When Soren came back, it was already late at night.

I was still sitting on the sofa, replaying everything over and over, trying to figure out exactly where things had gone wrong and when his heart had changed.

"Why aren’t you turning on the lights? What are you sitting here spacing out for?"

His voice was as gentle as ever. He sat down beside me and naturally reached over to wrap an arm around my waist, so normal that it almost felt as though what I’d seen earlier had been nothing more than a dream.

I dodged him on instinct.

The atmosphere stiffened.

A trace of cool detachment surfaced in Soren’s eyes. He had clearly noticed something was off. Nevertheless, as if already annoyed, he didn’t ask anything. "I’m going to sleep first. You should rest early, too."

That night, I slept terribly. Even though Soren was right beside me, my mind kept flashing back, again and again, to the moments of his death.

In the first life, he died in a car accident, instantly. Blood spilled from his body, soaking through my blouse.

In the second life, we got married. We didn’t go on a honeymoon, so the car accident never happened.

Instead, fate arrived in an almost ridiculous way. When he came to pick me up after work, a billboard overhead suddenly crashed down. It hit him squarely.

I watched with my own eyes as that tall man was crushed until nothing remained, as if heaven itself had decided he had to die.

I refused to believe it. So there was a third life.

In that life, I quit my job. After we got married, I stayed glued to his side, barely leaving him for a moment, terrified that the slightest lapse would lead to another accident.

We made it all the way to his 28th birthday without incident.

That day, candlelight lit up his eyes, bright and shimmering. In the halo of light, he confessed to me, his eyes damp, "Sloane, it's so wonderful having you in my life."

My heart was racing. His smile seemed to grow fainter, his face blurring before my eyes.

A powerful sense of unease nearly overturned me completely.

Then Soren suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Maybe too much time had passed. Maybe my panic left no room for any other memories.

I can’t remember the name of his illness. It was something rare, some obscure diagnosis. His life ended just like that—abruptly, almost absurdly careless.

My final memory stopped in a stark white hospital room.

In the deathly silence, only the machines by my ear blinked faintly, their relentless beeping sounding like they were draining away his last trace of life.

I wasn’t willing to accept it. How could I?

Soren and I met when we were young. Back then, I was a country bumpkin, an unsophisticated nobody. I happened to be fairly pretty and had a dance talent that drew envy. Several girls in my class began targeting me, subtly at first.

I endured it. I endured it right up until the day they overturned my grandmother’s waffle stall.

Amid the mess scattered across the ground, I held back tears as I helped Grandma up. The girls stood there, polished and radiant, laughing from above, their voices sharp.

They called me Waffle Girl, told me to go home and sell waffles instead.

Grandma was mute. Her lips trembled as she gestured, wiping the grease stains off my clothes for me.

Their laughter only grew louder.

That was when Soren appeared. He was holding a camera. With a single phone call, he summoned the school administrators.

He was a top student, and his family had some money. In our small town, that already made him someone impressive.

It was evening. The sky had been gloomy all day, yet somehow, at that moment, sunlight broke through layers of clouds and poured straight down onto Soren.

He reached out his hand. In his palm was a clean, neatly folded handkerchief.

The first thing he said was, "I’m sorry. I wanted to photograph the evidence first, so I didn’t help you right away."

Even now, I still remember how my heart pounded that day.

Fierce. Steady.

It was that heartbeat that carried me alone through countless cycles, through endless worlds where he died again and again.

It wasn’t until the second morning that I was still feeling dazed.

Soren got up around then. He changed into the clothes I had ironed for him and glanced at me as I set breakfast on the dining table.

"You’re not joining the dance troupe anymore? So you’re just staying at home like this? There isn’t really anything for you to do here, is there?" His voice softened toward the end, carrying a note of confusion.

My hand paused mid-wipe. I looked up at him, only to catch him immediately averting his gaze.

"Have your breakfast at home. I’m not eating. Don’t walk me out. Don’t come pick me up tonight either. I’m going to see Dr. Nadia."

As he spoke, he rubbed his brow at just the right moment, his tone flat and casual.

If this were before, I would have been worried about his condition. Now, all I felt was a chill spreading through my chest.

He was about to turn 28. We were also about to register our marriage.

In previous lives, at this point, I had completely lost the ability to focus on work, spending every day in constant fear and anxiety.

So I had simply quit the dance troupe and truly became a housewife.

Back then, he had thought I was working too hard and had laughed as he said, "Then don’t go anymore. From now on, dance just for me. With me here, what do you still need to worry about?"

I had accompanied him to and from work. He had introduced me openly to his colleagues. He would lift his hand almost proudly, showing off our matching rings.

Now, he looked at me with guarded indifference and told me, "Stop watching me all day. Find yourself something to do."

My breathing hitched. Immediately after came the loud slam of the front door, and the house fell into an eerie silence.

I sat at the table, mechanically picking at the breakfast in front of me. There was still warmth left in it, yet once it entered my mouth, it felt unusually cold.

How did it become like this?

Ever since Soren started treatment, the distance between us had slowly grown. He began to grow impatient with me, resistant to my presence.

After three lifetimes with me, had he finally met his true love?

Saving Soren had become something like a program hard-coded into my fate. Being told so suddenly to give it up made me feel as though I’d lost the center of my life.

I felt like I should rush up to him and demand answers. I wanted to ask him whether all my efforts across those lifetimes were nothing more than a joke to him. I wanted to know if that was the case, why had he still chosen to cooperate with me again and again?

In the end, I pretended that nothing had happened.

I watched helplessly as Soren grew more distant by the day. He was colder toward me, and the words between us grew fewer and fewer.

I watched Dr. Nadia draw closer and closer to him. On several nights, he couldn’t even be bothered to keep up appearances anymore. He took calls from her directly on the balcony.

In the darkness, even with a pane of glass between us, I could still see the smile spreading at the corner of Soren’s mouth.

Then came one evening. Like a resentful wife, I sat stubbornly at the dining table, waiting for him to come home.

It was nearly nine o’clock. After reheating the food more times than I could count, Soren finally returned.

Only this time, he wasn’t alone. Dr. Nadia came back with him.