My Fiancée Hates Me
Chapter 101: Cursed Feelings

I lived my whole life to be a perfect fiancée. Day in and day out, I received intense and strict training and listened to others about what it meant to be a Crown Princess. I underwent everything without complaint because there was nothing else I found better to do with my time. I just passed through the days of what seemed like never ending lessons.

Despite being able to take on whatever was given to me with little faults, I could never replace or develop my own aspirations. I was someone without a true purpose in life. In other words, I was an empty person. "I hate you... You will never be the object of my affection. I will marry you to satisfy our families, but I will never love you," Prince Erik said to my child self.

When I first met Erik, he told me coldly that my only purpose in life was to help him solidify his position through the unification of our families.

At first, I thought he was quite the honest idiot, but in a way, it was refreshing how he clearly stated his intentions of not expecting love from our future union. It worked in my favor as well because I was someone who could not comprehend the feeling of love and was unconfident about being able to properly reciprocate it.

I did wonder about what I did to earn his hate before even meeting him before and continued pondering about it and accidentally forgot to answer him.

"Hey! Are you deaf!"

As he approached me, I felt scared by his angry face and began walking backwards. I suddenly lost my balance and tripped over the fountain.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that very person who spewed so much hate towards me reach his hand out with a panicked expression.

I grabbed his hand without much thought, and we both ended up in the fountain.

"...I am so very sorry," I apologized.

"You are rather clumsy," he said in an annoyed voice.

From that day, I continued meeting up with Prince Erik when he would come over to my home several times for some reason. I always assumed that he was lacking in interaction with children his age, so he would come to bother me.

Despite him acting rather rude towards me in several instances, he would still come back and show his care for me. I just assumed his bad attitude came from his social awkwardness with girls. He was oddly sweet in his own unique way. In that awkwardness, I found comfort in being around him, but I did not think it was much of a feeling like the love I had overheard my Maids had spoken about.

"I have heard that without His Highness Prince Erik around, Lady Arielle does not have a partner befitting of sharing meaningful conversations with. I hope that Garett will provide you some entertainment," Marquis Alvin said as he pushed his son towards me.

What a pushy parent...

"I am Arielle Maddox," I said as I did a curtsy.

"Garett Alvin," he introduced himself with a bow.

I had heard that he was a year older than me, but his manners were quite good for his age.

He had dressed neatly in comfortable clothes and had enchantingly silky straight midnight black hair that formed an almost perfect halo around his head like an Angel. His large round eyeglasses seemed to unfashionably cover half of his face, making him downgrade his own appeal.

Marquis Alvin soon saw himself out with my father.

"...We are alone," I said during the awkwardness of silence.

"Shall we replace something to do to replace a meaningful way to spend our time?" Garett suggested.

He was surprisingly a good sport. On my suggestion, I asked that he play chess with me. He readily agreed as if he expected chess to be the standard way to pass time with another person.

"...I cannot believe it. All of my moves were countered," I said in almost complete disbelief.

It was as if he had seen all of my tricks before and had developed counters for all of them. I was terribly beaten at the game I thought I had an edge in.

"Haha...I guess that you have to try harder from now on," Garett said in a soft voice accompanied by a charming chuckle.

For the next few weeks, Garett would come and go out of my manor and would entertain me with various games or conversations psychology and or about the history of different countries. He spoke rather enthusiastically about topics that interested him as they had related to his dream of traveling around and learning more about other cultures. He himself told me that he had planned on studying out of the country like Erik.

I felt oddly lonelier than I thought I would be when I heard that our days together would end so quickly. Garett challenged me in various ways and opened up my world with is ever expansive knowledge. On top of that all, he had become an existence I continuously looked forward to meeting every day.

"Lady Arielle, you seem a bit depressed these past few days," Stella my mother's personal Maid said.

"...Am I?"

"Are you feeling lonely because your loved one is so far from you?" Stella asked.

"Lonely?"

"It is normal for you to feel a bit lonely if you are away from someone you love," Stella said.

I had been feeling off lately ever since I heard that Garett was going to study abroad in another kingdom.

Was I feeling lonely because I fell in love with Garett and was sad that he was leaving?

The next time I saw Garett, he seemed to be waiting for me in my personal Library as we had made it our regular place of meeting since we both enjoyed reading books together in silence.

"Your Library is always filled with books about romance," Garett said.

When I saw him, my heart filled with joy again.

This feeling surely must be...

"Don't you think that love is a difficult emotion to understand?" I asked.

"Such a feeling was developed because there was a large need to procreate more children for the sake of maintaining a decent number of descendants for the future of humankind. Our ancestors found that couples in love were more likely to bear more stable children from love-based marriages. However, as our knowledge of biology continues to grow, we have learned that love is not so important in relationships between men and women. It is the biological component in all of us that makes us all nearly equally fertile. Therefore, it is possible to have children even without having love-based relationships," Garett said coldly.

"Is love useless then?" I asked.

"For Nobles like us, it is meaningless. Marriage between Nobles usually meant for only one thing...political advantage. That was the same for our parents and will eventually be the same for us," Garett said. I think that was his roundabout way of rejecting me.

I tucked those feelings I had for Garett away and stowed them deep into the back of my heart as I devoted the rest of my life and directed all of my feelings for my fiancé Erik once again because as he said, love was "meaningless." Therefore, the correct way of living was only for our duty.

When I saw Garett again, he had treated me like a stranger and often scolded me rather harshly whenever he saw me. In a way, he motivated me to be a more resilient, challenged me to be better, and most importantly protected me from distasteful rumors. I remained naive even up to my wedding day with Erik. I never realized that Garett had left to protect me from the rumors of infidelity surrounding me.

Without being able to thank him even once, he did me one more service and sacrificed himself so that I could escape my pursuers. This time, our last goodbye really ended up as our last conversation together. Not long afterwards, his body return to me in pieces...

When I woke up in my own bed, I found tears falling from my eyes. I was half filled with disappointment from not replaceing all the answers I wanted despite using drastic means to return my memories. The other half was filled with sadness about no longer being able to return to those days of ignorant bliss.

Like a curse, so many people I loved dearly died early deaths because of me.

It is all my fault...

I should have listened to Garett and never loved anyone.

Even without having retrieved all of my memories back, I could fully understand why my other self deliberately tried to separate herself from both Erik as well as Garett.

It is just so much easier to save everyone if you make the ones you want to save hate you. In the end, no one will be desperate to save me anymore...‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒