Back to the Past, I Gave Them a Future

After being reborn, I quietly cut all ties with my husband, Nathaniel Cole.

I go to work alone. I watch movies alone. Even when I cook, I only make enough for one.

All because in my last life, I had married him only to be neglected for 40 years.

At the very end, he coldly pulled the oxygen tube from me, spitting out words filled with hatred. "If I had a choice, I never would've married you!"

I died in pain, filled with resentment.

When I open my eyes again, my mother is speaking to me and my sister.

"According to the marriage agreement, one of you has to marry Nathaniel. Which one of you will it be?"

I'm just about to refuse when my sister, Catherine Brown, steps forward. She shoots me a contemptuous glance and says, "Mom, I'll marry him."

"Mom, I'll marry Nathaniel."

Hearing Catherine Brown's words, both my mother, Amethyst Lowe, and I froze in shock.

By all logic, since I was still single as the older sister, I should've been the one to marry Nathaniel Cole. I never expected Catherine to step forward on her own.

My mother glanced at me, clearly wanting my opinion. "Bella, don't you have anything to say? Weren't you and Nathaniel seeing each other? I heard that he walked you to work every day."

I was struggling to find the right words when Catherine's sharp laugh cut straight through my thoughts. "Mom, how could Nathaniel possibly be dating Bella? He only helps her because of me. I'm the one he likes!"

A loud buzzing rang in my head. It was as if something inside me snapped. Memories that had never made sense from my last life came flooding back.

Before I had died, Nathaniel had written one final line in his journal.

"If you have a choice, never marry someone you don't love."

So the one he loved was Catherine, wasn't it?

In my last life, he'd always used me as an excuse, saying he was accompanying me back home. But looking back now, he'd just needed a reason to see Catherine.

Every time he came back from a business trip, he'd bring two identical sets of clothes, one for me and one for Catherine.

Once, I'd asked him why he always bought us the same outfits and why he couldn't choose something different.

He brushed me off flatly. "I was too lazy to look at other styles."

It was only now that I finally understood. It wasn't laziness. He had seen me as nothing more than her stand-in.

And I had lived like that for 40 years.

The woman he had wanted all along wasn't me. It was Catherine.

My mother's face was filled with shock, her eyes quickly shifting to me.

I forced myself to stay calm, closing my eyes to hide the shock and the storm inside me.

It seemed that Catherine had been reborn too. Otherwise, how could she so confidently declare that Nathaniel loved her?