Chapter 3

When Asher was dragged away from the commercial district by security, the hem of his black coat swept through puddles, splashing mud onto the cuffs of his white shirt. He seemed soul-less, letting himself be manhandled. Only after being shoved into the Bentley did he suddenly go mad, pounding the steering wheel, the horn wailing mournfully through the empty streets. "Impossible..." he repeated, his knuckles turning white from the force. "How could..." I floated in the passenger seat, watching him pull out his wallet from his inner suit pocket and take out a photo tucked inside. It was a group photo from six years ago, Olivia standing on tiptoe leaning against his shoulder. And I stood two steps away, holding a freshly bought milk tea, smiling like an idiot. That was the first time I'd gathered the courage to offer him a drink, but Olivia suddenly appeared from behind him, snatched the milk tea, and threw it on the ground, saying, "Clara, how could you give Asher such cheap stuff?" Back then, Asher frowned at me, the disdain in his eyes piercing my heart like needles. Now that I think about it, Olivia's fingers gripping his arm were white at the knuckles from the force. The car wandered aimlessly through the streets, eventually stopping at the back gate of my family's villa. There was an old locust tree there—my secret base for drawing when I was a child. Asher stumbled toward it, clutching the rough bark as he retched, stomach acid burning his throat like swallowing knives. "Remember something?" I crouched beside him, watching his fingers trace the faint carvings on the tree trunk. I'd carved them on my fifteenth birthday—a crooked "Asher" next to a sun with jagged rays. He suddenly hugged the tree trunk and wept, his cries startling the sparrows from the branches. "You spent the whole afternoon drawing here that day..." His voice was choked with sobs. "I thought you were cursing me, so I threw away all your art supplies..." Of course I remembered. That day, Olivia had told him I'd carved insults about him on the tree. When he stormed into the yard, sunlight filtering through the leaves fell on his face, and I could even see the dust on his eyelashes. Without a word, he overturned my easel, paint splattering across my new sketchbook, staining it a dirty purple. So he knew all along—he just pretended not to. Asher began obsessively searching for everything about Olivia. He broke into the apartment she'd lived in, rummaging through a camphorwood chest in the bottom of the wardrobe until he found a locked wooden box. When he pried it open, a musty smell mixed with perfume wafted out. Inside weren't love letters, but a stack of thick diaries and a bundle of photos. The Olivia in the photos and the handwriting in the diaries were like two different people. "Saw that idiot Clara drawing again today. Does she really think being good at art will make Asher choose her?" "Switched her heart medication with vitamins on purpose. So satisfying to see her face turn pale. Asher thought she was faking illness for sympathy." "The necklace Asher gave me is so pretty, much better than Clara's cheap trinket. But I have to make sure she sees it—it'll piss her off." The diary slipped from his hands, falling onto the scattered photos. In one photo, Olivia was holding my sketchbook and smiling. The book had a drawing of Asher and me from behind. I'd drawn it secretly, but she found it and tore it to shreds, crying in front of him, saying, "Clara doesn't like me. She made our picture look so ugly." Asher suddenly grabbed the wooden box and smashed it against the wall. Amid the sound of things shattering, I heard his teeth grinding. "All these years... I've been fooled by you..." He crouched among the fragments, not even noticing his fingers being cut by the broken glass from a photo frame. Drops of blood fell on Olivia's photo, covering her smug smile, just like that time she deliberately knocked over a bowl of hot soup, scalding blisters onto my wrist, while he stood by saying, "It's just a minor burn. Is it worth crying over?" That night, Asher locked himself in that apartment. At 5 a.m., he suddenly rushed out, running barefoot toward the cemetery. As dawn broke, he punched the cold stone tablet again and again, until his knuckles bled and the photo on the tablet cracked like a spiderweb. "You liar..." He pressed his forehead against the stone, his voice hoarse as if sandpapered. "You killed her, and then made me hate her all these years..."