Part 2Auntie’s Remorse

“Leo, you really are incorrigible! I never should have listened to Julian and come to get you!”

The door swung open, and Eleanor froze.

I stood behind her, following her gaze into the room.

It was just as I had left it. The small window I’d escaped from was still open, creaking back and forth with the gentle breeze. Weather-beaten and dry, it groaned with every movement. Eleanor always hated noise, but now, her face showed no irritation. Only shock.

From her perspective, it was a shocking sight.

A black, dried puddle of blood stained the floor at her feet. The walls and the door were smeared with it. The bedsheets had been torn to shreds, and even the pillow hadn't been spared. The curtains had been taken down long ago; the guards were afraid I’d use them to hang myself and implicate them.

I died in the early morning of the day after I finally spoke to Eleanor. After a full night of torment, the morning breeze had felt almost sweet. It reminded me of when I was seven years old, when my parents died and Eleanor brought me to the Brown estate. From that day on, she was the only person I depended on in the entire world.

I had been willing to risk breaking every bone in my body to climb out of that one small, unbarred window.

The guards heard the noise. As they watched with panicked eyes, I didn't hesitate. I leaped from the cliff’s edge.

They were terrified. They called Eleanor, their voices shaking, to report what had happened. But that day was her engagement ceremony to Julian. They had barely gotten the words out before she hung up. She was busy greeting guests, and had no patience for their hysterics.

Perhaps she heard them. But even if she did, she probably thought it was just another one of my desperate stunts to get her attention.

Her only reply was, “From now on, don’t report anything about him to me ever again.”

Eleanor walked to the window and looked down into the yawning abyss.

She let out a cold snort.

“Leo is such a coward. He’d never jump from this high up. Julian was right, he’s far too manipulative. He needs to have that side of him beaten out.”

“Who were the guards here? Bring them to me. I have questions.”

A moment later, her assistant returned.

“Ms. Brown, those men quit right after… after Leo’s suicide. Should we… send a team down the cliff to search for his body?”

She laughed, a chilling, humorless sound.

“Search for what? If he’d really jumped, the body would have been found by now. The police would have contacted us.”

“He’s such a compulsive liar. He thinks he can fool everyone, but I know him too well. He can’t fool me.”

Eleanor ordered her assistant to leave a team behind to continue the search.

“Search everywhere, top to bottom, inside and out. I want him brought to me today, no matter what.”

“He and Julian both have a rare blood type. He’s given blood to Julian before. Julian is injured now, and I need Leo here, just in case.”

I stood right behind her, my entire soul trembling with a cold rage. She had left me here to rot for a year without a single thought, and now she was here only because her precious Julian might need me. For my blood.

I thought I meant something to her. She wasn’t always like this.

From the age of seven to seventeen, she had cherished me, held me in the palm of her hand. And I, in turn, had fallen hopelessly in love with this woman, three years my senior, my aunt in name only.

Then Julian appeared, and everything changed.

Julian was the liar, but Eleanor only ever believed him.

On my eighteenth birthday, I took my chance and confessed my feelings. Eleanor scolded me, told me she was my aunt, that my feelings were wrong, unnatural. The next day, she sent me abroad. I knew, without a doubt, that Julian had been whispering in her ear again.

He even fabricated the story about me being on drugs, a convenient excuse for Eleanor to have me brought back and locked away, just to get me out of the picture. And now that he was hurt, he needed his backup blood bank.

But if I really were a drug addict, how could he possibly use my blood? It was such a simple, obvious contradiction. But Eleanor, blinded by her affection for him, couldn't see it.

The assistant looked at Eleanor, his expression troubled.

“Ms. Brown, the guards said they saw him jump with their own eyes. It’s unlikely he could have survived.”

“I know you don’t want to believe it, but they sounded sincere. It didn’t seem like they were lying. If we just call the police and have them organize a search, we’ll know the truth.”

Eleanor scoffed.

“He has you all wrapped around his little finger. He’s just hiding somewhere, trying to get out of giving blood to Julian. He’s probably laughing at us right now.”

“Cancel all his credit cards. Once he runs out of money, he’ll come crawling back.”

With that, she stormed out, rushing back to be with the injured Julian.

My soul, unable to resist, followed her.