She Chose Herself This Time Novels & Stories

She couldn’t finish the sentence. “Notice I didn’t say me.” “Everyone else but you. That’s comforting,” she said, getting up from the stool. “Years ago I was in the same position you’re in, and I was given a choice. It was my choice to become what, and who I am now. It was a better choice than the alternative. Taking you, it was just so you could get the same opportunity that I did to choose.” “Ok,” she said, nodding. “Ok, so I choose whether or not I want to be changed into something else.”

Tessa’s POV: All my life I’ve lived by someone else’s rule, been someone else’s prisoner, and lived a life I didn’t choose. Not anymore. Today I chose to have a choice, and in doing so, I chose me. I waited for a little while to ensure everyone must have gathered at the garden. But, secretly, to gather strength for the unknown path that lay before me.

Not arrogance. Just truth. Back in her office, she walked straight to the window. The city stretched beneath her. Busy. Alive. Full of people chasing success. But she wasn’t chasing anymore. She had built her place. From nothing. No family name. No inheritance. Just her mind. Her decisions. Her strength. She rested one hand lightly against the glass. “They didn’t choose me,” she said softly. A small pause. Then “I chose myself.” Her reflection stared back at her. Stronger.

"Your mother is devastated. Your family—" "Made their choice. I made mine." She held his gaze. "Those are two different things." "You're choosing me over your family." "I'm choosing myself." She said it quietly, without heat. "For the first time in my life, I'm choosing what I want instead of what keeps everyone else comfortable. That's not the same thing as choosing you over them. It just looks like it from where they're standing." He stared at her. "You're twenty—"

She had walked across the room on her own feet and stood in front of him on her own terms and the specific freedom of what came next was only available to her because she was the one who had decided to walk toward it. This was the thing she had tried to explain to herself in the beginning, when the bond was new and she was still fighting the shape of it. Submission was not weakness. Choosing was not surrender. There was a version of belonging that reduced you, that wore away at the edges of who you were until you became an outline of yourself, and there was a version that was nothing like that at all. What she had with him was the second version. She had chosen him completely, with her full

It was why I had hesitated to make my choice between them for so long. However, at that moment, I finally understood that I had been just a toy for them to pass the time with over the last two decades. Just then, Sophia uploaded a new post to her Instagram. She was sitting on my couch in the photo, showing off two different diamond rings that sparkled brilliantly on her fingers. She was wearing a tailored suit and glass heels. I recognized her outfit to be the same one that Antonio and Matteo had specially ordered for my birthday half a year ago.

“You’re not going to hurt me.” “You don’t know that.” “I know you.” My throat tightened. “You shouldn’t still believe in me.” She looked at me for a long moment. “I don’t believe in the man who hurt me.” I looked away. “But I believe you can choose what you become.” Those words stayed with me. Choose. That was what Ariana had done. She had chosen Kael. She had chosen herself. And now I had to choose too. The palace doors suddenly slammed open. A group of guards rushed inside.

“Please, Dominic. Don’t.” “She’s already asking for you when she cries.” “She’s ten months old. She asks for everyone.” “You know that’s not true.” I turned then, my eyes locked with his. “Don’t make me feel like a bad mother for choosing myself.” “I’m not,” he said, his tone firm. “I just need you to understand choosing yourself doesn’t mean you can’t choose her too.” “I am choosing her. I’m choosing the version of me she’ll be proud of. The version that didn’t lose herself in revenge and fake contract love and—” I choked on the rest.

she said softly. “Let’s go.” I took one last look around. I didn’t know what was waiting for me ahead. But one thing I knew for sure, this time, I was choosing myself.

“And it is not about you making a mistake, it is about me… I wanted to choose, and she was my choice. She always will be.” Her laugh came out brittle and hollow. “You think this is choice? She just appeared and you threw everything aside.” She said, wiping her tears. “You forgot everything and everyone else existed, that protocol existed, that life itself was real. You saw ONLY her.” “I chose her.” The words didn’t need to be loud. They were final, and I wasn’t going to change them to satisfy anyone, no matter the price that was going to be paid with this. “You chose her over me.”