When Love Forgets

Chapter 17

                   Mina's POV

I stared at the empty space in the mirror, the place where my necklace used to rest. For years, it had been a symbol of everything I was clinging to—hope, love, the promises we made. But now, without it, I felt bare, exposed to the reality I had been avoiding for so long.

The girl staring back at me didn’t look like me. She looked like someone who had been waiting for a dream that would never come true. I had been holding on to the idea of him, of who Taehyung used to be, not the man he had become. And the truth was, the man he was now didn’t love me. Maybe he never would.

I walked to the window, watching the night stretch endlessly in front of me. Somewhere out there, Taehyung was living his life without me. And for the first time, I had to ask myself—why was I still trying to hold onto someone who had let go of me long ago?

I wrapped my arms around myself, a cold chill settling over my skin, but the cold was nothing compared to the hollowness inside me. I had been running on empty for so long, pretending I could survive on hope alone. But hope wasn’t enough anymore. I couldn’t keep pouring my heart into a love that wasn’t being returned.

Something inside me shifted, like a small flame flickering in the darkness. It wasn’t a grand revelation, but a quiet acknowledgment—a whisper in the back of my mind telling me it was time. Time to let go, time to stop waiting for something that would never come back. I had given enough of myself to a past that no longer existed.

But where did that leave me? Without him, without the dream I had carried for so long… who was I?

The tears that had come so easily before didn’t fall this time. I felt them there, at the edge of my grief, but they stayed locked inside. There was nothing left to cry for. I had survived this kind of heartbreak before, and I would survive it again. But this time, I wouldn’t just survive—I would find a way to live again. For me.

I turned away from the window, feeling the weight of my decision settle over me. It wasn’t going to be easy. There would be days when I wanted to run back to the comfort of the past, to the memories of who we used to be. But those memories couldn’t hold me together anymore. They were fragile, like the necklace I had hidden away, and I needed something stronger than that.

I needed to become stronger than that.

Tomorrow, I would get up. I would go to university, I would work, and I would start rebuilding the pieces of my life that I had let fall apart for him. It wouldn’t happen all at once, and I wouldn’t be magically healed. But I would start, one small step at a time. And maybe, just maybe, I would find a version of myself that didn’t need him to be whole.

For now, though, I let the silence wash over me, my heart still heavy, but my mind a little clearer. I didn’t have all the answers, but I had a beginning. And that was enough.

                      ******

The days blended into each other, a haze of routine and numbness. I kept myself busy, trying to outrun the pain that gnawed at my chest. Mornings were mechanical—wake up, leave the house, go to university, work on my part-time job, come home late at night. The silence that greeted me was comforting, in a way. It was predictable. Unlike the storm of emotions that threatened to swallow me whole when I stopped moving.

At first, it was all about survival. I focused on the small tasks: the assignments I needed to finish, the deadlines that loomed, the project designs I was working on. Anything to keep my mind from straying back to the look in Sora’s eyes or Taehyung’s silence. I threw myself into my studies, knowing that the more I immersed myself in something else, the less space there would be for the memories, for the hurt.