Chapter 103: I love you immensely
"Don’t run," she stuttered and murmured under her breath.
The room was dark and peaceful, but on the other side of the bed, Julie was drenched in sweat.
Her sheets clung to her damp skin, and her chest rose and fell with uneven breaths.
Her long lashes fluttered as her eyes moved rapidly beneath her lids, caught between sleep and the world that haunted her dreams.
"Come back, come here!!!"
The little girl screamed, her voice sharp and frantic, chasing after the silhouette of a wolf disappearing into the mist.
It was the same house again—the one that stood tall atop the mountain, looming like a powerful soldier returned from an ancient war.
Its stone walls were covered in frost, and its pointed roof sliced through the grey sky like a blade.
Cold wind howled, rattling through the pines, echoing like whispers of forgotten memories.
The girl in red, wearing a knitted scarf and matching gloves, ran barefoot over the frozen ground.
Her small hands reached out, trembling, trying to pull the wolf back to her side.
It was close—she could see it.
For a moment, it was just ahead of her, pacing gently, its silver fur shimmering beneath the moonlight.
Then, suddenly—it vanished.
"Where did it go?" the little girl—none other than the younger Julie—cried out, spinning in place. Panic welled in her tiny chest as her voice cracked.
"Where are you? Don’t you want to go back home with me?"
Her voice trembled as her eyes filled with tears, hot and heavy, despite the freezing wind slicing her cheeks.
"Please come back... Ah—Ah..." she whimpered, walking forward with hesitant, wobbling steps.
Then she ran.
Branches whipped past her face, and the cold scraped her skin. Her breath came in clouds, growing faster, shorter, desperate.
She tried to get a glimpse—just a glimpse of the wolf again. But as she took another step forward—
she tumbled.
The earth dropped beneath her feet. The slope was steeper than she realized—slick with snow and lined with jagged ice.
"Ah!"
She slid, twisting. Her head struck a sharp, frozen stone.
A flash of white.
A jolt of pain.
---
"Ah... Haah!" Julie jolted awake with a cry, her body snapping upright as though yanked from the nightmare.
Her eyes were wide, red-rimmed, and filled with tears, like someone who hadn’t slept in days.
Beside her, Roman sat up instantly, his deep voice laced with concern. "Love, what’s wrong?"
"Roman, it’s me..." she whispered with a trembling voice, tears still streaming down her cheeks as the images of the dream clung to her like smoke.
Roman reached for her, lifting her gently. "Come, sit," he said softly, propping a pillow behind her so she could lean against it.
Julie clutched his hand. "Roman, I saw the dream again. It’s no doubt—it’s me."
She said it all in one breath, her voice shaking, fear and recognition coursing through every word.
---
Roman listened in silence as he reached for the clear jar of water on the side table.
The soft clink of glass echoed in the stillness of the room as he poured the cool liquid into a crystal cup.
His movements were gentle, unhurried—anchoring.
"Okay, come. Drink some water," he said softly, bringing the glass to her trembling lips.
Julie’s hands didn’t move, but she leaned in slightly.
Slowly, she sipped the water, letting the coolness coat her dry throat and settle the pounding in her chest.
Her heart still raced in her ribcage, wild and uneven, and her breath came out in short, shallow waves.
Roman’s eyes never left her. "Calm down," he murmured, his voice a soothing balm.
She couldn’t answer—only breathe.
"Calm down," he repeated more softly as he pulled her gently back into his arms, his hand slipping behind her head to pat her hair slowly, rhythmically.
The scent of her sleep-warmed skin and the dampness of fear still clinging to her made his hold even more tender.
She melted against him like a child coming down from a storm, the way only someone who had felt utterly lost could.
Gradually, her breathing slowed. The rise and fall of her chest steadied, and her shoulders stopped shaking.
She pulled away first—just a little—and leaned back against the pillow, her fingers lightly gripping the edge of the sheet.
"You alright now?" Roman asked, his voice low, watching her closely.
Julie nodded, her eyes still glassy but no longer frantic.
"I’m now all ears," he said gently, his posture open, calm—but his gaze sharp and focused.
Julie took a deep breath and started to speak.
She told him everything.
As the words left her mouth—about the dream, the little girl, the wolf, the house, the snow, and the fall—Roman’s expression changed.
His brows furrowed slightly, and his eyes narrowed as though seeing something beyond the room.
"So that means... your parents lived on a mountain?" he asked slowly, carefully. "Where the weather is cold... and lastly, you said it was snowing, right?"
Julie nodded, her movements slow, as though the memories themselves weighed her down.
Roman watched her in silence.
Julie leaned back deeper into the pillow, her face tilted to the side, her eyes fixed on him—but distant.
The flickering light from the bedside lamp glinted against her damp skin and cast shadows beneath her lashes.
She wasn’t crying anymore, but her silence carried a deeper ache.
Roman studied her for a moment longer.
"Are you alright, Julie?" he asked again, his voice low but firm.
She didn’t respond.
Her lips quivered faintly, and her eyes seemed to carry the weight of memories she couldn’t yet touch—memories that felt like frost pressed against warm skin.
She wasn’t asleep, but somewhere far away.
And Roman stayed right there, quiet, steady—waiting for her to return.
---
Raising her eyes slowly to look at him, Julie sniffled, a fragile sound in the quiet room.
She took a shaky breath, her chest rising with the weight of something that had been buried for far too long.
Her lips parted as though they were afraid to form the words, but the truth had already risen too far to be swallowed.
"Why couldn’t they just tell me?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "That they’re not my real parents... Why couldn’t they say it, Roman? At least then I’d know what it is. At least then I could name what that treatment was for..."
Her words dissolved into silence as tears welled in her eyes again, sliding down her cheeks without resistance.
Her voice was barely above a breath, yet it carried the weight of years she had spent carrying questions that had no answers.
"Roman... it’s painful," she said, her voice cracked with rawness, "It hurts so much."
Her hand moved to her chest and pressed into it as if trying to calm the sharp twist in her heart that no words could ease.
"I was nearly—" she stopped, choking slightly on the next word, "—rep..."
She looked down, ashamed, even though she had no reason to be.
"No one asked. No one noticed." Her voice dropped lower, as if afraid the truth might shatter what little strength she had left.
"I was followed by boys in high school. In my first year of college... someone tried to molest me, Roman." She paused and looked at him, her lip trembling violently.
"And when I went home that night, still shaking, still terrified... I couldn’t even cry."
She gave a bitter laugh—sharp and without humor.
"They slapped me. Not because I was late. Not because I was hurt. But because I ruined the image of their ’obedient girl’ by how I wore my clothes."
Her voice began to break fully now—her body shaking as her shoulders quivered from the pressure of holding back years of pain.
She tried to breathe, but it came out ragged, and her lips barely moved except to push out the next string of words.
"I wasn’t allowed to feel, Roman. I wasn’t allowed to be anything but their idea of who I should be. Even when I was bleeding inside, I had to smile. Even when I was screaming, I had to stay silent."
The agony in her voice was not just spoken—it was visible in the way her eyes glossed over with grief and memory, in the way her fingers clutched the sheets like they were the only thing keeping her from crumbling.
Her pain wasn’t a performance—it was alive. It bled through every word, every breath.
And as Roman listened, something inside him snapped.
His eyes widened in disbelief, in horror, and his chest clenched so tight it was like something had wrapped thorns around his heart.
For the first time in his life, he felt something so heavy, so burning for another person that it made his fingers twitch with the need to protect—and destroy.
’What kind of people are you?’ The thought roared in his mind.
Without another word, Roman pulled her into his arms, holding her with such intensity it was like he wanted to pull her into his very soul.
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say anything. So he kissed her.
Deeply.
Desperately.
His lips moved against hers, not in lust, but in an attempt to silence the storm in her heart—because if she kept talking, if she gave him one more name, one more memory, he would become something else entirely.
Like a ripper from the shadows, he would find every person who hurt her and show them what it meant to tremble.
Julie gasped, her lips swollen and tender as he finally released her.
"Won’t you let me finish?" she asked breathlessly, blinking up at him. "I need to say it all, Roman. I want to remove it. All of it. I’m tired of holding it in. It’s enough."
Roman’s hands trembled slightly where they gripped her arms. He stared at her, his voice low and trembling with the force he was trying to contain.
"Julie..." he said slowly, "if you keep talking, I might turn into something else entirely."
His voice was warning, but not of her—of himself.
She looked into his eyes, and what she saw made her breath catch.
The softness that had been there moments ago had vanished.
His irises, once warm like summer sky, had grown cold—like a winter storm rolling in over the peak of Mount Everest.
They glinted with fury and sorrow, and a dark vow that if he could go back in time, he would burn every moment of her suffering to ash.
Julie reached out gently, her fingers brushing along his face with a tenderness that trembled.
"But I need to say it," she whispered. "Because now... at least now... I have someone to depend on. Someone who sees me. Someone who listens. Some who won’t judge my actions.Someone who loves me. Someone who notices the smallest change in me, even when I don’t say a word."
Her hand rested against his cheek, and her thumb wiped a tear he didn’t realize had fallen.
"I love you immensely," she said softly.
And without hesitation, Roman echoed her, the words leaving his lips like a vow—raw, stripped of armor.
"I love you immensely."
They looked at each other, eyes locked.
One filled with tears, pain, and light.
The other—a blue ocean, vast and stormy, turning colder with every heartbeat that remembered her wounds.
But in that silence, that gaze—they found something sacred. Not peace.
But understanding and true love.