After the Broken Engagement, My Fiancé Regretted It

Noah’s kick left my head ringing.

I lay on the cold floor, my entire body throbbing in pain.

Noah said something more, but I couldn’t make out a single word.

I watched as he wrapped his arm around Alice’s shoulders and walked out the door.

I sat there, shivering on the icy ground, utterly alone.

Every time he told me to get along with Alice, I used to scoff and expose all of her fake, manipulative acts.

I knew Alice liked him. And I knew Noah was aware of it too.

He just didn’t care.

Alice was his childhood friend, and I was his fiancée. So, I had to accept everything for his sake.

I did accept it. I really did.

In the three years I loved Noah, I turned a blind eye to all the jabs and insults from Alice.

He’d always tell me she was like a little sister to him, a spoiled princess who had grown up with him, and that as her older sister-in-law, I should be more patient.

I tried. I tried so hard.

When she pushed me down in the snow and dragged me across the frozen ground, I let it go.

When she deleted and burned my thesis, I held back my anger.

When she humiliated me in front of others, calling me a gold-digger for seducing Noah, I bit my tongue.

But with my parents’ lives on the line, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Thinking back to everything that had happened, all I could feel was how foolish and weak I had been.

All the times I gave in didn’t earn me Alice’s kindness – it only made her worse.

It didn’t make Noah care for me more either; he treated me like I was disposable.

And the most absurd part of it all? I lost the people I loved most because of this so-called love.

I had always wondered why, if Noah didn’t love me, he bothered to stay with me or propose to me in the first place.

All those years, all my time, my youth, wasted on him like water slipping through my fingers.

I can still remember the day he confessed his feelings to me.

I was shy and quiet by nature, never good with words.

Noah had so many admirers; I never even hoped that he’d notice me.

I never imagined that he would ask to be my boyfriend.

Surrounded by cheering classmates, my face turned bright red.

I couldn’t even look him in the eye, and with a voice as soft as a whisper, I muttered, “Okay.”

Noah was overjoyed, lifting me into the air and spinning me around.

Back then, I thought that was happiness – that was love.

But three years later, after experiencing the coldness of reality, I realized that those sweet moments weren’t love at all.

Love should be about understanding each other, supporting one another. Not suspicion and indifference.

There were so many nights when he wasn’t with me.

When I was sick, but Alice had cramps, Noah didn’t hesitate to leave me and rush to her house with ginger tea and painkillers.

On our anniversary, when Alice needed help with her thesis, Noah told me that every day with me was like an anniversary, and then headed off to help her with her paper.

When I was upset and needed him by my side, Alice caught a cold, so he ran to buy her medicine without a second thought.

Each time, I told myself, maybe things would get better eventually.

But now, I finally understand, Noah, there’s no more future for us.

Memories spun around in my mind, and before I realized it, tears were streaming down my face.

I snapped out of it and grabbed my phone, typing out a message to Noah.

[Let’s cancel the engagement. I don’t love you anymore.]