“For now.”

The two words seemed to strike Adrian harder than an accusation.

His expression changed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what you heard.”

I pushed the dress back toward him.

“Take Vanessa.”

His face darkened immediately.

“Why are you bringing her into this again?”

I almost laughed.

Even now, his first instinct was to defend her.

“I didn’t say anything bad about her.”

“Then stop behaving like you’re jealous.”

There it was.

The same trap from my previous life.

If I complained, I was jealous.

If I cried, I was insecure.

If I noticed something inappropriate, I was imagining things.

This time, I simply nodded.

“Fine. I’m not jealous.”

Adrian stared at me.

That answer somehow bothered him more.

He left with the dress.

That evening, I stayed home studying.

At ten, Vanessa posted photographs from the ceremony.

She was wearing the midnight-blue dress.

My dress.

In one picture, she stood beside Adrian, smiling beneath the lights.

In another, Adrian was fastening a military commemorative pin near her collar.

The caption read:

Some people will always be there when you need them.

I looked at it for three seconds.

Then I blocked her.

The next morning, Adrian came to see me.

“Why did you block Vanessa?”

I looked up from my notes.

“How do you know?”

He stopped.

That was answer enough.

Vanessa had noticed immediately.

And immediately told him.

“I don’t want her updates distracting me.”

“She’s upset.”

“Then comfort her.”

His eyebrows pulled together.

“Clara, what exactly is wrong with you lately?”

Nothing.

For the first time, absolutely nothing was wrong with me.

I was finally doing what I should have done years ago.

Choosing myself.

“I need to study.”

I pointed toward the door.

“Please leave.”

He didn’t move.

“Our wedding is in three months.”

“Cancel it.”

Silence.

Adrian’s face went completely blank.

“What?”

“I said cancel the wedding.”

He stared at me as though I’d suddenly started speaking another language.

Then he laughed.

“You’re angry about the ceremony.”

“No.”

“The milk tea?”

“No.”

“Vanessa?”

“No.”

His patience snapped.

“Then what?”

I closed my book.

“You.”

That stopped him.

“I don’t want to marry you anymore.”

For the first time since I’d known him, Captain Adrian Wolfe looked frightened.

He sat opposite me.

“Clara, marriage isn’t something you cancel because you’re emotional.”

“I know.”

“You’ve wanted this wedding for years.”

“I changed my mind.”

“People don’t change their minds overnight.”

I looked at him.

If only he knew.

Mine had taken an entire lifetime.

“I did.”

He reached for my hand.

I moved it away.

His fingers closed around empty air.

“Is there someone else?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no reason.”

I smiled.

“You really believe a woman needs another man before she’s allowed to leave you?”

He had no answer.

Three days later, I formally withdrew from the wedding arrangements.

My parents were shocked.

Adrian’s family came to speak to me.

Vanessa cried.

She actually cried.

She held my hands and said:

“Clara, please don’t destroy your future because you misunderstand Adrian and me.”

I gently removed her fingers.

“I don’t misunderstand either of you.”

Her face stiffened.

I looked at Adrian.

“Your future wife is standing right there.”

Vanessa immediately paled.

“Clara!”

Adrian became furious.

“Enough.”

In my previous life, that voice could silence me instantly.

This time, I smiled.

“Yes.”

I picked up my bag.

“I’ve had enough.”

And I left.

For the next six months, I studied harder than I ever had.

There was one problem.

Vanessa had been right about something.

My unfinished undergraduate degree meant I couldn’t simply walk into postgraduate admission.

So I returned to university first.

I applied for reinstatement, transferred eligible credits and completed what I’d abandoned.

It took time.

More than I originally wanted.

But for once, my life wasn’t being measured against Adrian’s schedule.

I worked.

Studied.

Took examinations.

And slowly became someone I had forgotten I could be.

Adrian did not accept the separation easily.

Flowers appeared.

Then letters.

Then gifts.

I returned all of them.

Once, he waited outside my university building for three hours.

When I finally came out, he walked beside me.

“Clara, I’ve given you enough time.”

I stopped.

“Enough time for what?”

“To calm down.”

I stared at him.

He still thought this was temporary.

“You’re waiting for the old Clara to come back.”

His expression tightened.

“She isn’t coming.”

“Why?”

The question sounded almost wounded.

So I answered.

“Because she gave you everything, and you taught her that it still wouldn’t be enough.”

He said nothing.

I walked away.

Without me between them, Adrian and Vanessa no longer needed excuses.

They attended events together.

Traveled with the same military social circles.

People began assuming they were a couple.

Vanessa seemed delighted.

But something strange happened.

Adrian became colder toward her.

One afternoon, almost a year after I canceled the wedding, Vanessa confronted me outside campus.

“You did this deliberately.”

I stared at her.

“Did what?”

“You left so Adrian would chase you.”

I almost smiled.

“Vanessa, I don’t care whom Adrian chases.”

“You’re lying.”

She stepped closer.

“You’ve always competed with me.”

That sentence made me remember the ice cubes.

The closed bedroom.

Her breathless voice telling Adrian to hurry because I was outside.

I felt sick.

But this time the memory couldn’t hurt me.

It hadn’t happened yet.

And because I had changed my future, maybe it never would.

“You can have him.”

Her eyes flashed.

“Stop pretending you’re above this.”

“I’m not above anything.”

I adjusted the books in my arms.

“I’m simply no longer participating.”

Two years passed.

I completed my degree.

Then I sat the postgraduate entrance examination.

The morning the results were released, I stared at my name for nearly a minute.

Accepted.

I cried.

Not because it was the greatest achievement in the world.

But because in my previous life, this version of me had never existed.

That evening, my parents took me to dinner.

When we left the restaurant, Adrian was standing outside.

He wore his formal uniform.

He looked older.

More serious.

In his hand was a small box.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

He handed me the box.

I didn’t take it.

“What is it?”

“The engagement ring.”

I stared at him.

“I kept it.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought eventually you’d come back.”

There was no arrogance in his voice anymore.

Only exhaustion.

“And now?”

He looked at me.

“Now I know you won’t.”

I said nothing.

He swallowed.

“I need to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Was it Vanessa?”

I thought about my previous life.

About the room.

The ice cube.

The truck.

My death.

Then I looked at the man standing before me.

“It could have been.”

He frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It means Vanessa wasn’t the real problem.”

“Then what was?”

“You never saw me as a person whose future mattered as much as yours.”

His face tightened.

“You wanted me behind you.”

I looked at the university acceptance notice still inside my bag.

“You never once asked where I wanted to stand.”

He lowered his eyes.

For a long time, neither of us spoke.

Then he said:

“I broke things off with Vanessa.”

I felt nothing.

Not triumph.

Not jealousy.

Nothing.

“Why?”

“Because after you left, I started noticing things.”

A bitter smile appeared on his face.

“How she always needed me when you had something important. How she turned every boundary into proof that you were insecure. How naturally I believed her.”

He looked at me.

“I owe you an apology.”

“Yes.”

He seemed surprised by the answer.

I smiled faintly.

“You do.”

His eyes reddened.

“Can you forgive me?”

“I already have.”

Hope appeared.

I ended it gently.

“Forgiving you doesn’t mean marrying you.”

His shoulders lowered.

“I know.”

Years later, I heard Vanessa married someone outside the military district.

Adrian remained in service.

We occasionally crossed paths at official events.

We became two people who once knew each other very well.

Nothing more.

And me?

I finished graduate school.

I became a researcher in cultural psychology and later taught at the same university I’d once abandoned.

The first time I stood before a lecture hall and saw my name printed beside the word Professor, I stayed after everyone left.

I touched the plaque on the door.

Clara Bennett.

My name.

Not Captain Wolfe’s fiancée.

Not Mrs. Wolfe.

Not “the woman behind the hero.”

Mine.

I thought being reborn meant I’d been given another chance to make Adrian love me correctly.

For a while, I even wondered whether I should expose Vanessa earlier.

Catch her lying.

Make Adrian see her true face.

Win.

But that would only have created another version of the same life.

A life still centered around him.

The greatest gift of returning to twenty-two wasn’t knowing who would betray me.

It was knowing what I would lose if I betrayed myself.

In my first life, I gave up school.

Then my ambitions.

Then my independence.

Finally, I gave up my ability to trust my own eyes.

By the time I discovered Adrian leaving Vanessa’s bedroom, there was almost nothing of Clara left.

This time, I saved her first.

And years later, whenever someone asked why I never married Captain Adrian Wolfe despite everyone once believing we were destined for each other, I always gave the same answer.

“We wanted different futures.”

I never told them I’d already lived his.

I never told them I’d died trying to escape it.

And I never told Adrian that somewhere in another lifetime, he had become my husband and Vanessa had become his betrayal.

He didn’t need to know.

Because the best revenge wasn’t forcing him to regret losing me.

It wasn’t proving Vanessa was unworthy.

It wasn’t making either of them suffer.

It was waking up at twenty-two with my whole life ahead of me—

and refusing to waste it the same way twice.