Garden of May - Chapter 151
The rain poured down so fiercely it was impossible to see even a step ahead. A thick fog that had risen since morning blanketed everything, and the sky had darkened to the point it looked like midnight.
Finding someone in those conditions was nearly impossible. Unless by sheer chance he had been standing at the doorway.
The moment the frail silhouette of a woman, staggering along the path, faltered, he was already moving through the rain.
For a fleeting instant, he thought he felt anger. At the recklessness of someone so fragile, collapsing carelessly into the freezing downpour.
“What on earth are you doing?”
He seized the woman’s thin arm and pulled her upright. At the contact, a faint glimmer returned to her lifeless, darkened eyes.
She looked up at him for a brief moment, almost gently, as if she recognized him and then her expression crumpled, like that of a child.
“My uncle…”
That one broken sob was enough. He understood everything. Her small hand had already clutched tightly at his shirt, as if it were the last thread tying her to the world.
He cupped Vanessa’s cold cheeks in both hands and lifted her face. Leaning close, almost as if to kiss her and feel her breath. The breath was faint. So fragile it seemed it might vanish with the slightest breeze.
“River…”
Vanessa’s rain-soaked face was pitiful and at the same time, breathtakingly beautiful. Like the most radiant rose blooming in a summer garden. Like a siren calling from the depths of dark water.
Beneath her pale, drained skin, faint blue veins showed through. Her lips, chilled to a bluish hue, trembled. She lifted her gaze, like drawn to his warmth. Her eyes, shaking with instability, brimmed with tears.
“What… am I supposed to do now…?”
“Vanessa.”
“Everything is… too much… it’s too hard…”
“…Let’s go inside first. Your body temperature’s dropped too much.”
She leaned her forehead against his chest like a wounded animal. A tear slipped from her trembling lips as she struggled to steady her breathing.
“When I think about it… every time I was hurting… you came to me…”
“……”
“You’re the only one… who never… deceived me…”
He stopped breathing. He froze, unsure what to do, his hands tightening on her frail shoulders. An unfamiliar discomfort clouded his vision.
“So, River… can’t you stay… by my side?”
Her lips quivered helplessly, wet with tears mixed with rain. Her soaked clothes clung loosely to his fingers. Beneath them, her soft skin and lingering warmth felt distant.
He exhaled slowly.
“Don’t leave… even after summer ends… forever…”
Vanessa rose onto her toes and wrapped both arms desperately around his neck. Her fragile thin arms clung to him like newly grown vines. Tender, green tendrils.
He let her wrap around him completely. He didn’t dare restrain her, afraid that even the slightest force might leave a mark. Even now, that was what he feared.
Beyond the haze of rising heat, like steam dissolving into the air, he could see her trembling helplessly. Slowly, he drew her slender body into his arms. As if shielding her from the relentless rain.
It was absurd. Who was protecting whom? He had already deceived this woman.
“Theo… you mean Theodore?”
There had been so many chances to tell her the truth.
“The maids were saying some gentleman moved into that abandoned estate…”
And yet, every one of those moments, he had let them pass.
A small insignificant lie at first, had grown and grown. The price of postponing the uncomfortable emotions was this suffocating exhaustion.
“I think… you’re starting to take our relationship seriously now…”
He had known for a long time that her feelings were deepening. How could he not?
The way she was startled and looked away when their eyes met. The way her cheeks blushed whenever he drew near. The way her heart raced wildly when he held her.
Each time he faced that blind, wholehearted devotion, his possessiveness had been sated, to the point it once made it hard to breathe. Even knowing he should end it before it became something more.
“…Vanessa, I…”
Sometimes, he had imagined it. The moment this beautiful summer ended, when he would stand before her again and finally tell her the truth.
- Protected: Garden of May Chapter 152 - Jun 16, 2026
- Protected: Garden of May Chapter 151 - Jun 16, 2026
- Protected: Garden of May Chapter 150 - Jun 16, 2026
