After Rebirth, I Changed Boyfriends

After being reborn, I stop asking questions about what my husband, Giulio Panzeri, does with his childhood friend, Camilla Messina. I let Camilla summon him away from my side again and again. She calls him in tears, saying, "I'm scared, Giulio… I heard gunshots outside the estate, and Nico is crying in fear. Can you come over to keep us company?" Even as Giulio hesitates, I thoughtfully hand him his jacket and tell him, "Quick. Go to them. They must be terrified." Giulio pauses in his tracks and looks at me with a complicated gaze. The old me would've teared up, bursting with emotions as I questioned him who was more important to him, us or them. But now that I've been reborn, I warmly and gently go along with everything he does. Once my daughter, Romina Panzeri, receives her kidney transplant, I'll take her with me and leave him for good.

Love wasn't what brought us together, but making this marriage work was what I've held on tightly to for five years. Enduring every pain he caused me, and when I lost our baby, he didn't care. And after five years of torture... when I had nothing to offer him now, he threw a divorce paper in my face and said icily. "Sign the paper, Eloise. Rose is pregnant with my child, and I don't want her to feel uncomfortable with you around here." "You can't do this to me, Lucas. I'm pregnant with your child." I tried to save our marriage... I still held on until the end, but as I drowned in fire and called him to save me, he went for his mistress instead, and left me to die. And as I breathed my last, I only had one wish... To be reborn. So I could make them pay for everything. And just when I thought it was all over, I woke up... This time, I was reunited with the important person that I once lost... My ex-boyfriend. This time, they will regret everything...

I no longer deliver meals to my husband, Zachary Smith—the man who became the factory manager after receiving a scholarship that brought him to the city—since my rebirth. I even make sure to detour using the gate at the factory's north side whenever he uses the southern gate after he finishes his meetings. In my past life, I was fully aware he took me as his wife—a humble country woman—just for the chance to move to the city. Yet, I insisted on becoming his wife, anyway. After all, I was convinced that a person's true affections could be earned and nurtured. Yet, Zachary maintained a constant, formal distance throughout our marriage. He would simply offer me a book the moment I attempted to bridge the gap, saying, "You should study more so that you don't continually attract people's contempt." I got emboldened by the drink as I threw my arms around him, yet he merely accepted the embrace rigidly, whispering, "It's just what married couples do." It wasn't until decades later, as I lay on my deathbed, that I discovered the heartbreaking words in his autobiography. In it, he stated that our entire marriage was like being trapped in a mire and that he never wanted to be with me again if he were to ever be reborn. I felt a searing pain tearing through my heart as I closed my eyes in devastating anguish. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back at the point in time when the gossip about Zachary and Juliana Ziegler, the factory's technician who studied abroad, first began to spread. In this life, I choose not to fight or cause drama. Instead, I am the one who brings up the divorce.

Before my birthday party, Grandpa and I talked about my engagement in his study. He asked me which one from the Zachary family I intended to marry. Without hesitation, I chose Matthew Zachary—a decision that shocked Grandpa. After all, everyone in the circle knew that I was deeply in love with Jeffrey Zachary and would not marry anyone else. In a past life, I married Jeffrey Zachary, but later found out he had a relationship with Rosalie Larson. He begged for forgiveness, saying it was an accident. He tearfully knelt and begged for my forgiveness. "I beg you. It was really just an accident." Despite me forgiving him, Grandpa still found out and ordered someone to send Rosalie away. Jeffrey wrongly thought I was behind it and hated me for it. Over time, the elders in my family passed away one after another; rivals got ahead in business, and the company’s secrets were stolen. Tragically, I was killed when I found out I was pregnant. In my new life, I gave my blessing to Jeffrey and Rosalie. Unexpectedly, Jeffrey crashed my engagement party and proposed to me.

The night I got into Cambridge University, we were supposed to celebrate. Instead, I ended up in Gilbert’s bed—my older brother from next door, the man I had secretly loved for years. The mafia kingpin of the Veronatri. We used protection. It didn’t matter. I still got pregnant. In my past life, I relied on our child to marry him as I wished, but I was also forever barred from Cambridge University. Gilbert cornered me on our wedding night, his breath shallow, eyes wild— “You drugged me, didn’t you?” “Admit it. There’s no other reason I would’ve wanted you like that.” “You’re shameless, Julian. You will never touch me again in this lifetime!” From then on, he used every means possible to humiliate me. He even secretly transplanted our daughter’s heart into his first love’s daughter. While he and his first love celebrated the success of the surgery, I clutched my daughter’s ashes and died on the way to the cemetery. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to that night of utter absurdity. This time, I didn’t cry, I didn’t beg— I just walked away to Cambridge, and he went mad trying to find me.

After being reborn, I deliberately avoid every possible connection with Zachary Lawson. When he enrolls at Prestwick University, I choose to study abroad in Norell instead. When he comes all the way to Norell looking for me, I travel even farther, moving from place to place as a war correspondent. Years later, I return home hand in hand with the person I love to have our wedding. Zachary is stopped outside the venue, his eyes red-rimmed. "Why don't you love me anymore?"