Chapter 3

..."You'll always be the deepest scar on my heart."...

...CASSIA LEO...

...(Isa)...

The walk of shame.

That’s what this is.

Exactly this.

It’s pathetic how familiar it feels... this quiet walk away from the one person who ever made me feel real.

A year ago, I left him like this... stormed out of his penthouse, left him standing there, eyes filled with fury and heartbreak.

And today…

Today, I did it again.

And God, I hate myself for it.

I want to scream.

I want to fall to my knees and cry until my lungs give out.

But I won’t.

I can’t.

Because I killed that version of myself a long time ago.

The soft one. The vulnerable one.

The one who believed in dreams and happy endings.

I buried her in silence.

No mourning.

No funeral.

Not even a single tear.

Because if I let myself feel all of it…

If I really open the floodgate…

I won’t survive the drowning.

And sometimes... God, sometimes... dying feels easier than living like this.

But I’m a coward.

Too scared to die.

Too scared to live.

So I float somewhere in between.

To the world, I’m the perfect picture.

Poised. Polished. Proper.

A flawless princess with every luxury in the palm of her hand.

But no one sees past the gold-plated cage.

And the ones who do?

They call me ungrateful.

But I don’t want diamonds.

I don’t want castles or titles or power.

I want air.

I want space to breathe.

I want to be free.

Free from the expectations.

Free from the suffocating weight of being her.

Free from a family that never wanted me, only tolerated me because my existence was too public to erase.

My deepest, most desperate desire?

To be ordinary.

To live a simple life where no one bows, no one watches, no one expects.

To be a girl... not a daughter of a king.

To be me.

And maybe that’s where it all started.

My ruin.

Our ruin.

Damien said I ruined us.

And he was right.

He said I got engaged behind his back.

True.

He said I betrayed him, stabbed him right in the heart.

Every word... true.

But what he doesn’t know is that I felt every inch of that blade twist, too.

I bled with him.

I still am.

I did it not because I stopped loving him...

But because I didn’t know how to choose myself.

Because I was scared.

Because I’ve always been scared.

When you’re born out of wedlock to a royal line, you learn early what it means to be second.

To be a secret.

To be a stain.

Everyone saw the crown I wore.

No one saw the cracks beneath it.

My father barely acknowledged me.

My mother... weak, worn down, shattered... never knew how to love me.

The queen?

She only ever looked at me like I was a reminder of everything she despised.

And my siblings…

Well, they had each other.

I had no one.

No kindness.

No affection.

No warmth.

Not until him.

Not until Damien.

He was the first hand that reached out to me without an agenda.

The first voice that softened when it spoke my name.

The first man who looked at me... and saw me.

Not a princess.

Not a Royal.

Just… a girl.

A broken girl aching to be whole.

He gave me something I’d never had.

Love.

Fierce. Unapologetic. Consuming.

And what did I do with it?

I destroyed it.

I destroyed him.

Because it’s all I’ve ever known... how to ruin things before they can leave me.

Before they can stop loving me.

Before I can truly believe I’m worthy of being loved.

I walked away again.

Just like before.

And now here I am.

Shattered.

Spinning.

Still breathing.

Still pretending.

Still running.

And I don’t even know what I’m running from anymore.

But God…

I hope he hates me a little less than I hate myself.

My desire to be free…

It ruined me.

It killed me in ways no one ever saw.

If only I hadn’t rebelled that day.

If only I hadn’t snuck out of the golden cage, they called home.

Oh, how I wish I had stayed.

But back then, the cage felt like a coffin.

Every smile I wore was rehearsed.

Every breath felt borrowed.

They dressed me in silk and silence, painted me in gold but never listened when I spoke.

I wasn’t living... I was just performing.

And I was so desperate to feel alive.

So I ran.

Straight into the fire that looked like freedom.

And it burned me in ways I never imagined.

But even if God gave me the power to turn back time…

Would I really change the only beautiful thing that ever happened to me?

No.

Meeting Damien Demir was the most precious accident of my life.

A collision of souls I never saw coming, but one I will carry until my last breath.

If God gave me a thousand chances...

I’d still choose those beautiful moments.

Again and again.

Every lifetime, every version of me would find its way back to him.

But the one thing I would change?

That moment when he said those words to me—those soft, magical words.

"I love you."

If I could go back, I’d never say them back.

Not because I didn’t feel it.

But because I never should’ve given him hope.

I should’ve protected his heart from me.

I should’ve walked away in silence, not dressed in dreams I could never keep.

I should’ve never let him believe in us.

that way, I wouldn’t break him.

I wouldn’t ruin that beautiful heart of his.

I wouldn’t destroy the only pure thing I ever touched.

But I was so greedy. so so greedy.

So hungry for the kind of love I thought I deserved and terrified of the kind I didn’t.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I stumbled down the hallway, heading for my room. My steps were uneven, clumsy.

If anyone saw me like this... disheveled, ruined... it would start a scandal I couldn’t afford.

But in that moment… I didn’t care.

Guilt was louder than reason.

It clawed at my chest, choking every thought.

My hands shook as I fumbled for my key card. The door clicked open, and as soon as it closed behind me, I locked it.

Then slid to the floor.

Back pressed against the wood.

And I broke.

I cried.

Not the quiet, composed kind.

But the kind that ripped through me like something dying... loud, aching sobs that filled the hollow room.

I cried for the girl I used to be.

For the woman I’d become.

For all the pieces of myself I no longer recognized.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there... curled up, arms wrapped around my knees like I could hold myself together.

But eventually, the tears slowed. The room went quiet.

And I forced myself to move.

I walked to the bathroom. Turned on the light.

And the girl in the mirror wasn’t me.

Red, swollen eyes.

Cheeks flushed.

Hair a mess.

Lips bruised.

And on my neck... a dark, blooming bruise.

A mark that screamed his name louder than I ever could.

Slowly, I slipped off my dress, hung it up like I hadn’t just sinned in it.

I reached between my thighs, wiping away the evidence.

His and mine.

More tears welled in my eyes.

Because I remembered...

I always stab him in the back.

Even when he offers me his heart.

God.

I wiped the tears away harshly, angry at myself for still caring.

Angry for still feeling anything at all.

And then, like muscle memory, I started fixing myself... Brushing the knots from my hair, dabbing concealer on my neck, straightening the things I could see.

But the truth?

The truth sat in my chest like lead:

No matter how much I fix,

I am beyond repair.

As I stood there, staring at my own reflection, I felt like I was looking at a stranger. A woman who had betrayed the only person who had ever truly seen her. A woman who had lost herself in the very chains she had once fought so hard to break.

I turned on the faucet, letting the cold water rush over my trembling hands before splashing it onto my face. It did nothing to wash away the filth I felt inside.

The hotel room was eerily silent when I stepped out of the bathroom, the only sound I can hear is my own shallow breathing. My engagement ring sat on my finger, big and bold, a claim my soul never agreed to. A silent mockery i couldn't escape. A symbol of duty, of expectations, of everything I had tried to convince myself was right.

But how could it be right when it felt so damn wrong?

Damien.

My ruin.

My salvation.

The man I loved and destroyed all at once.

And worst of all, not with the knowledge that no matter what I did next…

I had already lost him.

...⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆...

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