Running Carriage: The Moment that Slipped Through the Hands

Echoes of Pain

Colin leaves Penelope's house, his face expressing mixed emotions—anger, pain, confusion. He walks down the sidewalk, oblivious to the world around him, lost in his thoughts. Marie, standing nearby, sees him and immediately understands that something has happened. She hurries to him, realizing she must support him.

"Colin," she says softly, touching his shoulder. He turns, his eyes filled with turbulent emotions.

"Marie," he replies, his voice trembling with tension. "Everything is so wrong."

They sit on a bench in the park, Colin sighs and begins to talk, opening his heart to Marie. He tells her how lost and disappointed he feels about what happened with Penelope.

She listens attentively, absorbing every word. Marie feels his pain and suffering reflected in his story, and she wants to help him. She decides to distract him and begins to tell him about her own experiences, about how she came to the moment where they first met.

Marie opens her heart to Colin, telling him about her childhood, filled with hardships and struggles. She recalls growing up in a home where there was no room for her own personality. Her stepmother and stepsisters created an environment where she felt like an outsider, misunderstood.

"I thought I was running away from them," she whispers, her voice weak and sincere. "From their taunts, from their disdain. But in reality, I was running away from myself. From the fact that I couldn't find a place in this world where I belonged."

Marie talks about her two stepsisters—one who constantly found ways to humiliate her, and the other who seemed to live in her own world, captivated by nature and everything related to it. Despite this, she remembers the latter as a support and comfort in difficult moments.

"She was my light in the darkness," Marie continues, smiling faintly. "She always believed in me, supported and helped me. And I felt that in her presence, I was real, that I could be myself."

Colin listens to her words, and his heart fills with compassion and understanding. He sees how strong and vulnerable she is at the same time, and this only strengthens his desire to support her.

He tells her that the letter which brought them back here was from her younger sister. In it, her sister confesses that she decided to run away from their mother with a married man.

Marie tries to hold back tears, remembering the moment she read this letter. She felt like the world was collapsing around her, but at the same time, she was glad that her sister turned to her for help.

"I didn't know what to do," she whispers, bitterness and helplessness in her voice. "I couldn't imagine how to help her, how to protect her from all this. But I knew I had to do everything possible to stop her." But suddenly, she disappeared, and Marie was left alone with the heavy burden of her secret.

"She vanished, and I don't know what happened to her," she admits, her voice shaking with emotion. "I tried to find her, but all attempts were unsuccessful. Now she is gone, and I am left alone with her secret, not knowing what to do next."