No Substitutes for the Bigshots' Dream Girl Anymore!-Chapter 1815: Jack Stewart Side Story (2)
In the first few months, he could hear the man’s muffled and stifled sobs almost every night.
It was like a lone wolf king mourning under the pale moon.
Later, when the time came for school, one day after class, his father—silent for years—suddenly said to him, "You look very much like your mother, especially your eyes and brows."
The man wasn’t lying. He even brought out the locked-up photographs.
Before that, his father had never let him into that room, nor allowed him to see a single photo of his mother. Even stepping foot into the garden would result in loud scolding.
His mother in the photo was still beautiful—long dress, black hair, her hands placed in front of her as she faced the camera with a faint smile, like a delicate orchid hidden deep within a valley, gentle and serene.
This was his mother at age twenty.
Before she had met his father.
As for the photos they took together afterward, she had burned them all.
That was for the best.
Shattered the man’s ridiculous fantasies.
"You really look just like your mother." Staring at the photograph, the man couldn’t stop marveling, as if something he’d been searching for all along suddenly appeared by his side.
This was his father’s obsession with his mother.
But he didn’t want to respond to the man; he merely looked at his mother’s photograph, trying to embed her image into the memory that was already beginning to blur.
He didn’t take his father’s words to heart, and his father seemed to have mentioned it offhandedly. For the next month, life returned to the way it had been before.
Still stifling, oppressive, as though perpetually shrouded in gloom.
The garden outside the house was left unattended; the flowers bloomed less and less. Dead branches were overtaken by weeds, and all he could see was a sloppy stretch of green.
It looked abandoned.
At eight years old, he was already taller than most children his age. He went to school on his own, came back on his own—solitary and silent by nature.
Yet his face, resembling his mother so closely, attracted a fair amount of attention. If not for his short hair, many people would have mistaken him for a girl.
Beautiful, delicate.
But he didn’t like it.
He went to the barbershop on his own and had his hair cut even shorter—so short that he couldn’t even grab hold of it with his fingers before heading back home.
But his father, who had always been indifferent to him, suddenly flew into a rage.
Loudly demanding why he had cut his hair so short.
In truth, his earlier hairstyle hadn’t been that long—just a fringe in front that slightly concealed the shape of his eyes and brows. When lowering his gaze with pressed lips, he resembled his mother the most.
The man thought so, too. When he lashed out, he smashed a lot of things in the house, nearly knocking over his mother’s favorite vase.
The rage seemed to be instantly suppressed. The man steadied the vase, endlessly apologizing, murmuring her nickname, his gaze filled with grief.
Absolutely insane.
He went upstairs, locked himself in his room, and shut the door.
At night, his father came to apologize, saying he shouldn’t have lost his temper during the day.
He didn’t respond, only pulling the blanket over his head—there would no longer be anyone to pull it down, pat his back, sing lullabies, or tell him stories.
His father left again.
Everything seemed to continue quietly this way, as if nothing had happened.
Until he received a birthday gift.
His father’s gift was a dress.
Identical to the one his mother wore in the photographs.
The man’s expression was casual, "Don’t like it? I picked it out especially for you. Jack must miss his mother too, right?"
He lowered his gaze, his grip on the cardboard box tightening.
The man smiled, "Why not try it on?"
Truly a lunatic.
