MTLNOVEL Chapter 574: It doesn’t represent me.
Once the lunch was done, the table was cleaned.
Arwen waited for the staff to leave. Once they were left alone in the room, she looked back at Beca and asked, "What diary are you talking about, Aunt Beca?"
She had the hobby of journaling before, but she now no longer remembers when she lost that practice. It must have happened when she was quite young because she does not even have any remembrance of it anymore.
Beca stared at her for a moment, a flicker of hesitation flashing in her gaze. But then thinking it all over again, she decisively reached for her bag, retrieving out the brown leather journal she had brought with herself.
"Isn't this yours?" she asked, handing it to Arwen to check.
Arwen didn't take it from her immediately. She eyed it for a moment, trying to recall if she ever had one, but nothing came to her remembrance.
"This is mine?" she asked, reaching to take it and then flipping it open to check and stopping right at the first page.
The handwriting …
It was hers. Not of now, but of quite an early age.
This was her diary. But then, how did she not remember it at all?
"This is yours, isn't it?" Beca asked when she saw Arwen staring at it with confusion. Although the little familiarity flashing in her gaze already made the answer clear.
Arwen glanced up and nodded. "The handwriting seems to be mine, but I don't remember it," Her gaze went down again to check, and the slow realization coming with every flip of the page only made her brows draw tightly together.
Her handwriting wasn't a mess, but it wasn't as elegant as it was now.
"This is your diary, Arwen," Beca said, giving her the needed confidence to believe.
When Arwen looked back at her, she nodded. "I have helped you in completing your homework. I wouldn't forget how you wrote." Her gaze darted to look down at the diary Arwen held in her hand, tightly. "That's indeed yours."
"How did you find it, and where?" Arwen had no clue of it. But if the diary was really hers, then it should be either back at Quinn's Villa or at East Serenity Residence. There is no way she would leave her belongings at Foster Residence and then forget about it.
Beca rubbed her fingers, as if trying to decide how she should answer it.
However, when even after a long time she didn't answer her, Arwen rephrased her words to ask, "Did I leave it at Foster Villa?"
"No, you didn't," Beca shook her head. And Arwen stared at her, waiting to hear — if not Foster Residence, then where else?
"It wasn't me who found it," Beca said after a long while, taking a deep breath. She had tried hard to think of a way to explain it, but when she couldn't find any, she decided to present it raw. "It was Ryan who had it. In his apartment."
"Ryan?" Arwen frowned. Why would he have her diary? They never shared a bond where she would let him check on her personal things, neither when young nor when they grew old.
"How could he have it? I —"
"I presume it's Catrin," Beca replied, knowing well the doubt that stirred inside Arwen. "To make Ryan believe that what you and he shared was not just some family arrangement but something that would have grown deeper and stronger if reciprocated right."
Arwen's frown deepened. She might have thought once there was a chance between her and Ryan —if they had tried to make it right, equally. But after knowing and meeting Aiden, she no longer thinks the same.
What she has with Aiden now would never have been the same with any other man.
If asked 'why', even she wouldn't have an answer.
"She shouldn't have given this to him." She was referring to Catrin. Even though she has no recollection of this diary, this was her personal thing, and no one had the right to simply hand it over to anyone.
But Catrin was Catrin. Arwen's fingers clenched into fists, and the displeasure became evident on her expression.
Beca read the shift in her mood, and she kind of understood it. Catrin never respected Arwen's boundaries. This wasn't her first time doing something that upsetted her. And she doubts that this would even be the last.
"Arwen, I brought you this diary not just because I knew this has to go back to you, but also because I wanted to confirm something with you."
Arwen was no longer in the same mood. But she respected Beca enough to keep her calm. So, looking at her still the same, she nodded and asked, "What else is it, Aunt Beca?"
Beca gaze dropped back to the journal that Arwen has not placed on the table. "Arwen, I have always said that I have treated you as my own daughter. I supported you in your decision when you broke up with Ryan because I knew you were right. But there is something, I never told you."
She gazed up, and saw Arwen eyes staring at her, the creases of deep furrow formed between her brows.
"I never told you that more than my daughter, I wanted you to be my daughter-in-law —the one in the hands of who I wanted to leave my family and all," she continued, and the intent behind her words couldn't be more clear.
Arwen interrupted her. "Aunt Beca, I don't know why you are telling me this. But to be honest with you, I love to have you as my godmother, always. I have already moved on from everything that was there in the past. And to me, it was nothing more than a family arrangement. So, no matter what Mrs. Catrin Quinn said to Ryan, it doesn't represent me."
Even Beca had believed the same but for some reason, now when she heard Arwen putting it like that, a small frown appeared between her brows.
"Are you sure about that, dear?" she asked. And Arwen was about nod unhesitant about it when she stopped her and instead motioned her to look back into the diary. "I think you should first check this diary before answering me."
Before Arwen could understand what Beca meant by that, the latter leaned in to open a particular page of the diary.