Chapter 16
Winter in Dunmoor came in swift and merciless waves:
Juliet exhaled softly, fogging up a small patch of the glass window. Then, she absentmindedly traced random lines with her fingertip.
The table next to her was buried under piles of sketches and drafts.
As the fog slowly faded, she turned to look back at the sketch of an incomplete butterfly. She twirled a pencil between her fingers before pressing it hard against the paper to draw a long, dark streak.
“Julo, Chanel just placed an order for every prototype of your ‘Broken Wings’ collection!”
Juliet’s mentor, Marilyn Vivienne, barged into the studio with windblown hair and raised a glass of champagne. But she stopped short when she saw the floor littered with crumpled
sketches.
“Oh, this is something to celebrate, sweetheart! You should be standing under the spotlight or at a lively party, not holed up here.” Marilyn set the champagne aside and carefully stepped over the crumpled paper balls.
Juliet didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, she bent down and picked up a sketch stained with coffee. The golden sparkles on the butterfly wings scattered all over the floor.
“It doesn’t hurt… enough,” she murmured. Her fingernails dug into her palm, pressing against an old and faint brownish scar.
“A butterfly that truly ecloses should be born with blood.”
She was dressed in long sleeves and sweatpants, and only her neck remained bare in the heated studio. The glass window reflected her latest butterfly tattoo just below her ear, its split wings covering a scar from getting hit by the chandelier in the past.
“Oh, thank God you’re here, Locke! I can’t keep Julo’s eyes on me. She ignores every word I say outside of class!”
“I got it, Ms. Vivienne.”
The flamboyant Marilyn pressed a hand to her chest and showered Nate Lockwood with praise. Then, she turned and happily left her student in someone else’s hands.
“Have something to eat. A designer fainting over their drafting table isn’t something we’re exactly going for.”
Juliet finally looked up from her sketches.
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Nate leaned against the doorway with one hand holding two takeaway coffee cups and the other gripping an insulated bag. The cuffs of his sleeves were still stained with glue from architectural models.
But all Juliet could smell was the aroma of food.
He unpacked the containers one by one to reveal a smoked salmon wrap and a poke bowl… Each container held her favorite food.
Watching him carefully set up the table, Juliet was reminded of the first time she met Nate.
The first time he showed up at her apartment door after she arrived in Lundenmire, she braced herself by instinct and tensed up.
“Ms. Marlowe, I’m Nate Lockwood, or you could call me Locke. Henry sent me here to care for
you,
and I brought you a few things to start.
He stood in the snow, dressed in a tall and neat black coat. She could see the corners of a few
books peeking out from the brown paper bag in his hand.
Instead of taking it, she said in a cold tone, “Thank you, but I don’t need it.”
She didn’t need the books or his so-called care. She understood Henry’s worry, she had no energy to build new connections.
“I can take care of myself, and don’t worry because I won’t tell Henry a thing.”
but right now,
Nate didn’t seem annoyed by her rejection. He chucked slightly and said, “Henry told me you love Aurora Leigh. This is the Hestonese version of ‘Only a Lifetime Too Short,’ and you can’t buy it domestically.”
Juliet’s fingers twitched. Of course, she remembered how much she used to love that book. She had even copied lines from it in her diary-“We’re never getting back together, Lucian.”
Back then, she believed her story with Damien would be different, but the world was never full of exceptions.
“No… I don’t read it anymore, Someone like me now doesn’t deserve something that good.” Her voice was so soft that it was almost swallowed by the falling snow.
Nate didn’t move and stood there, watching her quietly. His eyes were dark, but unlike Damien’s condescending gaze, they held the quiet depth of an ocean and seemed to absorb every storm without judgment.
“A book doesn’t judge if you deserve it, only if you want to read it,” he said softly before bending over to set the paper bag on the shelf. Then, he stepped back.
“If you change your mind, I live in the building next door.” He turned and disappeared down
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the hallway.
After a long while, Juliet closed the door and collapsed against it, taking slow, deep breaths. She thought she’d cry, but when she touched her cheek, it was dry. She wanted to cry, but her eyes only felt raw and empty.
Later, Nate never approached her again, and she assumed that would be the end of it.
But she started “coincidentally” running into him at the library, or he’d give her a cup of her usual black coffee by chance.
Once, when she worked late into the night and even nearly fainted in the studio from low blood sugar, a cup of warm milk slid across the desk.
“Have something.” Nate’s voice came from above her head.
Startled, she looked up. “How did you…”
“I heard someone needed free labor, so I’m here,” he said, handing her the milk. “Don’t worry. My hands are steady enough for model work.”
She was sipping on the warm milk when she looked up at the rustle of papers. He had picked up one of her sketches and was studying it intently as if he were examining a grand piece of architecture.
Then, he pointed to the folds on the skirt design. “Here. If you adjust this to an asymmetric curve, won’t it look more like a butterfly wing mid-flutter?”
Juliet froze. This was the first time someone saw through the hidden metaphor in her Broken Wings collection. The jagged lines and deliberate imperfections were all her wounds she could never speak aloud.
