Adrian stared at me for several seconds.

Then he laughed coldly.

“You want Clara and me together?”

“Yes.”

“You canceled our wedding, emptied half the house, and now you’re blessing us?”

He stepped closer.

“Lina, what exactly are you planning?”

“Nothing.”

That seemed to anger him more.

In our previous life, I had always wanted something from him.

A wedding.

An explanation.

His time.

His attention.

His love.

Now I wanted nothing.

I stood and carried my suitcase toward the door.

Adrian finally noticed it.

“Where are you going?”

“Southport.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

His eyes darkened.

“You can’t just leave.”

I almost smiled.

“Why not?”

“Because…”

He stopped.

Because I was his fiancée?

Not anymore.

Because our families had decided we belonged together?

I had just ended that arrangement.

Adrian had no answer.

My flight left the next morning.

He didn’t come to the airport.

I told myself that was good.

This was what I wanted.

Yet as the plane rose above the clouds, I remembered the snow from our previous life.

His coat around me.

His arms shielding me from the cold.

And his final words.

In the next life, let’s not torture each other again.

I closed my eyes.

“I kept my promise,” I whispered.

Southport became my new beginning.

I rented a small apartment overlooking the sea and accepted a position at a design firm.

Nobody there knew me as the woman who had forced Adrian Blackwood into marriage.

I was simply Lina.

For the first time, my days belonged entirely to me.

Three months passed.

Then six.

Grandfather called occasionally.

At first, he tried to persuade me to return.

Eventually, he stopped.

One evening, he unexpectedly said:

“Adrian comes to see me every week.”

My hand paused over my coffee.

“Why?”

“He asks where you are.”

“Don’t tell him.”

Grandfather sighed.

“Lina, he and Clara aren’t together.”

I looked toward the ocean.

“That has nothing to do with me.”

Apparently, Clara recovered.

Adrian arranged her medical treatment, helped her family settle their financial problems, and then withdrew from her life.

He didn’t marry her.

He didn’t even date her.

When Clara publicly implied that their relationship had only been delayed because of me, Adrian personally corrected the rumor.

“Clara Moon is my friend. Lina Reed never prevented us from being together.”

I heard about it from someone else.

I didn’t contact him.

A year after leaving the capital, I returned for Grandfather’s seventieth birthday.

I expected to see Adrian.

I didn’t expect him to be waiting outside the Reed residence.

He stood beside his car.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

He had changed.

Less anger.

More exhaustion.

“You disappeared for a year,” he said.

“You knew I was safe.”

“That isn’t the same.”

I looked at him.

“Why do you care?”

Adrian fell silent.

Then he asked:

“Did I do something to you?”

My heart tightened.

“What?”

“Before you canceled the wedding.”

He studied my face.

“You looked at me like you were saying goodbye.”

I forced myself to remain calm.

“I simply realized forcing someone to marry me was wrong.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t believe me.

But he stepped aside.

At Grandfather’s birthday dinner, Adrian barely spoke.

Later, I went into the garden alone.

He followed.

“Lina.”

I turned.

He held something in his palm.

A ring.

Not the ring I had thrown away.

A different one.

My expression hardened.

“No.”

“Listen first.”

“I don’t want to marry you.”

“I know.”

He closed his fingers around the ring.

“I found the rings you threw away.”

I froze.

“The sanitation worker hadn’t emptied the bin yet.”

“Why were you looking?”

His answer came quietly.

“Because after you left, I couldn’t understand why seeing those rings in the trash made me feel like I’d lost something.”

I looked away.

“That doesn’t mean you loved me.”

“I know.”

His honesty surprised me.

“Maybe I didn’t understand love at all.”

He took a breath.

“When Clara called, I always went because I thought she needed me.”

“And I didn’t?”

His face tightened.

“You did.”

He looked directly at me.

“I simply believed you’d always be there.”

Those words hurt more than excuses would have.

Because they were true.

Adrian had not chosen Clara because she necessarily mattered more.

He had neglected me because he believed losing me was impossible.

“I was wrong,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I know saying that doesn’t fix anything.”

“No.”

“And I know dying for someone would probably be easier than living every day proving you’ve changed.”

My breath stopped.

Dying.

Adrian frowned at my expression.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

But my hands had begun trembling.

He couldn’t remember.

Could he?

Before I could leave, he said:

“I’ve been having the same dream for months.”

I slowly turned around.

His face had become pale.

“There’s snow everywhere.”

My heartbeat thundered.

“A destroyed car.”

No.

“And you’re beside me.”

I couldn’t move.

Adrian touched his temple.

“I can never remember everything. Only your voice.”

“What do I say?”

His eyes met mine.

“That even if we divorce, I won’t get to marry Clara.”

A chill ran through me.

That was impossible.

Those had been my words before we died.

Adrian stepped closer.

“Lina, why do I dream about dying beside you?”

I backed away.

“You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

I turned and left.

But that night I couldn’t sleep.

Three days later, I returned to Southport.

Adrian didn’t follow.

Instead, he began writing letters.

One every month.

He never asked me to return.

He simply told me about his life.

He had left the family company temporarily.

Started counseling.

Stopped allowing Grandfather and the Blackwoods to make personal decisions for him.

And he apologized.

Not only for Clara.

For everything.

For making me beg for attention.

For treating my fear of losing him as manipulation.

For allowing resentment to replace honesty.

I answered none of the letters.

Until the twelfth.

Inside was only one sentence:

“I finally remembered what I said before I died.”

I immediately called him.

He answered after one ring.

“What did you remember?”

Silence.

Then:

“In the next life, let’s not torture each other again.”

My eyes filled with tears.

“You remember?”

“Not everything.”

His voice trembled.

“But enough.”

For the first time, we spoke about our previous life.

The five-year marriage.

The divorce attempts.

The accident.

The snow.

He remembered pieces.

I remembered everything.

When I finished, Adrian remained silent for a long time.

Finally, he said:

“So you canceled the wedding because you thought I hated you.”

“You did hate me.”

“I hated what we became.”

There was a difference.

A painful one.

“But this time,” he continued, “you gave me freedom.”

“Yes.”

“And somehow I spent that freedom looking for you.”

I closed my eyes.

“That doesn’t mean we should marry.”

“I know.”

And he didn’t ask.

Another year passed.

We started again in the smallest possible way.

Coffee.

Occasional phone calls.

Dinner when I visited the capital.

No engagement.

No family pressure.

No Clara between us.

No debt of gratitude.

One evening, Adrian asked:

“If we had met without our families deciding anything for us, do you think you would’ve liked me?”

I smiled.

“Probably not.”

He laughed.

It was the first uncomplicated laugh I remembered hearing from him.

“That’s unfortunate.”

“But maybe eventually.”

He looked at me.

That was enough.

Three years after our rebirth, we returned to the Registry Office.

The same road where we had died in our previous life.

Adrian stopped the car before entering the street.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel.

“Scared?”

“A little.”

“So am I.”

We took another route.

Not because fate frightened us.

Because this time, neither of us needed to repeat the old path.

At the Registry Office, Adrian didn’t move until I did.

“No family debts,” he said.

“No grandfather’s orders.”

“No Clara.”

“No forcing.”

He held out his hand.

“Lina Reed, are you sure?”

I looked at him.

In our first life, I had dragged him into marriage because I was terrified he would choose someone else.

In our second, I had learned something more difficult than holding on.

How to let go.

And Adrian had learned that love freely returned was worth more than love trapped by obligation.

I placed my hand in his.

“Yes.”

We registered the marriage quietly.

No grand terrace.

No capital elite.

No forced promises.

Only two people who had already destroyed one lifetime and refused to waste another.

When we stepped outside, snow had begun falling.

Adrian immediately removed his coat and placed it around my shoulders.

I laughed.

“You know I’m not dying this time, right?”

His hand froze.

Then he pulled me closer.

“Don’t joke about that.”

I smiled against his shoulder.

“Adrian.”

“What?”

“In the previous life, you used your last moments to keep me warm.”

His eyes reddened.

“So in this life…”

I took his hand.

“Let’s stay warm together.”

And this time, when we walked into the snow, neither of us was dragging the other behind.

We walked side by side.