Choosing Peace: My True Love

The screech of tires, the violent crush of metal-that' s how it ended.

Next to me, my husband David, dying, whispered: "I... I wish I'd never met you."

Ten years of my life, a decade of one-sided love, erased by his final, brutal regret, echoing a ghost named Emily White.

Then, darkness swallowed me whole.

I woke up on a university lawn, young again, dressed in a simple white dress I hadn't seen in a decade.

And there he was: David Chen, proposing, the king of campus, holding that familiar velvet box.

My heart, once soaring at this moment, was now a block of ice.

I closed my architecture textbook with a soft snap.

"No," I said, the word cutting through the expectant air.

His smile froze. "What did you say?"

"I said no, David. I won't marry you."

I walked away, straight toward Michael Thorne, the quiet, kind engineering student I had been too blind to see.

"Michael," I told him, "I know this is sudden. But I want to be with you."

Later, a hand grabbed my arm-David. He knew. He'd remembered our past life.

"You're punishing me for what I said, aren't you?" he hissed, his eyes burning with familiar fury.

He called me a monster, a liar, and swore Emily had saved him from a falling bookshelf, not me. He was wrong.

He threw the ring box at my feet, storming away, convinced I was the villain.

But for the first time, I felt a strange peace; this time, his story wasn't mine.

I knew my second chance had just begun.

The last thing I remembered was the screech of tires on wet pavement and the violent crush of metal. David was next to me, his body thrown against mine by the force of the impact. The smell of gasoline was thick in the air.

His breathing was shallow, a terrible rattling sound in his chest. He looked at me, his eyes unfocused but filled with a decade of cold resentment.

"Sarah," he whispered, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "I... I wish I'd never met you."

Those were his final words. Not "I love you." Not "I'm sorry." Just regret. A decade of marriage, a decade of my one-sided love, a decade of me being a stand-in for the ghost of Emily White, and it all ended with him wishing me out of his existence. He died saving me from the crash he caused, but his words killed me more completely than any physical injury could.

My heart felt like it had been torn out of my chest. Then, everything went dark.

A sharp, sweet scent of cherry blossoms filled my nose. Sunlight warmed my face. I opened my eyes slowly, confused. I wasn't in a wrecked car. I was sitting on a university lawn, a gentle breeze rustling the pages of an architecture textbook in my lap.

I looked down at my hands. They were young, unblemished by time or the small scars from my model-building work. I was wearing a simple white dress I hadn't seen in over ten years.

A crowd of students had gathered nearby, their faces bright with excitement. In the center of them stood David Chen. He looked exactly as he did the day he proposed. Young, brilliant, the king of the campus, his eyes fixed on me with a confidence that I used to find so attractive.

This was it. The moment my life took its wrong turn.

He walked toward me, holding a small, velvet box. The crowd buzzed with anticipation. In my past life, this was the moment I had dreamed of. I had cried tears of joy.

Today, my heart was a block of ice.

"Sarah Miller," he began, his voice clear and full of theatrical charm. "From the moment I saw you in the library, I knew you were special. Will you marry me?"

He opened the box. Inside was the simple diamond ring that I had worn for ten miserable years.

I looked at his expectant face, at the smiling crowd, and I felt nothing except a profound sense of exhaustion. I had already lived this life. I had already died in it.

I closed my textbook with a soft snap.

"No."

The word was quiet, but it cut through the air like a blade.

A wave of shocked silence washed over the crowd. David's smile froze on his face. He blinked, certain he had misheard.

"What did you say?"

"I said no, David," I repeated, my voice steady. I stood up, brushing the grass from my dress. "I won't marry you."

I didn't wait for his reaction. I turned and walked away from him, away from the life that had brought me so much pain. My eyes scanned the stunned faces in the crowd, searching for one person.

There he was. Michael Thorne. He was standing at the edge of the group, half-hidden behind a tree. He was a quiet, introverted software engineering student. In my past life, he was a silent friend, always there in the background, offering a quiet word of support when David forgot my birthday, or a helping hand when I was struggling with a project. He had always looked at me with a kindness that I had been too blind to see.

I walked directly toward him. He looked startled, his eyes wide with confusion as I stopped in front of him.

"Michael," I said, my voice clear and determined. "I know this is sudden. But I want to be with you."

He just stared at me, speechless. Before he could respond, I knew I had to leave. The weight of David's gaze was burning into my back.

Later that afternoon, as I was walking back to my dorm, a hand shot out and grabbed my arm. It was David.

He looked younger than the man who had died in my arms, but the cold fury in his eyes was identical. It was a look I knew intimately. And in that moment, a horrifying realization washed over me.

He remembered. He was reborn, too.

"You did this on purpose," he hissed, his voice low and venomous. The crowd was gone, but his anger was a physical force. "You're punishing me for what I said, aren't you?"

His words hit me just as hard as they did in the car. The pain was so sharp, so real, that I flinched. He thought this was revenge. He thought my rejection was a game.

"David, you don't understand," I tried to explain, my voice trembling slightly. "I'm setting you free. You can be with Emily now. You can have the life you always wanted."

I said her name, the name of his perfect, deceased first love. The name that had haunted my entire marriage.

He looked at me as if I had just threatened him. His face twisted with rage and disbelief.

"You think this is a joke?" he spat. "You think you can just throw her name in my face?"

He was still clutching the velvet ring box. With a gesture of pure disgust, he threw it on the ground at my feet. It bounced once before settling in the grass.

He turned and stormed away without another word.

I stood there, my books clutched to my chest, staring at the discarded ring box. He didn't understand. He still thought I was the villain in his story.

But as I watched his retreating back, I didn't feel despair. I felt a strange, quiet sense of peace. This time, his story wasn't my story. My new life had just begun.

The sky, which had been bright and sunny just an hour ago, suddenly turned a dark gray. A cold wind swept across the campus, and a light drizzle began to fall. The sudden chill seeped into my thin dress, and I shivered, the emotional shock of the day finally hitting me. I felt dizzy, weak.

I bent down to pick up my textbook, which had fallen when David grabbed me. As I stood up, a dark jacket was suddenly draped over my shoulders.

It was David's.

He had come back. He stood in front of me, his face unreadable, his eyes avoiding mine. He didn't say a word. He just put the jacket on me and then turned to walk away again.

The familiar scent of his cologne, a scent I had lived with for a decade, filled my senses. It was a confusing gesture. A flicker of the old David, the college sweetheart I had once loved so desperately, seemed to surface for a moment. It was a painful echo of a time before everything was poisoned by Emily's memory.

I stood there, clutching the warm jacket around me, my mind in turmoil. Why would he do that after being so angry?

Then I saw her.

Emily White was running toward us, her face a mask of panic. She wasn't looking at me; her eyes were fixed on David.

"David! I was so worried! I heard Sarah rejected you, and I came as fast as I could!" she cried out.

David's attention snapped to her instantly. The fleeting moment of concern for me vanished as if it had never existed. His entire focus shifted to Emily, his expression softening with a tenderness he hadn't shown me in years, not even in our first life.

I felt a familiar pang of invisibility. This was my life with him in a single, perfect snapshot: me, standing on the sidelines, watching him love someone else.

Emily reached them, looking fragile and distressed in the rain. As she got close, she seemed to stumble, her ankle twisting right next to where I stood. She let out a pained cry and fell toward David, making it look as if I had tripped her.

"Ow! Sarah, why would you do that?" she sobbed, clutching her ankle. "I was just trying to see if you were okay!"

The lie was so blatant, so perfectly executed. I hadn't moved a muscle.

David caught her, his face contorting with fury as he looked at me.

"What is wrong with you?" he yelled, his voice echoing in the now-empty courtyard. Students still in nearby buildings turned to look out the windows. "First, you humiliate me, and now you're physically attacking Emily? You're a monster, Sarah."

He cradled Emily protectively, glaring at me as if I were something vile. The whispers started, faces at the windows pointing at me. The public humiliation was intense. I was the cruel, jealous girl who couldn't stand to see her ex with his true love. The narrative was already written.

I didn't say a word. There was no point. He wouldn't believe me. He had never believed me.

With as much dignity as I could manage, I slipped off his jacket, folded it neatly, and placed it on a dry spot on the bench nearby. Then I turned and walked away, the weight of their stares on my back.

I decided to skip the rest of my classes. I just wanted to go back to my dorm and be alone. I needed to be ready for the end-of-term party tonight. That's when I would make my new path clear to everyone. That's when I would stand by Michael's side.

I had just managed to change out of my damp clothes and into something comfortable when my dorm room door burst open, slamming against the wall.

It was David. He was soaked from the rain, his hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes burning with a righteous fire.

"Emily's ankle is sprained," he said, his voice dangerously low. "We just came from the infirmary. She told me everything. You told her to stay away from me. You threatened her."

He stepped into my room, his presence filling the small space with suffocating anger. I was trapped.