the illusion of happiness.
In the morning, I felt his movement as his massive frame rose from the bed. I opened my eyes with a delicious sleepiness, a smile automatically forming on my lips as I remembered last night. I looked at him infatuatedly and said in a tender voice: "Good morning."
But he didn’t turn to me. Instead, he walked toward the bathroom with heavy, cold steps, completely ignoring my existence as if I were a piece of furniture in the room. I rose behind him with a tired body that moaned from the exertion of the previous night, finding him leaning down to pick up his scattered, neglected clothes from the bathroom floor. A prickle of anxiety hit me, so I said again in a slightly higher tone, trying to catch his attention: "Robert... good morning."
No response came from him, and I felt a painful contraction in my heart. My God, what’s wrong with him? Why is he treating me with this lethal coldness after everything that happened between us last night? Was that "I love you" just the effect of the liquor? He put on his trousers and shirt with speed and irritation.
I walked toward him with hesitant steps and approached him, attempting to close his open shirt buttons with my trembling hands, like a wife trying to care for her husband.
But he didn’t give me the chance. He removed my hand from his shirt with a sudden violence and cruelty that made me take a step back from the shock. His gaze was as sharp as blades, completely devoid of any hint of the tenderness he had shown yesterday. He spoke with a sharpness and coldness that froze the blood in my veins: "Don’t touch me!"
I stood in my place, shock paralyzing my limbs, as if a powerful slap had landed on my face to wake me from a rosy dream that lasted only hours. I looked at him, my eyes widening in a shock I couldn’t hide, and said in a muffled voice that almost vanished between my gasps: "What are you doing, Robert? Are you playing with me? Have I become just a doll in your hands?"
He didn’t bother to respond; he continued putting on his jacket with an icy coldness that killed every spark of hope still pulsing in my chest. I felt the heat of tears burning my eyes before they slid down profusely. I cried out to him in a breakdown: "Yesterday you came to me in your hour of greatest need... you said you missed me, and you fucked me... and more importantly than all of that, you whispered in my ear and said you love me!"
He suddenly stopped moving and turned his massive body toward me, but his features were devoid of any expression, as if he were looking at a stranger he didn’t know. He looked into my eyes with a cold disbelief, then spoke in a dry tone devoid of any emotion: "I never said that nonsense... you are hallucinating."
I screamed in a total breakdown, my chest heaving violently: "Yes... you did say it! I heard your voice, I felt your tone piercing my heart... you said ’I love you, Julie’!"
He replied with a cruelty that made my heart contract as if an iron hand were squeezing it: "You suffer from a vivid imagination... you are imagining things that only happened in your small head."
I stepped toward him with unsteady steps, my body still shaking from the aftershocks of last night. I said in a voice filled with oppression: "Fine, let’s assume I imagined the word ’love’. Am I imagining your presence now? Was I imagining you as you slept beside me in bed minutes ago? Weren’t you in my arms?"
He looked away from me with boredom and annoyance, as if I were a bothersome child asking for something impossible. He said in a sharp tone: "I’m in no mood for this nonsense and excessive drama... stop this."
I whispered with a bitter gall: "Nonsense? Everything that happened between us, you call it nonsense?"
