Loving him was a losing game." Have you ever felt heartbroken because someone didn't love you back, or used by someone simply because you loved them? Accepting that he could never be yours, no matter how hard you tried. Every time you tried to push your feelings away, they always came flooding back, everytime you see him. When you finally gathered the courage to take a chance, you realized it was too late, or perhaps it was never meant to be. But then, five years later, you discover that the guy you fell for is now your mysterious fiancé!
There's a certain kind of ache that comes from loving someone who will never love you back. It's not sharp or fleeting like the sting of betrayal. No, it's deeper-like an endless echo in the hollow spaces of your chest. That was the kind of love I carried for him, a quiet storm I couldn't escape.
I met Liam when I was nineteen, still young enough to believe that love, if pure enough, could conquer anything. He wasn't perfect, not in the way fairy tales describe. But his imperfections were what drew me to him-the way his eyes seemed to hold secrets, the way he laughed like the world was his to take, the way he made me feel seen even when I was drowning in my own invisibility.
But that was the cruel irony of it all. I loved him with everything I had, but to him, I was just a friend. A confidante. Someone he could share his dreams with, never realizing that my dream was standing right in front of me. I listened to stories of the girls he dated, gave him advice when he was heartbroken, and stayed silent when his happiness with someone else felt like shards of glass in my heart.
I tried to move on. God knows I tried. But every time I thought I had buried my feelings deep enough, they'd resurface like weeds, relentless and unyielding. Loving Liam was like trying to hold water in my hands-futile and exhausting. And yet, I couldn't stop.
One night, after years of swallowing my feelings, I finally worked up the courage to tell him. I rehearsed the words over and over, clinging to the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd see me the way I saw him. But by the time I reached him, he was holding someone else's hand, his eyes lit up with the kind of love I had prayed for. It was too late.
I left that chapter of my life behind-or so I thought. I buried my feelings for Liam in the darkest corners of my heart and walked away, vowing to never let myself fall into the trap of unrequited love again.
But fate, with its cruel sense of humor, had other plans.
Five years later, as I stared at the engagement ring on my finger and the name on the contract in front of me, I felt the world tilt. The man I had spent years trying to forget, the one who had unknowingly broken me, was now my fiancé.
Liam.
How do you love someone who has already broken your heart once? How do you prepare yourself to face the very person who defined and destroyed what love meant to you?
This is my story-the price of loving him.