Page 50 of Black Castle

She’s in her school uniform. Her usual maroon tie and skirt are shaded in smooth pencil strokes instead, her hair falling down her shoulders in bold waves. There is a copy of a book opened in her hands as she leans against a bookshelf.

The bookstore.

The sketchpad shakes in her hand as her fingers continue to glide through every page of the sketchpad which somehow, are never empty, filled with meticulous sketches.

At the end, she discovers that there are about forty pages total in the sketchpad. And every page features the same girl, sketched delicately with graphite.

Her.

He has been drawing her every day.

Chapter Fifteen

Vivienne

Golden Creek community park is at its best when the sun has drifted behind the horizon. The air usually turns crisp, carrying the faint scent of earth and pine.

With her tablet and stylus—the latter now permanently indenting her fingers—Vivienne leads a socially isolated, uninteresting life. So, once more, when Lucan had inquired about their destination, she was truly clueless. And after driving around yet again like the last time, they ended up at the community park.

But it’s fine, because today, there’s a hush to the atmosphere. A kind of quiet that feels like the world is exhaling after a long day.

And as shadows stretch lazily over the grass, the distant hum of cicadas weaving into the rustling of leaves and the quiet chatter of people, she thinks she wants to hug Lucan, every ounce of her pressing into every ounce of him, strong arms managing to hold her like a treasured child, reminding her of the gentle love she lost years ago.

Amidst the laughter of couples nearby, she yearns for the spark of his touch as she nestles into his arms, akin to a butterfly discovering its cocoon.

But she can’t.

When she had snapped the pages of the sketchpad shut earlier, tears had lingered in her eyes. A powerful, unfiltered, and gut-wrenching sensation had overwhelmed her. And in that instant, she had wanted to throw her arms around him.

But she didn’t. Because she couldn’t.

Just like she can’t now.

Because his closed-off nature leaves her questioning whether he’s open to physical affection. She can’t tell if he’s feeling the magic in the air like she is.

“Fuck.”

She has barely broken her gaze away from his face when he suddenly utters the word under his breath.

“What?” she asks, searching his face. He doesn’t answer, but there’s a muscle suddenly stretching behind his ear. Finally, she follows his line of vision until her eyes rest on his hands.

They are trembling. Extremely.

“Oh, my god,” she whispers, adjusting on the bench, her knee bumping into his right one. “Are you okay?”

His right fingers are pressing into his thigh, while his left ones are slowly loosening around the water bottle he had grabbed from the car earlier.

She hesitantly looks up at him, then gently pulls the bottle from his loose grip.

His eyes have darkened and there’s another large vein stretching down his temple, his skin slightly flushed.

His jaw ticks in such a fleeting motion it’s almost hard to notice. “I’m okay,” he says, voice calm, but she still hears the strain in it.

“Are you sure?” Her face is a canvas of distress as her eyes return to his hands. But the tremor that had worried her briefly either vanished miraculously or he figured out how to control it.

“Do you want us to go somewhere else?” she asks, looking around the park.

Initially, only three couples were present, their arrival making it four. However, sunset seems to have brought a significant increase in attendance. Now the tranquil park will soon become a bustling marketplace. And Lucan hates crowded places, especially the one where people are making a hell lot of noise.

---