Giving up...
"Goodbye, Katherine," he said as he turned and walked away from me.
It hurts to hear him say that. I've always been Katarina to him. Though he knows I no longer go by my given name, he never called me Katherine. At least not until today.
His goodbye sounded final. Like he resigned. After 500 years of trying to find the woman he fell in love with he gave up and lost this last shred of hope.
And maybe he's right. Maybe Katarina doesn't exist anymore. Not beneath all those layers of the facade of who I am now - Katherine. I mean, for everyone else Katarina hasn't existed for 500 years cause I refused to be her again: naive, full of hope, idealistic, vulnerable. It was the reason for me to fashion a stronger persona: Katherine. But maybe I did not just bury my former self. Maybe I actually let myself die as the years went by.
But then why does it hurt so much that he just walked away from me? Why is the thought of losing him as painful as the loss of my little baby girl? Why do I feel like he's taken my heart with him if there was nothing left of the woman he fell in love with?
I cannot lose him. Even if it means that I have to give up my only chance at gaining my freedom. But I will gladly give it to him just to keep him. Even if I can only love him from afar. Cause not having him at all... that's not what I want for my eternal life.