My Charlotte Hates Me

Chapter 69: After Everything

Arielle began to research the origins of curses almost to the point of obsession. She barely ate or slept aside from performing her Librarian duties perfectly during the day. She researched curses as if it was truly the answer for the Prince's strange behavior. Even if were true, irreparable damage had already been done to Arielle's reputation after he had casted her aside.

"Did you know, Char? Curses have a common theme. In order to gain something in return, something of equal or greater value must be lost. In the story of the Mermaid Princess, she gave up her singing voice and had the risk of turning into sea foam if she could not find true love attached as conditions for her legs," Arielle said.

"Is that not two conditions?" I asked.

"Maybe the ability to walk on land was that just great...In the end, she was able to get her Prince to fall in love with her and achieve her happy ending," Arielle said.

"The Princess should have asked him to fall in love with her if she wanted to make him fall in love with her," I said.

"Forcing your feelings onto someone, is that not wrong?" Arielle asked.

"...Are you not doing the same thing?" I asked.

"Pardon?" Arielle said with a confused facial expression.

"Will you forgive His Highness for abandoning you if a curse were to blame for his current actions?" I asked.

"Forgive...what is there to forgive? If it is true love, can I blame him for falling in love with someone else? Since when did falling in love with someone become a sin?" Arielle asked.

"If you were to fall in love with someone else while you were still engaged to His Highness, could you forgive yourself?" I asked.

When I asked that question, Arielle showed an expression I had never seen before. Her eyes and lips quivered as if I had uncovered her deepest and darkest secret.

It can't be...

If it were true, the only person she could have possibly cared for...

"...No, I couldn't forgive myself if I did," Arielle said as she grasped her own arm.

Arielle, you and your double standards...You would probably let your ex-fiancé kill you if he wanted to.

"...You want to believe that His Highness annulled your engagement due to a curse, yet you also say that you want to believe in true love. You also congratulated him for finding a person he could love. Are you not contradicting yourself now, Arielle?" I asked.

"I do not want to deny the possibility that it might be true...Just what if he truly is cursed, who will help him?" Arielle asked.

"...That is no longer your role. You have lived serving him for too long. You are neither his fiancée nor his keeper. If he truly needs saving, you are not the one to do it...regardless of how kind he was to you in the past. The Prince now...no longer wishes to have anything to do with you," I said coldly.

"That is true...If I pressure him now, he will only hate me even more," Arielle said.

"Why are you going out of your way to research such an outlandish idea? It is not like you to do something like that," I said.

"...I want proof that it was not my fault...that I could make a man who once respected me hate my very guts. Just what if it all happens again?" Arielle asked as tears fell from her eyes. "If devoting my entire life to one person still makes me hate me in the end, then it is not effort but myself that makes others detest me...In the end, I am only thinking about my pride."