An Unrequited Love End

For 8 long years, I clung to a one-sided love, until I finally put an end to it. He never once looked my way. Instead, I became the subject of whispered mockery and careless cruelty, wounds I carried in silence. Even so, I convinced myself that someday he would turn around and see me. Only now did I realize the truth. It wasn’t love. It was obsession. So I made a decision. I would forget the Crown Prince. I would stop wounding myself over someone who never chose me and start seeking a happiness that belonged solely to me. “This is the end. From now on, I’ll live for myself.” That was what I believed, until he appeared again, no longer the Crown Prince but the Emperor. “What is my fiancée doing here?” As though nothing had changed, he addressed me so naturally. The past I thought I had closed the door on stood before me once again, and the emotions I had carefully buried began to stir. Why now? What does he want? A woman determined to end her love, and a man who refuses to believe it ever ended. Staring at the scars left behind by 8 years of unrequited devotion, I ask myself, This time… can I truly let it go?