You Never Look at Me

“Please save my parents!”
Leni had spent her twenty years living as the daughter of humble farmers.
On her twentieth birthday, her world was torn apart.
The kind foster parents who had raised her were accused of kidnapping.
Her real parents just wanted to sell her off.
On the verge of being handed over to an old man in the guise of marriage, she begged the man who seemed least interested in her.
“If I save them, what will you give me?”
“I’ll give you anything I can.”
“Unfortunately, the only useful thing you can offer seems to be your body.”
“I don’t care. If you’ll save my parents, I’ll give you my body too.”
At last, Delphius’s eyes lit up with interest.
“Marry me. Bear my child. That will be your only worth.”
It was only when I lost the newborn I hadn’t even named, when madness consumed me, did you finally turn to look at me.
But by then, I was no longer looking at you.