Out of Sight, Out of Mind

When I was seventeen, someone stabbed me in the womb, leaving me unable to have children for the rest of my life. My husband promised he would love me forever. Still, after just five years of marriage, he cheated on me with the very person responsible for my injury. They even had a child together, and he wanted me to divorce him so she could replace me.

When the ninety-ninth specialist firmly told me I could never conceive, my husband did not hesitate to abandon me, storming off in anger.

I chased him to his office, only to hear rhythmic and intimate sounds from inside.

“Emily, have my child. Be my wife, will you?”

The hand I had raised to knock fell limply at my side, powerless, as his words echoed in my ears.

When I returned home, I took down all our wedding photos and noticed my husband’s long-unused diary.

Filled with anger and frustration, I picked up a pen and scrawled five furious words across the page.

[Ryan Lane, we are done!]

A sentence appeared below my writing out of nowhere. [Who are you? Why are you scribbling in my diary?]

Overcome with emotion, I forgot my fear and replied: [I’m Anna White. It’s because you don’t love her.]

…

One by one, the words jumped off the page: [You’re Anna White?]

[No way. Who are you really?]

[How can you appear in my diary?]

Three questions in rapid succession.

I was so frightened that I instantly threw the diary away when I saw it.

It took me two full minutes to calm down before I mustered the courage to pick it up again.

Staring at the words, I replied hesitantly: [This is your diary? Who are you?]

[I’m Ryan.]

The words were written neatly, confidently, and with an air of authority.

My hand trembled as I held the pen.

Was the person on the other side the seventeen-year-old Ryan?

Before I could process this, more words appeared hastily:

[You still haven’t answered me. Who exactly are you?]

I quickly responded to his words: [I’m Anna White, thirty years old.]

[The person you’ll become will hurt me. So, the seventeen-year-old Ryan, please stay away from me.]

The diary fell silent.

Ten seconds later, the pen carved sharply into the paper: [That’s impossible!]

I could almost see the angry and stubborn face of seventeen-year-old Ryan in the diary, passionately defending a promise he would inevitably break in the future.

Back then, his love was pure and unwavering. He could never have imagined that the man he would become at thirty would be so cruel and heartless.

I was about to reply when the door suddenly burst open. A gust of wind flipped the diary’s pages.

I quietly closed it as the thirty-year-old Ryan strode in, rummaging through drawers.

Previously, he would hug me from behind whenever he came home, nuzzling my hair like a clingy cat.

Every time I pushed him away, trying to escape the tickling, he would