I Died Clinging to a Loveless Marriage

I'm reborn just as Jasmine Maynard asks for a divorce for the 108th time. Her weary voice rings in my ears. "There's nothing between us anymore, Noah Hardin. Dragging this on will just exhaust the both of us." In my past life, I had stubbornly refused to let her go and divorce her because I still wanted to be her husband. But then she got pregnant with someone else's baby, and I made a huge fuss about it, which caused her to lock me up in a psychiatric hospital. She only came to see me once right before I died. She said, "If I knew how obsessive you'd turn out to be, I would never have married you in the first place." So, in this lifetime, I realize that my obsession with her doesn't matter more than staying alive. "Dexter has a heart condition. You can demand whatever else you want from me aside from keeping your position as my husband," Jasmine says, rubbing her temples impatiently. "But it you don't agree, then we'll keep negotiating until—" I interrupt her and say, "There's no need to wait till the 109th time. I'll agree to the divorce." Chapter 1 As soon as the words left my mouth, I saw Jasmine Maynard's eyelashes fluttering just a little. She was sitting across from me at the table with that same look of weariness and resignation on her face. It was as though I had been the unreasonable one for the past three years all along. And now, she finally heard the answer she'd always wanted from me. "It's good that you've finally come to your senses, Noah Hardin." She nodded slightly, her tone carrying a hint of relief—something that she probably never even realized she was expressing. Then, she retrieved a document from her workbag and slid it over to me. "You'll get three properties, a 12% stake in the company, and the Maybach. They're all yours if you sign this. Plus 40 million dollars in cash. Take a look and tell me if you want to add anything else." She said everything so easily as though she'd already prepared and rehearsed this a long time in advance. She also seemed sincere about it. There was a tinge of concern in her eyes as though she were acting in my best interest. I lowered my head and looked at the divorce agreement, suddenly feeling like laughing out loud. I knew that this was far less than whatever she'd given my younger foster brother, Dexter Hardin. However, I didn't say a thing. I just grabbed the pen and signed my name on the agreement with a flourish. Jasmine watched me sign the document, a hint of something I couldn't decipher flashing in her eyes for a moment. … News about the divorce spread quickly. I saw hundreds of Instagram posts and stories tagging Jasmine, saying things like, "Noah's finally come to his senses!", "Jasmine is free! Finally!", and "They should have divorced a long time ago. What was the point of wasting three years of her life?" Someone even said, "Jazzy! Wanna come out for drinks tonight to celebrate?" Later on, they posted photos and videos of Jasmine celebrating her divorce with her closest girlfriends, saying things like she was finally free from being pestered by that "madman". I read every message, caption, and comment online, but I didn't feel angry at all. I wasn't even upset reading them. After all, Jasmine and I had been married for seven years, but to others, they only saw the end of our marriage as her "finally finding freedom again". Nobody bothered asking me if it hurt or if I was fine. My phone buzzed just then with a call from Vernon Coleman, my best friend. He asked me cautiously, "Are you sure you can really bear to leave her, Noah?" I leaned against the window and looked out at the gray clouds in the sky. It looked like it was about to rain. "So what if I can't bear to let her go? It's not like people will stay just because you can't bear to let them go anyway." Vernon went silent for a while. Finally, he sighed and said, "Well, I guess I'm just gonna take your word for it." "Yeah." After hanging up, I tapped into my photo gallery and began deleting all of the photos I'd taken with Jasmine over the years. There was the photo we'd taken just outside the townhall after registering our marriage to commemorate the occasion. She smiled brightly at the camera, and I was next to her, smiling like a fool. There was a photo of our honeymoon at the beach. I had my arm circled around her waist while her long hair blew in the seabreeze. There was a photo of our first wedding anniversary dinner. She had her head lowered as she cut up a piece of her steak to feed me, and I'd taken a side profile photo of her concentrating on her task. The last photo was the one someone else had taken of us on our wedding day, when she was helping me fix my tie. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows of the church and illuminated the loving tenderness in her eyes. My finger hesitated as it hovered over the "Delete" button, but I ultimately tapped on it. The past seven years were deleted within just three seconds. I closed my eyes, but images from my past life came flooding back to me at the worst possible moment. After learning that she was pregnant with Dexter's baby, I lost my mind and tore him a new one, loudly demanding to know why he had stolen my wife from me. However, Jasmine's bodyguards grabbed me and pinned me to the ground, pinning my face against the cold tile floor. I then heard her say, "Send him to the psychiatric hospital and lock him up there. I've had enough of him." She never spared me another glance. I'd yelled, screamed, cried, begged, and pleaded with her, but nobody paid me any heed. It wasn't until I was on my deathbed that she finally came to visit me. Chapter 2 Jasmine crouched before my deathbed, wearing the dark gray coat I'd given her in the past. She still looked as gorgeous as I remembered. She looked at my emaciated form on the bed. Her last words to me were, "If I knew how obsessive you'd turn out to be, I would never have married you in the first place." By the time I opened my eyes, I realized that it had already gotten dark outside. I wasn't going to let this life turn out like that again. I was going to make her and Dexter pay with their blood. … The next morning, I went back to the villa to pack up my things. The moment I pushed the door open, I saw Dexter sitting on the living room couch, hugging an oversized cushion. When he saw me, he grinned at me and slowly got up, deliberately holding a hand over his chest as he made his way toward me. "You're finally here, Noah. I thought you weren't ever coming back to pack up your things. "I've already done you a favor by categorizing all your stuff. You can see which things you want to take away with you." While walking past me, he said in a low voice, "This villa is really huge, you know, and it's such a comfortable place to live in. "Oh, by the way, I've switched out the bed in the master bedroom. The original one… Frankly speaking, Jazzy and I both think that it's bad luck." Every word he said was like a knife to my heart. The tone he used on me was the same one I'd used on him when I brought him home many years ago. Dexter was actually my foster brother. He grew up in my household, and Mom and Dad had always favored him over me. I felt sorry for him still living with my parents in the cramped flat at home, so I offered to let him move in with Jasmine and me after we got married and moved into this huge villa. Back then, I'd introduced him to Jasmine and said, "This is Dexter, my little brother. Please be nice to him." Jasmine had smiled and nodded. But then Dexter appeared in my master bedroom, wearing my sleeping robe, with my equally undressed wife lying next to him. I stared at him, still holding a hand to his chest as the scene from my past life flashed before my eyes. Right after she got pregnant with Dexter's baby, she began losing patience with me. After being sent to the psychiatric hospital, I overheard the nurses gossiping that Jasmine had left everything to the child she had with him. But I was forcefully strapped to the bed then, and I couldn't even cry or lash out in despair. Hatred and resentment surged in my chest, and I dug my nails firmly into my flesh until the skin on my palms broke. I wanted nothing more than to lunge at Dexter and punch him in the face, just to make him experience the same kind of suffering I went through back then—but I couldn't. I had been given a second chance at this, and I wasn't going to let myself end up in the psychiatric hospital once more. Instead, I took a deep breath and began packing up my things expressionlessly. There weren't many things in my suitcase—just a few clothing items, a few books, and an old photo frame. These were all the possessions I had to show for my seven years of marriage. When Dexter saw that I wasn't reacting to his provocation, he got anxious and said, "Why aren't you saying anything, Noah? Do you feel horrible? Does it hurt?" I looked at him and slowly curved my lips into a smirk. "What did you want me to say to you, Dexter? Congratulations?" He was stunned for a moment. I continued, "I don't want this home anymore. Have fun." Then, I dragged the suitcase out with me and left. While leaving, I glanced at the hidden corner in the study. A miniature camera was installed there, recording the entire scene of me agreeing to the divorce with Jasmine the other day. In my past life, I'd lost because I lacked evidence. But in this life, I was going to make sure every move I made was carefully plotted and documented. That night, Jasmine met up with me to sign some additional documents. She looked at the documents I slid back over to her and suddenly said, "You've grown a lot more sensible, Noah." I set down my pen and asked, "You think I've gotten more sensible?" Her hand stiffened while holding the coffee mug. I said, "You don't have to pretend to look upset like this. It won't be nice if other people learned that you cheated on me to be with my brother. Don't you think so?" She frowned slightly but didn't retaliate. I knew that she wouldn't respond to my slight provocation. She was now most afraid that I would make a huge spectacle about this. She needed me to leave quietly and with dignity. She needed the public to believe that the "real" reason for our divorce was the fact that we agreed to it amicably instead of her cheating on me with Dexter. I'd hit the nail right on the head. I knew her like the back of my hand, but I knew she couldn't say the same thing about me. While preparing to leave after signing the documents, Dexter suddenly appeared at the door. He clutched his chest and shuffled in, whining softly, "Jazzy… My chest hurts really bad… It hurts…" She immediately set down her coffee mug and hurried over to support him. Chapter 3 Jasmine slid an arm around the back of Dexter's waist and patted his back with the other hand, speaking in a gentle voice that I found extremely foreign. "It's okay. I'm here." The concern and anxiety on her face were real. They were also something that I'd rarely ever seen in our seven years of marriage. I stood at the doorway, watching them, and suddenly broke into a smile. How hilarious. This woman, who thought of me as an obsessive madman, was actually treating another person with such tenderness. I opened the front door, allowing the night breeze to blow in. I heard Jasmine's voice behind me say, "Be careful on your way back." Who did she think she was fooling? … I went to my studio the next day and realized that the lock was broken. Someone had broken in and completely trashed my studio. My drafts and sketches had been ripped up and scattered across the floor, my easels and paintbrushes were broken, and three large words were spray-painted on the walls in red. "Get lost, cheater!" I had spent three months preparing drafts and sketches for my exhibition next month, but now they were all gone. I hadn't even snapped back to my senses when I heard my neighbors whispering amongst themselves. "Heard that? Noah finally agreed to the divorce." "Yeah. And you know what a good person Jasmine is. I bet Noah did something outrageous to her. Otherwise, she wouldn't have insisted on divorcing him." I was dazed. Those words felt too familiar. It had been the exact same situation as back then, in my past life. Jasmine protected Dexter by spreading lies and rumors about me being insane in the head, accusing me of obsessively stalking and pestering her, and painting me as the root cause of the divorce. I fought back by exposing her misdeeds and making a huge fuss at her company, spilling all the beans to the public. But as it turned out, everyone only treated me like I'd lost my mind, accusing me of being a psycho and deserving of being locked up in a mental hospital forever. And so, Jasmine seized the opportunity and locked me up in the psychiatric hospital when I threw another fuss at the general hospital. Back then, the "diagnosis" report read, "This patient has paranoid personality disorder. In-patient treatment is highly recommended." Jasmine was the one who signed the document. I shook off the memories and walked straight up to the people who were gossiping about me. "You think that I cheated? Then, tell me, who exactly did I cheat on her with?" They were shocked by my sudden appearance and stammered for a long time trying to answer me, exchanging glances with one another. Just then, Dexter suddenly appeared in the hallway and walked up to me with an innocent smile on his face. "Come on, Noah. Of course you're the only one who would know whom you cheated on Jazzy with." His eyes were smug when he spoke to me. I just met him with my expressionless eyes and said, "Everyone, there's only one of us here who is the real cheater. Wanna guess who it is?" Dexter's face turned pale. The people around us were stunned as well. But right at that moment, Jasmine also turned up out of the blue and rushed over to us, shielding Dexter behind her. She frowned at me and said, "We're already divorced, Noah. Stop attacking Dexter like this." I stared at her. "So, you're admitting that you were the ones who spread the false rumors about me?" She didn't admit it, but she didn't deny it either. She only said, "You're going overboard." "I'm going overboard?" I turned to Dexter and said, "Tell me, Dexter. Have I ever let you down or wronged you growing up? "I was the one who paid for your college tuition. I was the one who recommended you for a job at the company. I was the one who offered to let you move in with us. And this is how you repay me? By harboring impure thoughts toward your own sister-in-law?" Dexter glared at me without a word. I then turned to Jasmine and enunciated each word clearly. "You're the one who kicked me out of the relationship, and now, you're also the one playing the good person in the public eye. You're absolutely disgusting." Jasmine's gaze turned cold. However, she didn't let it show on her face. Instead, she spoke to me condescendingly. "You've gone overboard this time, Noah. You'd better calm down right now before things get ugly." She was always like this—calm, collected, and most concerned about her ego. I straightened up and made myself clear. "You think that I've gone overboard, Jasmine Maynard? I'll show you what it really means to be going overboard." The reason I was reborn was to protect myself. I was here to exact revenge on them and make them pay, not to suffer another round of torment. Chapter 4 I turned to leave, still hearing Dexter's whining and Jasmine's low, soothing voice behind me. "Don't stay upset anymore. It's not good for your heart," she said to him. I quickened my pace, refusing to look back even once. … I never thought that Jasmine and Dexter would hop to action that quickly. A couple of social media influencers live-streamed to their audience as they pointed their cameras at my front door, throwing rotten eggs, splashing red paint, and even spray-painting "Get lost, cheater!" on it. I stood a short distance away, watching them destroy my place, suddenly realizing how absurd it was that they were accusing me of cheating when I was the one being cheated on. Besides, the real "side-chick" was sleeping peacefully next to my ex-wife. I pulled out my phone and texted Jasmine. "What's the meaning of the rotten eggs at my door?" She didn't reply. But ten minutes later, my bank app lit up with a bank transfer notification. Only a single word was written in the transfer notes. "Compensation." I stared at the amount and chuckled. It was compensation again. Jasmine always thought that every problem could be solved with money, as if the suffering and grievances I went through could be forgiven with a bank transfer. I suddenly remembered the first time she "compensated" me like this. It was when I found Dexter's underwear in our bed. I had come home earlier than expected from a business trip that day, and after pushing the bedroom door open, I saw the garment carelessly lying at the foot of the bed. Jasmine came out of the shower just then, her hair still wet and messy. I grilled her about the underwear, and she didn't even flinch as she replied, "It is exactly what you think it is." I flew into a rage and demanded an explanation from her, losing my cool and screaming at her in the process. I trashed the room and asked her how she could do this to me. But Jasmine remained silent throughout the entire ordeal. Ultimately, she transferred me a sum of money and said, "We can divorce if you want. You can leave." But why? "Why should I be the one leaving? I'm also part of this household!" She went silent for a long while. Finally, she looked me in the eyes and said, "Noah, you know that I was the only one who didn't care about your past and still married you back then. Nobody else would have ever done that." Silence hung in the air for a very long time after what she said. That was the first time she deliberately hurt me by bringing up that incident. What happened back in college wasn't my fault. And yet, she used it as an excuse to make it seem like I was "unworthy" of her. Later on, she apologized and said that it was just something she'd blurted out in the heat of the moment. However, I knew that it wasn't a mistake. It was what she thought of me. She had never really accepted me for me. I snapped back to the present and stared at the "compensation" notification on my phone. Then, I took a screenshot and saved it to my gallery. Every "compensation" she gave me was solid proof. I sent the screenshot to Vernon at once. … The next day, rumors accusing me of plagiarism spread online like wildfire. My name, my photo, and the college incident were all screenshotted and posted on the worldwide web for everyone to see. I never thought that Jasmine would even tell Dexter about that incident. Who did she take me for? And what did she actually take my worst fear and most traumatic experience for? Some sort of gossip for small talk? A bargaining chip to please her new lover? I stared at the malicious comments attacking me on the internet. Why? Why were the wrongdoers allowed to strut around triumphantly while the real victim was hounded at every turn? Why did Jasmine and Dexter get to walk away unscathed while I was torn apart by the entire internet? Just then, my phone buzzed with a text message from Vernon. "The evidence is all set." "Okay," I replied. "Jasmine and Dexter will be holding their engagement party at The Grand Luxe Hotel in three days." I made a call. "Get me an invitation to the engagement party." … Three days later, I showed up in a bespoke black suit and walked into the ballroom as if I belonged there. Dexter was dressed in a white tuxedo, with Jasmine's hand wrapped around his arm. He smiled brilliantly at all the guests as he sought out their blessings. I took out my phone and began to live-stream. "Good day, everyone. My name is Noah Hardin." I gradually made my way onto the stage, my leather shoes clicking soundly against the marble flooring. Jasmine finally caught sight of me, and her gaze sharpened at once. I continued, "I'm taking all of you on a tour of the engagement party hosted by my ex-wife and my foster brother."