Beyond The Gaze: A Love Unseen

Chapter 45

Present...

Elysia's POV:

Gazing heavenward, a sigh escaped my lips. Even with my resistance, a few tears still left my eyes, sliding and absorbing into my hair.

Nineteen years...

Life stretches over a long span; love, longing, memories, all seem so distant now...

After that day, I never mentioned Ares, never talked about him, but keeping him in my heart silently became my habit, a habit that never faded away.

It's not that life comes to a halt without someone's presence...

Time keeps moving forward, life goes on, and along with it, we learn to move on as well...

But... We don't really live, we just learn to compromise, especially for those who love us.

Yet, a part of the heart, where they had made a home, remains empty... Until our end, or their return...

Maybe Beastie was right!

Love is beautiful, until you love someone more than yourself...

Now, once again, he was going to belong to someone else, and as always, I am not in the picture, I never was!

I felt someone came and sat on the bench. I wiped my eyes and turned my head a little to see Esme sitting beside me.

Her eyes gazed into the distance, hollow and vacant, carrying a weight heavier than the past had ever known. The emptiness within her seemed to stretch beyond time itself.

"I'm sorry..." She muttered quietly. I furrowed my eyebrows confused. "You remember the day we first met?" She had a faraway look in her eyes, as if recalling our school days.

"When you first entered our class, I was shocked to see your face." My eyebrows raised at her words. She turned her head to look at me. "I had a sister, Ely! She was the youngest among us, everyone's princess. She wasn't even four when that incident happened." She sucked in a long breath, exhaling a sigh. "Your smile reminds me of her. She was always so cheeky," a small smile appeared on her face. "Knowing that no one could resist her smile, she always use that for everything she wanted from us." Esme raised her hand to wipe the tears off my cheek. "Whenever you smile, it always feels like I've gotten her back, my little sister, my missing piece." She gulped, trying to stay composed. "You always smile, whether you're with us, with family, or general, you smile a lot. But when it comes to Ares Simon Knight, even his thoughts were enough to make you smile. It was in school, when I first noticed how you smiled at him, and it took me a second to realize your feelings, but with time, I realized how deep they were. I would never have sent you to him again if I hadn't noticed him watching you countless times. I don't know why he did what he did in the past, but I really thought you guys deserved another chance. If I had known earlier that he was already getting engaged to someone, I would never have sent you there..." She closed her eyes, her brows furrowing, as if she was regretting everything.

Instinctively, I reached for her hand, intertwining our fingers, and in silent understanding, I drew myself closer to her, enveloping my arms around her. "Don't blame yourself, Beastie! Life doesn't always go as we plan, and maybe it's for the better..." I muttered quietly. "It's time for me to accept the fact that Ares was nothing more than a dream for me. I should accept that we aren't just meant to be, and it's no one's fault."

"But Ely! Don't you think you should tell him about your—" Esme muttered.

"No, Beastie!" I interjected firmly, "I would never tell him..." Ares Simon would never know about my feelings for him.