Chapter 1
In the third year of our marriage, I caught a whiff of a perfume on Derek Carter that wasn't mine.
It was Givenchy's limited edition.
The top notes were a crisp orange, with a faint trace of bitter almond. The heart notes carried the lingering tuberose, blended with the scent of jasmine.
The base notes brought a subtle vetiver, mixed with an almost undetectable patchouli.
That fragrance, for some reason, made me think of Iris Reed, his archnemesis, who was still recuperating in Sliden.
Their story was like the fragrance of this bottle of perfume.
Bitter and stifling, their feelings overwhelmed the two of them.
Buried beneath the surface, their hearts were hopelessly tangled, caught in a web of love and hate with no escape.
And I was just a meaningless tag attached to that perfume, close enough to sense it, but never really part of their tangled mess of love and hate.
Our nose always knew before our heart did.
*****
I knew that although we'd been married for three years, there wouldn't be any more 'us' in the years to come.
I was running a boutique fragrance studio.
But most of my clients weren't individuals. Most of them were product managers from top international luxury brands.
Proudly speaking, I was good at making perfumes. Nobody could beat me.
Half of the ten hottest perfumes out there right now were made by me.
Lily of the valley after the rain, damp, with the tender, lingering scent of lovers entwined.
Gardenia in the morning was hazy and bashful, like the scent of a shy young girl.
I blended these simple scents, crafting fragrances that could make anyone instantly fall for them.
In this world, there was hardly any fragrance that could escape my sense of smell.
During the three years of marriage to Derek, I'd never smelled anything on him that wasn't either mine or his.
He was the picture of self-control, sticking to the same bath products for ten years without ever switching things up.
He never used perfume, never ate anything too spicy or pungent, exercised regularly, and changed his clothes often.
So Derek's scent was unmistakable.
It was gentle and unassuming, with a faint lemon-scented soap aroma.
If I paid close attention, I'd notice a smooth, energizing hint of coffee woven in.
When he was under a lot of stress, sometimes there'd be a subtle woody smokiness lingering on him, like the afterglow of fine tobacco.
After spending time together with me for a long time, he'd start to carry the scent of my favorite Bulgari perfume, Rose Goldea.
But when he came back from getting off work that day, he slipped off his jacket as usual, and a cold, faint scent drifted over to me.
After carefully analyzing the fragrance, I found it was Givenchy's limited edition, a perfume that's been long discontinued from the market.
Derek looked a little indifferent, obviously not wanting to explain anything to me.
He didn't even eat dinner, just went straight to his study and started to smoke one cigarette after another.
Looking through the glass of the study, I watched as thick, lingering smoke wrapped itself around Derek.
With every swirl of smoke, it felt like a barrier was growing between us, pushing me further away from him.
I put his jacket into the washing machine and leaned against the laundry room door, scrolling through Twitter.
Sure enough, on Derek's latest post, there was a new, unfamiliar like.
I clicked on her profile picture.
Just as I suspected, it was Iris, the so-called old friend who'd been recuperating in Sliden for years, always claiming her health was too fragile to return.
Calling her an old friend was just a polite front. In reality, she was the one Derek had loved, but could never love again, his archnemesis, tangled in a web of feelings that could never be resolved.
If they were in love, their families had threatened to separate them with death. Between them lay the shadow of two lives lost, making them resentful lovers forever haunted by tragedy.
Iris's latest post was a photo of the mountain church after the rain.
In the photo, the frost had yet to melt, clinging to the slate tiles of the church roof.
A slender girl was sitting bundled up in a scarf on the stone steps at the entrance.
Her skin was perfect, her features exquisitely delicate.
But she looked so frail and slender, making you sad just to see her.
The caption read, "The bright moon hangs so high, but somehow, its light never finds me."
I was scrolling down one by one.
And in the list of recent viewers, Derek's profile picture popped up.
He must've been binge-reading Iris's posts, going through her updates from the past few years over and over again.
One of her posts, which barely got any likes, had racked up thousands of views.
The glass door of the study opened. I locked my phone in a panic, my hand still gripping the burning hot device in my palm.
My throat was burning, but I couldn't say a word.
I didn't know why, but I felt a sudden, uneasy anxiety in my heart, as if I were secretly peeking into someone else's life.