So in this second life, I was determined to learn my lesson.

In the months since my rebirth, I'd stayed in and refused every chance to see Nathaniel, giving him back to Vivian. I thought that would be enough to stop the whole mistake before it started. I never expected Nathaniel to show up at my door.

In the middle of the night, someone pounded on our front gate.

My parents were still at the factory. My younger siblings were fast asleep. I dragged myself out of bed, threw a jacket over my shoulders, and went to answer.

"Who is it?"

"It's me. Nathaniel."

My stomach dropped.

I'd been trying so hard to avoid any entanglement with him. Why was he here?

When I didn't open the door after answering, he knocked again.

"Is Layla home? I need her. It's urgent!"

"Who's asking for me?"

Layla appeared beside me, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"It's Nathaniel. No idea what he wants this late."

With Layla there, I went ahead and opened the gate. Nathaniel stood on the doorstep, caked in mud, a wreck.

"What happened to you…?" Layla was taken aback.

Nathaniel was usually careful about his appearance. He didn't own much, but he always kept himself clean.

"Layla, please. I'm begging you. Save Vivian."

He dropped to his knees right there in the dirt and pressed his forehead to the ground at my sister's feet.

"She's bleeding so much. I can't stop it—"

"Just save her, I'll do whatever you want. You want me to leave Vivian and marry your sister instead, fine, I'll do it—"

A life was at stake. Layla didn't wait for him to finish. She was already turning back into the yard, wheeling out the family bicycle. She told me to stay and watch over the younger ones; she'd be back as soon as she could.

I sat in the courtyard until the sky turned pale. I made breakfast for my siblings. Only then did Layla come home.

Blood had smeared across her clothes, soaking her white top red.

"Here, wash up."

I brought her a basin of water and told her to change so I could scrub the clothes.

"No point. This one's done for."

She drank some water, then sat me down beside her.

"Listen to me." Her expression was dead serious, her eyes fixed on my face. "If you ever end up pregnant before you're married—no matter who the man is—you absolutely cannot just buy pills and try to deal with it on your own. You tell me. I'll take you to a clinic."

I pulled free of her grip, stunned. "What are you saying? I'm still a virgin. Why would you suddenly—"

No. It wasn't sudden at all.

Nathaniel's panic. Vivian's unstoppable bleeding. Layla's warning. The pieces locked together in my head and formed one truth.

Vivian was pregnant. And the baby was Nathaniel's.

In this era, getting pregnant before marriage was the kind of shame that would get you condemned behind your back for the rest of your life.

To keep people from finding out, they hadn't dared go to a hospital. They'd bought pills and tried to handle it themselves.

The result was Vivian hemorrhaging. Nathaniel had no other option. He came to my sister in the dead of night.

Layla had worked at the county health clinic before. Anyone in the neighborhood with a headache or a fever who didn't want to bother with the hospital would come to her.

"So… is Vivian okay?"

"Hard to say. The county hospital couldn't handle it, so they sent her to the city in the middle of the night." Layla paused. "I heard Vivian's father sent people. Not sure if that's true, but there were other people in the car besides Nathaniel."

"Oh…" I set a bowl of rice in front of Layla and went back to my room.

In my previous life, Nathaniel and I never had children.

I'd tried everything—checkups, folk remedies, temples, prayers.

Nathaniel never cared much about it. He said he didn't like kids.

After I pushed and pleaded long enough, he finally gave in and agreed to go to the hospital for an exam.

We hadn't known until the test. Nathaniel's count came back dead—zero motility, zero chance. The doctor said he would never father a child in his life.

"I already told you, stop thinking about having kids."

I suggested IVF, a sperm bank. He refused every option.

I let it go. His ego couldn't take it, and I didn't push.

But now Vivian Bennett was pregnant.

Nathaniel, who supposedly couldn't have children.

I tried to feel my sister out indirectly, asking whether the baby Vivian was carrying was really his. She shot me a look.

"If it wasn't his, you think he'd be fussing over it like that? He'd lose his mind."

Right. If it wasn't his, he'd never have stomached it.

A bitter laugh escaped me, and a blurred memory suddenly came into focus.

Not long after the wedding, Nathaniel had gone away on a business trip for a month.

When he came back, I'd missed him so badly I couldn't keep my hands off him—kept pulling him toward the bedroom, night after night. He turned me down every time.

Back then I'd wondered if I'd done something wrong, if I'd upset him somehow.

Now I understood. It wasn't that he didn't want to. He couldn't.

He'd had a vasectomy. He was still recovering and couldn't sleep with me.

He'd let them cut him open rather than risk me ever carrying his child.

For Vivian Bennett, there was truly nothing he wouldn't do.

The next morning, I ran into Nathaniel again.

He was blocking my front door, waiting just to see me.

Stubble, bloodshot eyes, dried blood at the hem of his shirt. He looked wrecked.

"I know you've been reborn too." No preamble. "I need to ask you for one thing. For everything we were to each other in our last life."

I turned to leave. He stepped into my path.

He clearly wasn't going anywhere until he'd had this out.

"Quit fighting me on this. I'm begging you for one thing—one thing—and after that we're done. I won't bother you again. You go your way, I go mine, and we never cross paths."

"Cut the crap. What is it?" I'd been trying to figure out how to shake Nathaniel loose, and here he was, coming to me first.

"Have a child for me."