By the Time You Regretted Me, I had stopped loving you

And then darkness. Complete darkness swallowed everything. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything except my own breathing.

It came fast. Too fast.

No… not again…

My chest tightened, panic rising like it was choking me from the inside.

I hated this.

I hated small, closed spaces. Ever since I was young, it felt like the walls would press in, like the air would disappear. Like I was going to suffocate and no one would even know.

I used to tell him that.

“I hate the dark,” I said once. “If I ever live somewhere, I want it bright all the time.”

Back then, he actually listened. The villa was always lit up at night. I thought it meant something.

But now…

I curled into myself, my fingers digging into my arms as I tried to breathe.

“Calm down… just breathe…” I whispered to myself. “You’re fine… you’re fine…”

But I wasn’t. I really wasn’t.

Suddenly, the door creaked open and light slipped in. I flinched, squinting as a figure stepped inside.

Celine.

She looked down at me, her lips curling slightly.

“Wow,” she said, her tone full of contempt. “You really do look pathetic.”

I didn’t answer.

“If you didn’t look a little like me,” she continued, stepping closer, “Argus wouldn’t even look at you. Not once. Do you really think you ever mattered to him?”

My fingers clenched.

“But it’s fine,” she said lightly, like she just made up her mind. “As long as I ruin that face, you won’t be able to fool him anymore.”

My heart dropped.

She pulled out a small knife. The blade caught the light. Then she started walking toward me.

Slowly.

Step by step.Her eyes were filled with something ugly. Jealousy. Hate. Something twisted.

“Let’s see how long you can keep pretending after this,” she murmured.

My body reacted before my mind could. I raised my hand to block, my eyes stinging, heart pounding wildly.

This was it. This was really happening.

“Dahlia!”

A voice suddenly exploded from the doorway.

The next second, something slammed into me hard.

I was thrown to the ground, my forehead hitting the sharp edge of the wall. Pain exploded instantly, my vision going white for a moment. Before I could even react, my body crashed into something behind me.

A skeleton.

I heard it crack under me, bones snapping with a dry, awful sound that made my whole body freeze. But what happened next was worse.

Celine suddenly screamed and drove the knife straight into her own left shoulder. I stared at her, my mind going blank.

Blood spread fast, soaking her clothes as she collapsed to the ground.

“Dahlia…” she cried weakly, her voice trembling like she was the victim. “I came to help you! I w-wanted to save you... w-why would you try to kill me…”

My heart dropped.

“No… I didn’t—”

I wanted to explain. I needed to explain. But Argus didn’t even look at me.

He rushed straight to her, his face full of panic, more panic than I had ever seen. “Celine!” he shouted, “Stay awake. Don’t close your eyes. I’m taking you to the hospital right now!”

He carried her like she was something fragile, something priceless. Like she was everything.

I stayed there on the floor.

No one even glanced at me.

—

At the hospital, everything became chaotic. Argus called in every top doctor he could find. The hallway was filled with people rushing back and forth.

His white shirt was soaked in blood, his hands trembling, even his arm was scratched and bleeding from forcing open some rusty gate earlier.

He looked broken. I had never seen him like that before.

Not for me.

“Get out!” he suddenly snapped at the people trying to comfort him, his voice sharp and furious. “All of you, just leave me alone!”

No one dared to speak after that.

Then he did something I never expected.

He dropped to his knees by the window.

“I’m begging you,” he said hoarsely, his head lowered. “If anything happens to Celine, I won’t live either. I swear I won’t.”

I stood there, watching. This was the first time I realized… how deep it went.

The operating room doors opened suddenly.

“The patient is losing too much blood,” a nurse said urgently. “The blood bank doesn’t have enough supply right now—”

“I’ll give mine,” Argus cut in immediately, already rolling up his sleeve. “Take my blood. We have the same type. Use mine, take as much as you need.”

“Are you insane?” one of his friends grabbed his arm, shocked. “She’s just a woman. Even if you love her, it’s not worth risking your own life like this!”

Argus looked at them, his eyes cold and absolute. “Celine is the person I love the most. She is my life. Without her, I don’t have one.”

My chest tightened. So that’s what love looked like to him.

The surgery lasted a full day and night.

Celine survived.

Even though Argus lost a lot of blood himself, he looked like he didn’t care at all. He cleared out the entire hospital floor, made all the doctors focus on her alone, and stayed by her side every second.

Everyone talked about them. Said how deep their love was. How rare it was.

I just stood there quietly. And somehow, I remembered my dad. How he lay there, alone. How no one fought like this for him. How easy it was for someone to decide whether he lived or died.

Life and death really just depended on who you mattered to.

Funny, right?

—

Celine stayed in the hospital for half a month ans Argus stayed with her the whole time.

Not even once did he leave her side.

During those two weeks, I packed everything I had and left the villa.

Five years.

Gone just like that.

I rented a small apartment with what little money I had left and went back to working at the bar where I used to do part-time shifts.

Just two more weeks.

I only had to survive two more weeks before I could officially return to the National Research Institute.

That’s what I told myself. But I didn’t expect to see him again so soon.

That night, the bar was packed.

Argus had booked the whole place to celebrate Celine being discharged.

Lights dim, music loud, people everywhere.

And right in the center of it all…

Him and her.

He stayed close to Celine the whole time, his attention always on her. His friends surrounded her too, laughing, talking, treating her like she was something precious.

I didn’t want anything to do with them anymore.

So I texted my boss and asked for leave.

I just wanted to leave quietly.

But—

“Dahlia.”

Her voice stopped me.

I froze.

Celine walked toward me slowly, her eyes still slightly red, like she had been crying. “After everything you did to me… you’re not even going to apologize?” she said softly. “You’re just going to run away like this?”

I looked at her.

Then I answered calmly, “I already told you. I didn’t do anything. If you keep spreading lies about me, I’ll sue you for defamation.”

Her expression stiffened.

I turned to leave.

But before I could take more than a few steps, someone blocked my way. It was Argus’s bodyguards.

“STOP!”