Once They Chose Her, I Chose Myself

I thought that I would need a long time to pack my belongings, but when I opened my suitcase, I realized that I didn't have anything to take with me.

Nearly all the clothes I had were given to me by Antonio.

"You're the Principessa of the Corleone family, Elena. Of course, you have to dress in the finest clothes."

Those same clothes were soiled and stained at that moment, emitting a foul scent.

Instead of a Principessa, I had turned into a useless piece of trash in Antonio's heart.

I moved the clothes aside and looked at the scattered photos on the ground.

Matteo loved taking pictures of me when we were younger, saying that he wanted to record my image during every moment of my life.

Every time we took pictures, Antonio and Matteo would fight over who got to stand next to me.

However, at that moment, someone had drawn a red cross over my face in all of our photos.

Unwilling to look at them any longer, I stuffed everything into a trash bag.

Antonio happened to see what I was doing when he was leading Sophia downstairs. Surprise flickered in his eyes. I had treated my belongings as if they were precious treasures in the past, after all.

He scoffed and said, "I see you have no hesitation to squander the Corleone family's fortune at all."

In the past, Antonio was willing to spend a fortune on me to make me happy. However, after Sophia appeared, everything that I did was wrong from his perspective.

I didn't try to argue or explain myself. "I'll return your money, Antonio."

"The Corleone family doesn't need your money. You just have to remember your place. Don't upset Sophia again."

Sophia grabbed Antonio's sleeve and batted her lashes at him. "Don't waste your time on her, Antonio. I want to look at the stars in the secret base. Let's go."

My hands froze in place.

Antonio had built the secret base for me when I was 16 years old.

Maria had been swamped with work that year. She didn't have time to take care of me, so she passed on that responsibility to Antonio, who was five years older than me.

Antonio had given me all the best things in the world. He called me his star and personally designed a sea of stars that would never go out.

He used optical fibers and glass to create a small dome on the villa's rooftop. When he flipped the switch, countless lights began to slowly move across the dome, reminiscent of a real galaxy.

Antonio had looked at me under the sea of stars and said, "This starry sky belongs to you, Elena. It's also my promise to you. My love for you is like the stars in the galaxy that will never go out."

I had believed him.

Over the next 14 years, we finished building the secret base little by little. It harbored so many secrets that could never be revealed to another soul, and it also hid the unspeakable and tender feelings of my youth.

In the last few years, whenever I couldn't decide between Antonio and Matteo, I would head over to the secret base to be by myself for a little while.

However, Antonio and Matteo no longer loved me. They had found a new lover.

Antonio had forgotten that he had created that starry sky for me—forgotten that he had promised to love me forever.

It was fine.

I took a deep breath as I picked up the trash bag and headed outside.

I didn't need the stars anymore, just like how I didn't need Antonio and Matteo anymore.