Chamer 1
Chapter 1
On the way to finalize our divorce, a truck slammed into our car.
Before I lost consciousness, I heard my wife, Aria, whisper, “If I could do it all over again, I would have said yes to Ross.”
“To live a life full of passion with him… that’s the life I truly wanted.”
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of our engagement party.
Just like last time, Ross knelt before Aria, a ring clutched in his hand, and asked her to be with him.
Without even a glance in my direction, Aria slipped the ring onto her finger, tears of joy streaming down her face. “Ross, I will!”
I knew then that she had been reborn, too.
So, I chose to let them go.
She got her wish, living a life of freedom and passion with Ross.
But later, she knelt before me, her voice choked with sobs, begging me to go back to the way things were.
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Ross, stunned by this sudden turn of events, was momentarily speechless. After she confirmed it a second time, tears of ecstasy welled in his eyes. They clung to each other in a tight embrace, completely oblivious to the fact that the atmosphere in the grand hall had plunged to absolute zero.
Every guest’s gaze was fixed on me. I calmly removed my bow tie, tossed it aside, and watched their passio- nate display with cold indifference.
Aria then dragged Ross onto the stage and took the microphone.
“Today is my engagement party,” she announced, her voice ringing with newfound conviction. “But standing up here, I’ve realized that the man I truly love is Ross. I’ve let him slip through my fingers too many times, and I refuse to make that mistake again. I want to spend the rest of my life with him!”
In that room, filled with our family and friends, not a single person applauded their “love story.”
Aria turned to me, her voice now flat and detached.
“I was confused before. If you want compensation, I can give you fifty thousand dollars. I hope you’ll stay out
of my life from now on.”
Her eyes, when they met mine, were filled with a chilling apathy-the result of the twenty years of marriage we had shared in our previous life. But when she looked at Ross, she was once again the passionate, vibrant girl from her twenties.
We had dated for three years before deciding to get engaged. The moment I proposed, she had excitedly
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Chapter 1
told everyone we knew. We were showered with blessings from all sides, with one exception: Ross.
He was a junior from her university who had fallen for her at first sight. He engineered “coincidental” meetin- gs on campus and, after graduation, found every excuse to remain in her orbit. Whenever he saw me, he’d flash a provocative smirk.
“You’re not married yet. I’m not giving up. I’ll make her see that life has more than one path!”
I never knew how to handle him, but Aria was always resolute. She would grip my hand tightly and reject him with cold finality. In our past life, to prove her commitment to me, she had rushed us into an engagement ceremony right after the proposal.
But at that ceremony, Ross had appeared, dressed in a flamboyant suit, his eyes locked on her.
“Aria, this is the last time I’ll ever confess my feelings for you. If you reject me again, I will disappear from your world forever.”
In our last life, Aria had taken my hand and placed the ring on her own finger, silently rejecting him one fina
time.
This time, however, she took Ross’s hand and confessed her love for him to the entire world.
Faced with the suffocatingly tense atmosphere, I simply stepped back and watched them steal my spotlight. When their emotional declarations were finally over, I spoke, my voice devoid of emotion.
“I wish you both the best. Aria, I hope we never see each other again.”
