Lie Again! Chapter 63

<Chapter 63. The Scent of Rose (2)> 

 

After three stubborn attempts, Brody finally gave in and stepped back, sneaking a glance at Henry.

 

In the voice telling him he couldn’t do it, there was a subtle hope that he would fail. Brody tried to act composed, but sometimes he revealed his jealousy of Henry in this way.

 

Henry, instead of replying, let out a small grin and stared at the wall. The towering structure blocked about half of the sunlight streaming down. 

 

He stepped closer to the wall and ran his fingertips along its surface. 

 

As Brody had said, the gray surface of the wall left almost no space to grip, as if it had been carved from a single massive block of granite. But there was something Brody didn’t know.

 

Henry Butterfield was the type who grew even more fired up by difficult challenges—and if someone dared to think of him as a rival, it made his skin itch with the urge to trample them decisively, just to prove a point. 

 

Finding a tiny groove between the stones, Henry planted his hands and pulled himself up. Beneath his short sleeves, sun-kissed forearms flexed, suddenly asserting their presence. 

 

With a push of his legs, his large frame scaled the wall with surprising agility. 

 

From below came the sounds of his friends’ admiration, Brody’s included. Spurred on by their reactions, he swiftly reached the top of the wall. 

 

The Rose Mansion, long the subject of rumors, now lay before him. A sprawling garden carpeted with green grass, a well-maintained stone path leading from the front gate to the house, and a European-style mansion painted entirely white, without a single streak of rain on its exterior. 

 

The otherwise plain white mansion was transformed into a picturesque scene by the bright red rose bushes surrounding it. Henry, pleasantly taking in the view, soon spotted a girl among the blooming summer roses.

 

A girl running through the garden, laughing, with a small white puppy that looked like something a royal princess might cradle on her lap. She wore a skirt that swayed around her ankles, completely oblivious to the latest trends like crop tops or slip dresses outside. 

 

Her brown hair bounced on her shoulders, and with each step, the hem of her skirt swirled, revealing calves that gleamed pale in the sunlight. 

 

Whoooosh—a sudden gust of wind swept over the mansion, the white puppy, the girl, and the rose bushes in turn. 

 

The scent of roses blossomed and filled the air in every direction.

 

The moment he finally met the girl’s green eyes, Henry fell in love instantly.

 

“Your mother was different. I’m not saying she was special compared to other women. In fact, Jacqueline, like the others, liked my looks, and when I reached out, she shyly intertwined her fingers with mine.”

 

The red lure drifted along the current toward his feet. Yet his eyes were focused elsewhere.

 

“The difference was me. Every time Jacqueline blushed, it felt as if the whole world bloomed like a rose.” 

 

In his father’s voice, Evan could still hear the excitement of a boy experiencing his first crush. The hand that had been slowly reeling in the line had come to a stop. 

 

“When I lay down to sleep, her green eyes would haunt me, and seeing her smile at someone else would make me angry. She just wouldn’t leave my mind easily.” 

 

“….”

 

Hearing his father talk about his mother from the past felt strange. All Evan remembered from the two of them were his mother’s screams, his father’s sighs, and her back turned away from him. 

 

He couldn’t imagine that they had such a past.

 

“Someday, it’ll probably happen to you too. Someone who won’t let you have your way, someone who takes up space in your mind and refuses to leave, no matter how hard you try.” 

 

Someone I can’t control. Someone who won’t leave my mind. Evan repeated it quietly to himself. 

 

He already knows someone like that.

 

Scenes flashed rapidly before his eyes.

 

The girl who threw stones on the campus when everyone was in class, the girl who deliberately broke everything and glared, the girl who silently stared into his eyes under the sunlight in the chemistry lab, the girl who laughed with Evan, the girl who quietly showed her anger, the girl with the sulky face, the girl who avoided his trembling gaze, the girl who grabbed his collar, the girl who laughed drenched, the girl whose heartbeat pounded against his chest… Jin.

 

Ah, I…for her. 

 

The river flowed quietly. The winter sun shattered into white along the ripples. Evan, watching the sparkling surface, clenched his hand into a fist.

 

He wanted to see her.

 

He wanted to run straight to North River Street and knock on the attic window. If he threw a stone at the window, half-covered by a blue curtain, a white hand would soon appear to unlock it. Then the window would swing open, revealing those sparkling black eyes.

 

Her face, looking down with a helpless smile—he couldn’t bear how much he wanted to see it.

 

“Dad, I…”

 

“I have to go,” Evan was about to say when he opened his mouth.

 

“If someone like that appears, Evan, be careful not to fall too deeply.”

 

Henry spoke softly.

 

Startled by the unexpected words, Evan froze. The boy who had once fallen in love was gone, leaving only a middle-aged man full of regret.

 

Henry turned his head, and his eyes met Evan’s.

 

“Otherwise, you’ll end up like me. And that makes life impossible to get a handle on.” 

 

He smiled bitterly.

 

* * *

 

[You’re not sick, right? …See you at school.]

 

Evan stared quietly at the last message he had received from Jin. It had become a strange habit of his lately—constantly opening messages he knew he wouldn’t reply to. He knew it was a meaningless act, yet he couldn’t stop.

 

A week passed in the blink of an eye, and he barely even noticed how the time had gone by.

 

Throughout the trip, his father rattled off stories he had been holding onto, jumping from topic to topic. Damp winters in New York, Evan’s path after graduation, recent lawsuits that had been giving him headaches—he tossed a jumble of subjects onto the tip of his tongue. 

 

There was only one topic he kept silent about—his mother—but now, under the influence of alcohol, he seemed to regret dredging up the past.

 

Yet that deliberate silence only made Evan dwell even more on the words his father had spoken.

 

‘My relationship with Jacqueline was one that would hurt each other if we stayed too close for too long, but I was so caught up in my feelings that I ignored it.’

 

Saying this, Henry quietly watched the winter river flow by.

 

Evan understood perfectly what he meant. Their marriage had been like a circle without a beginning or an end. 

 

A father like the wind—untamable, wild, and free. A mother fragile and sensitive, like a rose nurtured in a greenhouse.

 

Henry, restless and eager to escape the confines of home, and Jacqueline, increasingly obsessively clingy—their endless, spinning cycle of conflict.

 

‘I thought that with a heart as big as mine, such trivial matters would just fade away. But over time, what faded wasn’t our flaws—it was the passion that once burned between us.’

 

Whenever his mother cried and blamed his father, he would always sigh and turn his back on her. Later, after cooling off outside, he would return and hold her tightly as she screamed hysterically—holding her until she calmed down.

 

After that, peace would return. On days when the three of them went on even a short outing, they held hands tenderly and never let go. Before Evan went to bed, they would kiss his forehead in turn, and his mother would rest her head on his father’s shoulder with a happy smile. 

 

His father pressed a kiss to his mother’s head. It was the picture of a family straight out of a painting. 

 

Yet Evan knew it was not an end, only a truce. In that precarious calm, like the night before a storm, he counted the days until the next battle would erupt.

 

Soon, like a flare, screams would ring out, and the all-too-familiar cycle would unfold again—his mother crying, his father sighing.

 

Evan remembered how it always ended for the two of them.

 

Because of you—if it hadn’t been for you, I would have…! 

 

Hearing the all-too-familiar high-pitched voice, Evan, who had stepped into the kitchen, covered his ears. He planned to hide inside the room until his mother calmed down—nothing would get through to her in that state. 

 

F*CK!

 

But his steps toward the room came to an abrupt halt at the sound of a loud shout reverberating through the living room. He lowered his hands from his ears and turned his head.

 

There, his father was cursing and pounding his fists against the living room windows. “F*ck, f*ck, f*ck…!” He vented his anger relentlessly, striking again and again.

 

Before he knew it, his mother’s shouting had abruptly stopped. The parents, both dazed, stared at a man they had never seen before. 

 

The man who had been cheerfully horsing around with him before now seemed completely different, cursing at the air like a madman. What welled up inside him was closer to a roar than to anger. 

 

In the silence, the sound of the man’s fists smashing something rang out violently. The woman, staring blankly at him, panted heavily as if what he was striking were her.

 

Thud, thud. Ugh… ugh. 

 

Evan turned his eyes away from his parents and covered his ears, just as he always did when the war broke out. Yet the sound poured in through his hair, his skin, and his insides, taking the place of his eardrums.

 

Thud, thud.

 

It was the sound of something the woman had endured for a long time—or something the man had held onto for just as long—shattering.

 

The man, who had finally smashed the window, left the house with his hands bleeding and did not return.

 

That marked the end for the three-person family. After several bitter divorce battles, the large house was left empty, with only shattered glass remnants remaining, and the cherry trees in the garden were cut down.

 

“Evan, the kids are over there.”

 

With a subdued expression, Evan looked up from his phone at the hand tugging and shaking the sleeve of his clothes.

 

His indifferent gaze, returning to Olivia Clarke, suddenly halted as it caught sight of something black clinging to the corner of his vision.

 

At the end of the hallway, amid the blur of passing people, there she was.

 

She alone stood out clearly, as if the world around her had blurred away.