Episode 1 : Wife’s Confession
Sometimes, we realize too late that nothing in the world is eternal.
One can become two, and what was once whole can become half again.
It can take someone too long to realize that the changes are not necessarily of their own choosing, like a soft balloon that inflates and then suddenly deflates.
I was that someone.
And it took me a long time to realize this simple truth.
Someone once said that hatred destroys the world and love rebuilds it.
They said that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and if you flip it over, the other hidden side will appear.
I scoffed at this.
Not only did I disagree, but I also asserted that whoever came up with this was indulging in dramatic self-justification, using the convenient term “ambivalence” to rationalize all their illogicalities.
To cut to the chase, I was not wrong.
I neither confused love with hate nor did I mix them.
At least, I could end one before its color faded and start the other.
This time was no different. The question is, which came first, love or hate?
I didn’t love my husband.
No, I hated him. I loathed him. I wished he was not beside me.
During the five years of our marriage, short if you consider it short, long if you consider it long, there wasn’t a single day I did not despise him.
He destroyed my family, annihilated my kin, and took everything I had.
I had to descend to increasingly lower levels from the position I had barely maintained, deprived of my freedom. I felt miserable, humiliated, and afraid.
However, that was not the reason I hated him. Because the things that were taken from me were also things my husband had already lost.
He lost the chance to eat and learn, lost his family and loved ones, and had every opportunity that should have been his stripped away.
And it was my father who took it from him and placed it in the hands of me and my brothers.
In reclaiming what was rightfully his, I never tried to undermine his sense of justice, even if I lamented the twisted fate that led to our circumstances.
Ironically, I was a rather fair person. Before I could describe my life so calmly, I was righteous, and thus impulsive and emotional.
“Beasts only listen when they are beaten.”
I could never stop the lashes raining down on the back of a young boy who hadn’t yet matured. I hesitated, unable to overcome my father, who seemed as vast as a great fortress.
“Stop it, stop it!”
“It’s because of you that this wretch doesn’t know his place.”
My father ignored me. To him, I was as insignificant as the target of his relentless whipping.
“If you keep this up, the dog you’re raising will bite you back.”
“Ugh…….”
“Father, please!”
With each word, the whip’s speed increased, and the groans grew more frequent.
I knew. I knew that if I intervened any further, I would become the target of my father’s wrath.
He was not a man who would easily overlook a challenge to his authority.
“Get out of the way, Ezen! Just because you grew up without a mother, I have been too lenient with you, and now you are insolent beyond measure!”
Even if it meant turning on his own flesh and blood.
My human sense of guilt could not surpass my personal fear. I already knew how thick my father’s hands were and how intimidating the speed of his strikes could be.
Though the wounds had healed, the memories still bore fresh scars. And so, cowardly as I was, I could do nothing.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I…….”
I was a hypocrite.
I tried to ease my guilt by clumsily applying ointment to the wounds of the abandoned sick man, who lay writhing all night, tears streaming down my face.
I never truly stopped my father, nor did I have the courage to return what he had taken from the boy and handed over to me. Yet, I endlessly poured out my cheap sympathy.
Surely, he must have noticed that hypocrisy.
I knew that one day his blue eyes, looking up at me as I cried and applied the ointment, would be filled with contempt.
Despite being deprived of every opportunity, his innate talent still shone.
The boy had already surpassed my brother’s skills in the classes he was skipping, much to the horror of my father, who was extremely wary of him excelling.
The only reason my father kept him alive was to mock the last heir of the Moor family, to keep him beneath his feet and make his life miserable.
But his malicious desire turned to fear when he realized the boy’s talent was growing day by day.
“Run away. Don’t come back. Never, ever come back.”
The day I realized my father was finally going to kill him, I secretly left the castle. It was my first act of rebellion against my father.
But it didn’t completely free myself from the deep-seated fear ingrained in my bones.
With trembling hands, I struck a match several times before setting fire to the shabby hut where he stayed.
The small hut, infested with rats and insects, was a place even the lowest servant wouldn’t stay in. My father had placed him there to humiliate him.
In this place, he was not even treated as a servant. He was more like a slave.
When I pulled him out and handed him the bundle I had prepared, he looked up at me with clear eyes that remained untainted even in such a filthy place.
“What did I do wrong to you all?”
Being sharp, he realized immediately. It was the first and last conversation we ever had.
He asked what he had done wrong, what sin he had committed to deserve losing everything and eventually his life.
I had no answer. On top of his suffering, I lived my freedom. I knew now that I could neither give it back nor take it away.
I was still helpless.
“…… I don’t expect forgiveness…… So, never……”
“I have no intention of forgiving.”
He cut me off, deeming my words unworthy of consideration. The silent boy who had endured the violence without complaint was gone.
“…… You must go quickly. There’s no time. My father will come, so hurry. Here, this is all I have, but it should help you escape. So please, go quickly…….”
My heart pounded wildly, as if my father might burst out and grab me by the neck at any moment.
He looked down at me with cold eyes.
“You’ll regret letting me go.”
Those were his final words as he left the castle.
Uttered in a voice so low it almost seemed monotonous, the sentence felt like a curse.
“Hurry, go.” I pushed him away.
“Don’t come back until you have the strength.”
I hid my trembling lips as best I could.
“Never, never come back. Cliff Moore.”
For the first time, his name slipped out of my mouth. His dark gaze looked down at me quietly.
“Remember that, Ezen Crawford.”
It was also the first time he called my name.
I looked up in surprise, but he had already leaped over the iron gate of the secret passage and disappeared into the surrounding darkness.
Staring into the pitch-black void, I shivered with fear.
I had unleashed a beast, not knowing when it might return to tear at my throat.
However, the guilt that had oppressed me my entire life, that unspeakable debt, began to ease its grip on my throat.
I sensed that the time for true atonement was approaching.
