Celestia leaned in closer, her gaze unblinking, her eyes locked onto Lucian’s with an intensity that was both unsettling and mesmerizing.
“Stop talking about love like you understand it,” she said, her voice a blend of urgency and obsession, her words slicing through the conversation with unyielding clarity. “Let me show you what love really is. I’ll teach you, and when I’m done, you’ll forget about her completely. I promise.”
Lucian could feel the weight of her gaze, an overwhelming force that seemed to draw him in despite his resistance. Her words were sharp, like a promise or a command, and her eyes held something darker, deeper than mere affection. It was a kind of possessiveness, an unspoken declaration that he was hers and hers alone.
“I can free you from the pain of loving her,” Celestia continued, her voice thick with obsession. “I can take all that hurt away. All that longing, all that uncertainty… I can replace it. All you have to do is let me.”
Lucian’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe it. This girl was so direct, so bold. She spoke with such confidence, as if the world revolved around her feelings, as if she knew what was best for him, even more than he knew himself.
But despite the pull in her words, he couldn’t help but question her reasoning.
“I… I don’t think it’s love,” Lucian replied, his voice cautious but firm. “It feels more like… admiration. We’ve just met, Celestia. We don’t even know each other well enough for this to be love. I’m not judging your feelings, but I think you might be confused.”
Celestia’s eyes flared, the softness in her expression hardening into something more dangerous, more intense. “Don’t teach me about love,” she hissed, her voice dropping to a low, almost chilling tone. “I know what love is. I’ve loved you for longer than you can imagine. And you? You only loved her because she helped you when you were weak when you had nothing. That wasn’t love, Lucian. That was gratitude.”
Her words hit him like a cold wave, his mind racing as he tried to process them.
“Gratitude is not love,” she continued, her voice rising with every word. “You didn’t love Avey. You relied on her, needed her to survive the worst parts of your life. And that’s fine, but it’s not love. You just mistook it for that because she was the only one who cared. That’s not love. I* love you. And you… you how dare you question it.”
“But that’s different,” Lucian finally managed to say, his voice shaky. “We grew up together. I knew her, her flaws, her strengths. We shared a history. But you…” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “You don’t know me. You don’t even know the scars I carry inside or out. How can you claim this is love?”
Celestia’s lips curved into a small, knowing smile. “Don’t I?” she countered. “You don’t think I know you, but I do. I’ve known you for years. I’ve seen your pain, your struggles, even if you didn’t see me. Do you know what I’ve been through just to meet you, to see your face?”
Lucian opened his mouth to protest, but Celestia wasn’t finished. She leaned forward, her face mere inches from his, her eyes searing into him.
“Tell me,” she whispered, the weight of her emotions pressing into every syllable. “Tell me…”If what I feel is just admiration, then how do you explain this? Every day for the last seven years,yes every single day, i tried to break into the world of someone i didn’t even know someone whose name you didn’t even know no age not even gender? How would you feel if, every single day, you tried to hack 20, 30, even 40 times, just to know who they were? To see the face behind a name, a mere shadow of a person you only knew through distant whispers and fragments?”
Lucian froze. Her words hit him like a blow to the chest, and the weight of what she was saying began to sink in.
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“Do you know what that’s like?” Celestia’s voice trembled, but it was more with the fervor of longing than with weakness. “For seven years, every single day, I fought. I searched. I did everything I could hacking, begging, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I would catch a glimpse of you. To see your face, to hear your voice to know who he is. To know who you really were, not just some name on a screen.”
Her eyes flashed with something wild, something urgent. “Do you know what it’s like to wake up every morning with one thing on your mind? Not food, not sleep but just one tiny, fragile hope that today will be the day you finally meet the person you’ve spent years yearning to find? To feel like your entire existence hinges on that one possibility just to see you, just to know you. To feel you,To let you know that there’s someone out there someone who has loved you for years, even when you didn’t know their name.”
Her voice became almost sharp now, her cutting wounds through each word. “Isn’t that love? Isn’t that real? I’ve spent seven years fighting for this moment, trying to make this connection, and all you see is admiration?. Tell me, Lucian,” she said, her eyes searching his, “are my feelings any less than yours? Are they inferior to what you felt for her? You say you loved her, but you only loved her because she gave you something when you were weak kid. She was your emotional lifeline. But this what I’ve done for you, this is real love. I’ve spent seven years chasing you. Seven years. And you can’t even see it for what it is.”
She leaned in closer, her voice almost breaking, her words coming faster now, desperate for him to understand. “So tell me, Lucian tell me now are my feelings superior to yours or not? Are they more real than the love you had for her? Because I know what I feel. I know it in my bones. It’s love. Pure, unwavering, unrelenting love. For you.”
Lucian’s breath caught in his throat. The weight of her words settled on him, a realization creeping through his mind. For seven years, Celestia had done what he could not she had put her feelings out there, raw and open, hoping to touch the heart of someone she only knew through a screen. She had fought for a connection that he had taken for granted.
Lucian’s chest tightened. He couldn’t answer her right away. The weight of her words, the intensity of her feelings it was overwhelming. It was hard to breathe, to think, with the rawness of her confession hanging in the air.
He looked at Celestia, really looked at her for the first time. The obsession in her eyes, the deep yearning that radiated from her every word, every movement it wasn’t just fixation. It was love. It was real, even if it was complicated, even if it was born from desperation.
He swallowed hard, his heart trembling under the weight of her devotion.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice breaking as the words came out. “Thank you for loving me like that… I’m… sorry. I’m sorry for questioning your feelings.”
For the first time, he saw Celestia’s intense expression soften, just a little, but enough for him to notice. A satisfied, almost creepy smile crept onto her lips.
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