The pain was unbearable for ordinary people, but Leland remained as still as a puppet, kneeling obediently without a trace of emotion.
Winifred turned away, holding a bottle of medicine. “You picked this up from the trash can after I threw it away?”
“As long as it was bought by you, even if you throw it into a fire pit, I will still pick it up.”
Winifred unconsciously tightened her grip on the bottle of medicine, her gaze returning to Leland’s back.
There was a particularly noticeable red mark on his back, and she also noticed a small bruise on his side.
She lightly touched it, but Leland’s reaction was huge. His upper body shook, and Winifred could see his muscles trembling.
She asked, “How did you get hurt here?”
Leland’s trembling was not due to pain, but to an indescribable sense of shame.
If Winifred hadn’t touched his waist, Leland wouldn’t have known he was hurt there. Glancing at her, he honestly replied, “Someone else hit me.”
“Who hit you?”
“Wallace Charlotte.”
Wallace was the boy who accidentally hit the basketball that almost hit Winifred earlier today.
Winifred didn’t say anything, spraying the medicine on Leland’s swollen back and gently massaging it. Her hands were cold, but they warmed up after a while. She couldn’t help but recall seeing Leland and Jasmine standing together earlier. Even though she was at a distance and couldn’t see clearly, she only saw Jasmine reaching out to hold Leland’s hand.
They were very close together, maybe due to the angle, from her position, they looked like they were embracing.
Even though Winifred knew Leland wouldn’t embrace Jasmine and they had no connection, that moment still made her uncomfortable. The soft flesh in her heart felt like it had been lightly bitten by something, not painful but uncomfortable, lingering in the left side of her chest.
Later, when she got home, she didn’t eat much for dinner, filled with anger, but she didn’t even know what she was angry about.
It was not until this moment that Winifred suddenly understood. She was angry and scared, afraid that someone would “steal” the Leland she had nurtured so carefully.
Leland was the person she had shaped to her liking.
She had turned him into someone she liked, but now she found that she couldn’t live without Leland the way he was now.
After applying the medicine, Winifred put the bottle on the floor. “You can finish applying the rest by yourself.”
She said, heading to the bathroom. Soon, the sound of running water could be heard as Winifred carefully washed her hands with soap, making sure there was no scent of medicine before coming out.
Back in the bedroom, Winifred noticed Leland looking at a painting she had just finished. She rushed over and snatched it away, her attitude suddenly becoming cold. “Who gave you permission to touch my things?”
“It fell on the floor… I was afraid of getting it dirty.” Leland explained meekly.
In fact, there was something Leland couldn’t understand. Winifred liked to use him as a model, and she was good at painting. However, she only ever painted his eyes and eyebrows, never the nose or mouth, which seemed odd.
She never allowed him to touch her paintings, even if the person in the painting was him.
Seeing him holding her painting, Winifred reacted as if she had touched a nerve, quickly snatching it back.
Seeing how protective she was of the painting, Leland felt uncomfortable because Winifred seemed to care more about the painting than him.
Why…
It was just a painting.
He was right here.
Winifred saw painting as a hobby. When she was young, Gregory even hired a teacher for her. She had talent in this area, and after three years of learning, she figured it out on her own. Although she liked painting landscapes at first, she started to love painting people after Leland came to her house. She had been painting the same person all along.
Leland couldn’t explain the emotions he felt, but after analyzing it, it was probably resentment.
“Miss, my birthday is coming soon. Could you give me a gift?”
Leland’s birthday was on August 1st, just over a month away.
“What gift?” Winifred asked.
Leland pointed to the painting in her hands. “This painting.”
Winifred’s expression changed slightly as she placed the painting on the desk. “Believe me, you don’t want this painting.”
“Why?” Leland was puzzled. He had just asked for the painting, so why did Winifred say he wouldn’t want it? Did the painting have some secret he didn’t know about?
“Because…” Winifred turned around, her gaze defiant, “you don’t deserve it.”
Winifred didn’t bother to look at Leland’s expression. She wouldn’t waste her emotions comforting a “dog.”
“You can leave. I need to rest.”
Leland pursed his lips, relieving the suppressed emotions in his heart and skillfully changing the subject. “I bought the medicine you mentioned. Do you want it?”
“Leave it with you for now. I’ll ask for it when I need it.”
Giving Winifred one last glance, Leland quietly left the bedroom. The room still smelled of medicine after he left.
Winifred sprayed some perfume but couldn’t mask the smell. She regretted helping Leland apply the medicine and opened all the windows to let the room air out. The wind that blew in almost knocked the painting on the table to the floor.
Winifred protected the painting by placing it in a portfolio with many other paintings, all featuring the same eyes and eyebrows, with a red mole above the left eye. She reached out and touched it.
…
The next night, Leland quickly found the answers to the questions he couldn’t understand. Over the years, he had secretly built up some power to assist Winifred and himself. He sent a message to investigate Garrison, a person he had always known about but never paid much attention to. After all, Garrison was just Winifred’s childhood playmate who had been abroad and had no significant relationship with him.
But now that Garrison was back, Winifred had gone to see him immediately. He had also heard Winifred being affectionately called “Winifred” in a phone conversation.
He became curious about this person, wondering why Winifred treated him so well, even after eight years, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of resentment.
The investigation took an hour, during which Leland did nothing but sit on the bed, absentmindedly playing with the bottle of medicine in his hand.
His phone buzzed twice as the information was sent to him by the investigator.