OPHELIA: Chapter 41
Blurb
Elizabeth Lockwick wants one thing… to ensure Ophelia remains dead.
For years she’s weaved a life seen through rose-coloured glasses in idyllic Vermont with her husband Sebastian Lockwick, an alluring man with a broken moral compass, whose intent lies in protecting his wife. However, apart from her unorthodox understanding of Sebastian’s dark and gritty hidden nature, she finds herself slipping away from her sanity in maintaining this picturesque life.
After receiving a gruesome gift from an unknown sender threatening to expose her, she finds herself haunted and possibly hunted by her buried past.
In order to make things right for herself and ensure that her secret is hidden, she reluctantly travels back to her sleepy small hometown in Wisconsin. A town where young girls seem to be mysteriously disappearing. There, she reunites with the dysfunctional Pierre-Louis’, a French-American family who sheltered her in their manor in her time of need.
With time slipping away, she struggles with her guilt and a dangerous affair and realizes that perhaps Ophelia wasn’t dead after all these years.
Elizabeth suddenly finds herself caught in a game of cat and mouse, unsure of which she really is this time and who she can trust.
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Chapter 41
Nothing seemed to be making any sense and Ophelia’s head was swelling with a terrible tension ache.
“Ophelia,” Stefan stood whilst taking note of her condition, “Please get some rest, you’re not well.” He turned to Sally with a subtle smile, “Don’t worry, I’ll ensure that your husband is safe and you haven’t fled the country. You’re going to be okay.”
After Stefan left, Ophelia tried to sleep. She took the guest room whilst Sally stayed in hers. She tossed endlessly on the bed. Sleep never came to her because peace never came to her. There was something tormenting about the night. Her body was decorated in beads of cold sweat and a prickling sensation at the pits of her arm. A wave of nausea washed across her body in a damning sensation. She felt hot, yet so cold on the inside and at other times like lava beneath and an avalanche on the surface.
Ophelia walked to the bathroom and filled the tub with warm water. She dipped herself in without even talking off her clothes. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. She sobbed. The type of sobbing that echoed within the walls and every crack and corner of the room like a child teasing you. She didn’t feel okay. She was not okay.
The time felt like seconds to hours. The time had no meaning to her when her world felt as if it was collapsing. She missed her mother, especially the way her mother would cradle up to her in the bed and sing la vie en rose in that hauntingly beautiful voice. She missed the way her mother’s skin felt near to her. That warmth. That endless love of a million souls. The dirty freckled look on her mother’s pale face. The sound of her voice blowing kisses softly into her ears. The clings of her bracelets her father gifted her mother one Christmas eve. She missed the sound her father’s keys jingling after his day at work. Her ears would perk up simultaneously with their husky, Java. She cried most of all to lose the dog for some odd reason. The softness of his copper fur, his baby-like mannerisms. Huskies were asshole dogs when they were in their moods, but boy did she love that little asshole he was. She missed him, she missed his endless attitudes, she missed the innocence that attached itself with her childhood. She missed who she truly was.
Ophelia knew. She knew she was mentally destroying herself every second of the day as it went by. She did it for years thinking it was protecting the ones she loved and yet here she was today in the midst of a dark, cold tragedy of pain, lies, and death.
She couldn’t do this anymore.
She couldn’t keep living this lie. This torment. Her mind was a mess. Her heart was in pieces. Her soul, halfway dead. She wanted something real. She needed something real. She was tired of running away.
She quickly changed into dry clothing and squeezed the sea of water which drenched her hair. Her hair, regardless, still soaked the back of her tee-shirt as she knocked on Stefan’s door. She thought about turning back when she remembered how late it was. Just as she was about to walk away, the door unlocked, and Stefan stood before her far from even asleep.
“Ophelia,” his tone was always concerned. Calm. Stable.
She didn’t know what to say at this point before him as all her thoughts were evading her mind all at once. The softness of this storm that held within his eyes that slept beneath that vast forest green sucked her into his soul. A misery of joy and pain as he stood before her. It was like a hunger with only a poisoned apple before you, and you ask yourself, is it worth it?
“I can’t do it,” she vomited her words her in a breath, “I can’t run anymore. I don’t want to. I want to have my life back. I want to make my own choices. I don’t want to live this lie anymore. I just can’t.”
“Lily-” he tried to calm her when she cut him off mid-sentence.
“I love you.” Her sudden words took him by surprise, he’d always known but this was the first time she seemed to have admitted it out aloud. “I love you, Stefan. I always have and I just can’t hate myself anymore to torment myself by staying away from you,” she continued. Her voice became more and more flustered as she spoke. “So yes, my answer is yes. I want to leave this place with you. More than anything in this world, I want a life of my own, with you. I want to be happy but I can’t be if I don’t at least try and change the situation I’m in. I can’t blame anyone but myself, I’m responsible and I wasted all these years. It wasn’t worth it Stef, I was hurting myself and everyone I ever loved. And I just can’t do this anymore.” Her words faded as she spoke, “I know you must think me selfish.”
Stefan looked at her, soaking in her features. The pain that trickled though her eyes as she spoke, her dry, bitten lips, slightly stained with blood when she bit it, and the innocence that licked goosebumps onto her skin. He reached his hand out to cup the tender side of her cheek, whilst wiping a tear away. “There’s nothing selfish about what you just said, Lily. And if that’s ever considered selfish then I think we must be at certain times in our life, because if we don’t think about ourselves at least once then who are we living for? Are we living for others or ourselves?”
She brought her eyes up to his. He hadn’t judged her, not one bit. Instead, he ushed her inside and allowed her to sit on the sofa while pouring a glass of water for her. He knelt before her and touched the rim of the glass near her lips as she took a small sip and took the glass in her own hands. Stefan sat opposite her on the edge of the bed, not allowing his eyes to leave hers. “You always had my heart, Ophelia. You had it even before I could have understood what the word love was. You always knew that.”
She knew. She always knew how much Stefan cared about her. She loved him equally. And yet, they couldn’t be together all these years.
“What it worth it?” She asked, “All these years, was it worth it?”
He softly scoffed a breath and tilting his head back against the headboard, “I don’t even know. It doesn’t even feel so.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling that tang of guilt being away from him, becoming who she pretended to be. “I’m so fucked up, you have no idea. I don’t even remember anything clearly, Stefan. Not after the accident.”
“What accident?”
She stood and walked out to the window to stare at the dim moonlit sky. Her palms began sweating and the prickling sensation fell over her again.
“God, the accident,” she said flustered in an attempt to recollect, “The accident with Christopher. I got into a car accident and months after that I wasn’t myself. I was hurting and depressed until one day he just left and it all got worst. My mental health. I was so stressed, anxious, he was an ass to me as well, he never left me live peacefully, it was torment after torment, Stef. He made me feel crazy, I swear I wasn’t,” she stopped in a sob, “I wasn’t.”
He stood and pulled her into his chest as he felt her hot cheeks press into him. She was trembling.
“I don’t remember things clearly, Stefan. Not after I had the brain aneurysm episode and had the surgery. It all feels like a blur and all I seem to remember are the parts I don’t like remembering. I know it must be ironic to say but I didn’t expect everything to be fake. To think that, after leaving Rose Gap… I thought Christopher was at least genuine at one point but I don’t think he ever was. He knew about me, who I was, who I am. And, Sebastian does too, doesn’t he?”
Stefan looked at the petite girl in his embrace and comforted her with a smile, “Let’s leave the past behind, we don’t have to drag it forward with us, Ophelia. These people can try but they can’t break who you are.”
A small smile crept up her cheeks. His words were necessary to her health. And yet, there was something about him that he seemed to be holding back.
“I called Charlie,” he stated, “Told him what happened back in Vermont with Sally Manson. He left to check out the scene.”
“That’s good,” she nodded and sat back down on the sofa whilst twirling her necklace around her finger, “I hope he’s okay.”
“I know Charlie, he will be.”
The sound of a sudden bang from downstairs caught their attention. Florence’s was suddenly shouting. Stefan and Ophelia rushed out of the room to see what the commotion was about. Everyone gathered at the hall before the sheriff and six officers. Sally stood at the bottom of the staircase in confused.
“You cannot do this!” Florence shouted at the Sheriff when an officer suddenly grabbed her hand back and held her away.
The sheriff shook his head, almost disappointed by her.
“What is this about?” Victor spoke coldly as he walked out from the study.
“Stefan Pierre Louis,” the sheriff spat the name out of his mouth like something rotten he ate, “You’re under arrest for the murder of Mya Boyle.”
**
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