Melodramatic

At ten years old, I watched my mom jump to her death in a rainstorm. That same night, my dad brought home a glamorous woman and her nine-year-old daughter. I had feared and hated rainy days since then. My husband once helped me face that childhood trauma, staying by my side through every storm and promising, "Don't worry, Lena, you'll never face your fears alone." But when I refused to pick up his new assistant, he abandoned me on a highway in pouring rain, saying, "Marie is your sister, and you left her out there? Walk home!" That night, the rain never stopped, and I walked thirteen hours along a dark, endless road. That was when I decided I was done with him.

In the third year of our marriage, my husband's first love got a divorce. He gave her the forty-five thousand dollars we had saved for a house because she was left with nothing and struggling to make ends meet. I urged him to ask for the money back, but he pointed at my face and angrily shouted, "You used to be so gentle and virtuous—what happened? Why are you so selfish, so shallow now?" "Is forty-five thousand dollars really worth you making a fuss over?" "Chloe is starting over with nothing, raising a child on her own. Don't you feel any sympathy for her?" Fine. He was noble, he was merciful. I did not argue further, because the one who needed money for cancer treatment was him, not me.

My in-laws-to-be are poisoned, but my fiancé insists on going fishing with his true love. I don't stop him. In fact, I lend him my car. In my past life, he chose to take his parents to the hospital after I stopped him. However, his true love died at sea and ended up being eaten by the sharks. My fiancé was normal after her death. However, when we were on our honeymoon, he stabbed me and pushed me into the ocean. "It's all your fault, Fiona! I failed to save Lauren because of you! Now that she's dead, you don't deserve to live, either!" The scent of my blood attracted the sharks. They ripped me to pieces before I could drown. When I open my eyes again, I find my in-laws-to-be lying in their bed. My fiancé runs off to save his true love. Ultimately, he still regrets his actions.

After eight years together, I took a hit for my surgeon boyfriend. Milton Woodard vowed I could ask for anything. Everyone assumed I'd seize the chance to propose, locking him down for good. Instead, I looked him in the eye and said, "Let's break up." Then I walked away without a backward glance. Milton smirked, betting with his buddies that I'd come crawling back in under three days, calling me a desperate lapdog chasing his attention. He was dead wrong because I'd been reborn. In my last life, I proposed to him and won. Overwhelmed by the news, his first love threw herself off a rooftop and killed herself. Milton unleashed his grief-fueled rage on me. On our wedding night, he slashed my face and locked me in a dank, claustrophobic basement. When I got pregnant, he force-fed me supplements until the baby grew too big for me to deliver. I hemorrhaged, torn apart, and died in agony on the birthing table. Now, reborn on the day I saved his life, I was done playing his fool.

I rush into work this morning and accidentally send the car photos meant for the dealership into the medical intern group chat. The new intern snaps at me. "Dr. Tyson, why are you sending me pictures of my car? Are you jealous and trying to steal attention?" I stop short and ask if she has mixed things up, because the car is mine. She fires back with a whole stack of photos of herself driving a G-class with one hand, plus videos to prove the car in my picture belongs to her. She even tacks on a snide little jab. "You're a shameless, broke wannabe. You want any spotlight you can grab. You think a picture of a car is going to make you the lady of the Reed family?" I frown and turn to my husband, Jackson Reed. "Since when does the Reed family have a second lady of the house?"

The house was on fire. My husband–a firefighter–rescued our son first. And the kitten his first love had left behind. Then, to comfort the frightened woman, he rushed off without a second thought. When his colleagues asked my son if anyone else was still inside, he glanced in my direction… and shook his head. "There's no one else." I was later found screaming for help, barely alive. Outside my hospital room, my son looked at me with disappointment. "Why didn't you just burn to death in there? "If you were gone, Aunt Maya could be my mom."

To scrape together enough money for tickets home on New Year’s Eve, I took on a part-time job and accidentally entered a livestream where money was being thrown around. The boy on screen had fair skin and wore a high-end knit sweater, with a luxuriously decorated villa behind him. “It’s too boring being kept here. My sugar mommy gives me more money than I can spend. Let’s do some giveaways.” Excited, I grabbed several large cash drops in a row. The money for my girlfriend’s and my tickets was almost enough. Then the boy suddenly leaned close to the camera. “She keeps saying the tear mole under my eye looks like her boyfriend’s. What bad luck, sharing the same feature as some poor loser.” My fingers trembled. I had a tear mole in the exact same spot. A comment floated by: [How could a sugar mommy’s boyfriend be poor?] The boy sneered, running a hand through his hair. “She’s just playing around. Told him she’s a million in debt, and he’s dumb enough to work and help her pay it off.” My heart went cold. My girlfriend was also supposedly a million in debt. “The funniest part is, she just spent three days with me. When she left, I asked if she still had the energy to go be with him. “She said as long as she tells him she’s going to wash dishes at a barbecue place, that idiot will feel bad and go deliver food to make some extra money overnight.” Another big cash drop came in. I had enough now. My phone rang. Wren’s voice sounded tired as she said, “Aran, the ticket money isn’t enough… I made a little over two hundred dollars washing dishes. I’ll head home now.”

My father was hit by a car. When I found the perpetrator, my wife, Jessie Ford, stepped out of the passenger seat with her clothes in disarray. I stayed at the hospital to care for my father, yet Jessie stayed with the perpetrator at the police station while he was being questioned. I refused to settle the case, and she picked up a thermos and struck my head. “He’s a lawyer. Do you want to ruin his career? What are you trying to do?” I calmly wiped the blood from my forehead and looked at Jessie, who stood there flustered and slow to understand the situation. This was not Jessie’s first affair, but it was the most serious one. I suddenly remembered the fifth year of our marriage when she grinned at me and said, “Don’t you get tired of sleeping with only one person for the rest of your life? To be fair, I won’t interfere with how you fool around. What I give them is sex; what I give you is love.” Later, I did exactly what she suggested and got involved with the girl she sent to me, yet she begged me to come back.

After being reborn, I stayed away from my husband every chance I got. He told me to be a housewife after college, but I secretly applied for graduate school. He would give his first love money to help her, but I quietly kept the money away. He said he was ready to marry me, but I ran away instead. In my past life, his first love and I had babies at the same time. However, he secretly switched them. My real child died when she was born. So, I ended up raising their child and helping him succeed. When we were old, they pushed me off a mountain so that they could be together. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the year I graduated.

My father was the CEO of a major corporation, and I was his illegitimate daughter—the one no one was supposed to know about. Growing up, I was the child nobody cared for. My father didn’t love me, and my mother wasn’t much better. From a young age, it was just me and my little brother looking out for each other. When I got into college, my father’s family decided to take my brother in. However, only a few days later, I received the news that my brother was dead.  I knew, deep down, that his death wasn’t just some accident. From that moment on, I worked even harder, determined to succeed. When I finally returned, I had a special gift prepared for my father’s family. This one’s for my brother!