I Signed My Sister's Name on Our Marriage License

I woke up to the buzzing of my phone.

For a moment, I lay still, watching the morning light filter through the thin curtains of my childhood bedroom. The familiar ceiling. The familiar walls. The familiar weight of expectation pressing down on my chest.

Then I saw the date on my phone screen.

Five years ago.

My hands shook as I picked it up. The notification was a text from Mia: "Sis, are you and Ethan registering today? Take good care of him for me ❤️"

I stared at those words until they blurred. In my first life, I'd read this message as innocent concern from my younger sister. Now I saw it for what it was—a declaration of war disguised as sisterly affection.

I set the phone down carefully, as if it might shatter, and looked at my reflection in the mirror across the room. Twenty-three years old. Dark hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. The white blouse and navy skirt I'd chosen for my wedding registration, thinking I was building a future.

How blind I'd been.

The memory came flooding back—not just of this day, but of the end. My fifty-six-year-old body in a hospital bed, cancer eating away at everything I'd once been. Ethan standing beside me, his face blank with indifference. Our son Aaron kneeling at my bedside, his young face twisted with the cruelty of youth.

"Mom, please divorce Dad. You're not as good as Aunt Mia. Dad suffered his whole life with you."

Ethan had said nothing. His silence had been answer enough.

I'd closed my eyes in that sterile room, feeling the weight of a lifetime of choices I'd never understood until it was too late.

And then I'd opened them again. Here.

---

Mountain City's Civil Affairs Bureau was housed in a gray building that looked exactly like every other government office—functional, impersonal, designed to make promises feel like paperwork.

Ethan was already there when I arrived, checking his watch with the impatient gesture of someone who had somewhere better to be. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms—Mia's favorite look on him. I remembered that detail now, the way she'd always complimented his forearms when he wore his sleeves that way.

"Hurry up and fill it out," he said when he saw me. "I have things to do."

In my first life, I'd rushed to accommodate him, eager to please, desperate to prove I was worthy of the love I thought he offered. I'd filled out the form with careful precision, treating each stroke of the pen like a sacred vow.

This time, I looked at him and felt nothing but cold clarity.

"You can go," I said quietly. "I'll submit it myself."

He didn't even try to hide his relief. "Really? That would help a lot. Thanks, Stella." He was already turning away, keys in hand. "I'll see you at home."

I watched him walk out the door and disappear into the gray