No One Loved Me

“I warn you, whatever you do, do it quietly. If you want to go insane, go ahead, and if you want to die, die quietly.”

I was hurled into the room.

When I lost my balance and collapsed on the floor, the man who looked at me with contempt then slammed the door.

“……What the hell?”

I was dumbfounded.

“What the hell!”

I vented my late anger in the air.

“Let me go! Open the door! Open it!”

I knocked on the door with all my might.

There was no sign of a person outside, as if the man had ordered them to leave me alone.

I couldn’t get the doorknob to move no matter how hard I turned it. Then I became exhausted by myself and eventually gave up. I didn’t get it.

I paused for a moment, staring blankly into space, before returning to the mirror.

In the mirror, the blonde woman I saw before is standing in a mess. When I raised my hand, hers rose as well.

I tucked my messy hair behind my ears, and the girl did the same.

“Ha……”

I couldn’t believe it, but I had no choice but to accept that this wasn’t a dream and that woman was me.

It was just that I didn’t understand the situation, and I shouldn’t have been so caught up in it.

First, I must grasp the situation.

“What’s the last thing I remember?”

It has long been my habit to ask and answer questions on my own.

Even if the obstacle is insurmountable, then if I look for the root cause, I will find a way out.

“I was at home, and I remember going home after work.”

And what else did I do? Probably skipped meals and dozed off.

That’s how my days have gone these days. It was because I was having depressive thoughts during a short break.

Furthermore, the last night I recall was my mother’s death anniversary.

“Mom……”

I shook my head to get her face out of my mind.

Am I dead? But I have only seen it in dramas and novels.

This is similar to when the souls of the dead are swapped for one another on the same day and at the same time by a wonderful coincidence.

A woman named Cecilia was said to have consumed poison several times before.

Did this woman wake up from my body as well?

If that’s the case, I’m sorry. Cecilia’s death must have been caused by the poison, but mine was most likely caused by overwork.

At the very least, this woman has a nanny who looks after her and lives in a decent home.

Cecilia, who wakes up from my body, has to live in a moldy little room and a life where no one hears her screams.

“I’d rather go to heaven.”

With a short recitation, I soothed my heart that I accidentally lived in her body without her consent.

“If this is my new life, I have to get used to it.”

The pluses and minuses of those who have suffered too much misfortune are that they can quickly adapt to any unrealistic situation.

After giving up on the mirror, I tried to search the dressing table once more.

The drawer was brimming with dazzling ornaments.

I tossed them aside and moved my hands around, hoping to find something that would explain Cecilia’s situation.

“Ouch!”

My fingers were sliced by a sharp piece of paper. The main cause was discovered to be a thick notebook.

“A diary, that’s it.”

I heard that someone in a big mansion had a cluttered dressing table, but the purpose was to cover up something with jewelry on it.

Then I opened the first page of the diary.

“Imperial calendar xxxx, x month x day…… ”

Even though I was confused by the unfamiliar date notation, I felt like I had already fallen into the story contained in the diary for a brief moment.

At the age of sixteen, Cecilia married the Count of Linton. It was a marriage arranged by her parents.

[……Edgar has another woman.]

My eyes stopped at one verse and I couldn’t easily move on to the next sentence.

It was a passage that could have explained Cecilia’s desire to take her life.

Love is nothing more than an emotion.

If happiness, joy, sadness, and depression could pass by, only love can destroy people.

Feeling happy with love, joyful with love, sad with love, and depressed with love.

Even if you only go through one at a time, love comes in the form of a combination of all of the above, and it stays even when you no longer want it to.

Even though the previous sentence still hit me hard, I moved on to the next sentence.

[He said that that woman was a theater actress. Edgar meets her every day. What kind of expression does he have when he meets that woman? Will he laugh in front of the woman he truly loves when he was only angry with me? ………]

“You must have laughed, Cecilia.”

I answered even though I knew the other person wouldn’t hear me.

I know this because I’ve seen my father do it in the past.

The diary was fairly thick and contained nothing but Edgar.

Edgar made Cecilia cry, frustrated, and despair.

The days without a fight were occasionally filled with hope, but such days were rare.

[I don’t want to love him anymore. It hurts so much. If that’s what love is, now let me stop.]

The diary ended in the middle.

Probably because Cecilia drank poison again, and this time she didn’t fail. I closed the diary and got up. A woman witth pale face stood in front of the mirror.

I still had an unfamiliar face and couldn’t be thought of as myself, but…..

“Now I’m Cecilia.”

I slowly repeated the same words. Then, gradually, Cecilia’s emotions began to seep into me.

A woman who was similar to my mother.

I didn’t consider Cecilia to be my mother’s replacement. But I didn’t want her to end up like my mother.

Now, because I’m Cecilia.

I was certain that I would not succumb to the allure of love.

“Cecilia.”

I spoke to the mirror.

“Your wish has come true. You are no longer in love with Count Edgar Linton.”

Even my parents did not love me when I was a child.

My mother blamed me until the day she died.

If it hadn’t been for me, my mom wouldn’t have married my dad, would not have discovered her husband’s affair by searching for poorly kept photos of her stupid child, and would not have divorced and lived a horrible life.

My mother was right. I was like a cursed doll who brought misery to others.

My heart had hardened like a stone a long time ago.

It happened on its own after I accepted the fact that no one would love me.

“There will be no more love tears in the future.”

The woman in the mirror gave a small smile.

──・・✧・・──

The sun rose ahead of the clouds. The room was just as messy as I was yesterday.

I slept soundly because I didn’t have a part-time job to go to and no phone alarm to wake me up in the morning.

I hesitated to get out of bed until I heard a knock.

“Madam Cecilia, are you awake?”

I had not yet gotten used to hearing the strange name, but I had realized that it was my name.

“Yes. Come in.”

Cecilia’s diary gave me a rough understanding of how I should act.

Cecilia is the eldest daughter of the Count of Rosette.

I had to gather my limited cultural knowledge in order to recognize the class society of the Empire and the Count.

“You have a good complexion today.”

The woman who came in meticulously looked at my face.

Her suspicions that I had attempted suicide again grew stronger throughout the night.

“Countess Rosette has invited you to tea in the afternoon.”

The woman said as she held out a silver bowl filled with water.

Countess Rosette. She was one of the few people who appeared in Cecilia’s diary.

She was Count Rossette’s concubine and became Countess after Cecilia’s biological mother died.

She didn’t seem to be a vicious stepmother, as is a widespread misconception.

It was written that the Countess Rosette came to comfort Cecilia after she made several poor decisions out of desperation.

“What about the nanny?”

As she finished washing my face, I was suddenly reminded of a woman who was sobbing bitterly.

Cecilia was in a better position than I was.

There are many good people in her life, but she eventually chose to end her life on her own.

It was not worth it to do so out of love.

“The Count sent her back.”

“I see.”

“Madam Cecilia probably didn’t realize, but yesterday wasn’t exactly a chaos.”

The woman had a big mouth. I didn’t even ask, and she told me everything that happened during my fainting, down to the last detail.

“Please tell the Count that you made a mistake, Madam Cecilia.”

“What?”

The woman kicked her tongue and said something as if I were a child when I asked why because I didn’t understand what she was saying.

“There is no man in the world who lives only with his wife. Whether you like it or not, Cecilia is the hostess of Count Linton. He’s a good husband, even though the Count often goes to the theater, isn’t he?”

Ah. It was similar here.

Even when I was in my original body, I heard things like this.

When my mother revealed that she wanted to divorce, my aunt came and talked to her about persuading my mother not to divorce, followed by maternal aunt, maternal grandmother, and finally paternal grandmother.

My mother later expressed regret for not listening to them after the divorce.

Actually, my mom didn’t really want to get divorced.

If she went strong, she seemed to expect my father to be surprised.

“The count is a man of honor, but he probably won’t meet a theater actress formally, and Madam Cecilia’s position is strong.”

This woman was most likely speaking because she is concerned about Cecilia.

“Yes, I know.”

I nodded, wiping my face with the towel offered by the woman.

“Pardon?”

The woman was taken aback by my response.

“I felt like a fool. I’ve come to my senses now, so don’t worry.”

Cecilia won’t love him anymore.

“Really?”

The woman’s round eyes suddenly filled with tears.

I became frantic and reached for a towel that had previously been used to wipe my face.

“Do you cry over this?”

“Of course! Do you know what they say outside? The Count married the wrong woman and claimed that Count Linton never had a quiet day!”

She spat out her anger, but I didn’t understand.

Wasn’t it because of Edgar, who meets a theater actress every day after we get married?

“As Madam Cecilia mentioned, the Count isn’t coming to the house anymore, and the fox believes her position is so strong that she goes around as if she’s the Countess, and I was upset when I saw her.”

“All right, I get it. Do not cry. Because that won’t happen anymore.”

The woman sniffed and smiled several times.

“Madam Cecilia, no, the Countess has made up her mind, so I’m not worried either.”

The woman took notice of me after she finished speaking.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes?”

“Even if I called you Countess before, you didn’t seem to be comfortable with that title……”

According to the woman, Cecilia was hysterical about being addressed as Countess when she was not even treated as the Count’s wife.

“Countess?”

When I didn’t answer because I was thinking for a while, she called me again with the same title, as if to confirm it.

I smiled and raised the corners of my mouth, hoping she was relieved.