Reborn to Ruin You

The first thing I noticed was the bitter taste in my mouth. I tried to swallow, but my throat felt strangely heavy. I couldn't move my arms or legs, and when I tried to speak, no sound came out. Panic rushed through me as I lay helplessly on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling while the room around me slowly came into focus. My body felt weak, almost as if all the strength had been drained from me.

Then I saw him.

Jared, the man I had loved and trusted with my heart, stood beside my bed, looking down at me with an expression I could no longer understand. For years, I had trusted that face. I had trusted him with my heart, my family, and everything I thought mattered. Now, as I struggled to move, he simply watched me without making any attempt to help.

My eyes shifted toward the other side of the room, and my heart sank when I saw Chloe, my stepsister, standing there with my newborn baby in her arms. She held my son against her chest as though he already belonged to her. I tried to scream and reach for him, but my body refused to obey me. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched the woman who was supposed to be my sister hold the child I had carried for nine months.

"Jared..." I forced the word out, barely louder than a whisper.

He looked at me, but there was no concern or fear in his eyes. There was no trace of the love I had once believed he had for me. There was only a coldness that made it difficult for me to recognize the man standing beside my bed.

"You shouldn't have trusted people so easily, Evelyn."

My heart broke as I stared at him, desperately trying to understand how the man I had loved could stand there and watch me suffer without doing anything. Then his eyes moved to the diamond necklace around my neck. It was the necklace my grandfather, Raymond Vance, had given me, and it was one of the few things I still had that reminded me of him.

Jared reached down and removed it from my neck. I wanted to stop him, but I couldn't even lift my hand. He walked over to Chloe and placed the necklace around her neck. Chloe looked at herself in the mirror and smiled as she admired it.

"Does it look good on me?"

"It suits you," Jared replied.

My tears fell faster. That necklace had been one of the few things I had left from my grandfather, and I had always believed it would remain with me forever. Yet watching Jared give it to Chloe hurt even more than losing the necklace itself. In that moment, I realized how completely I had been replaced, as though everything I had once believed belonged to me could simply be handed over to someone else.

I looked at my baby again. He was still so small, with his eyes closed as he rested quietly in Chloe's arms. I had carried him for nine months, dreamed about holding him, and imagined Jared standing beside me when he was born. Instead, I was lying helplessly on a hospital bed while the two people I trusted most stood together, already deciding what would happen to my child after I was gone.

"You don't have much time left," Jared said calmly.

My eyes returned to him. "What... did you do to me?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked at Chloe, who gave him a small smile before turning her attention back to my baby.

"She'll be gone soon."

My chest tightened as I listened to them. I couldn't believe this was happening. I wanted to believe there had to be some mistake, that Jared would eventually realize what he was doing and help me, but the expression on his face told me that he had already made his choice.

Then I remembered the last time I had spoken to my grandfather, Raymond, before his death in my first life. He had looked at me seriously and told me to be careful. He warned me not to let love make me blind to the people around me. At the time, I had thought he was simply worried about me, and I had refused to believe there could be anything wrong with the people I trusted.

I hadn't listened to him. I had chosen to believe Jared instead, and now I understood his warning far too late.

Jared stepped closer to my bed and looked at me with the same cold expression. "Chloe will take care of your son. You don't need to worry about him."

I stared at the woman holding my baby, and fear filled my heart. I didn't want Chloe raising my child, and I didn't want Jared deciding what would happen to my son's future after I was gone. I wanted another chance, just one chance to go back and see the truth before it was too late. I wanted the chance to protect my baby, make different choices, and listen to the warning my grandfather had given me.

If I could go back, I would never trust Jared again. I would listen to my grandfather, protect my family, and never allow Chloe to take what belonged to me.

My vision slowly became darker as the sounds around me began to fade. I could feel myself slipping away, but there was one thought I refused to let go of. I wanted another chance. I wanted the opportunity to change everything before it was too late.

Then everything went black.

I gasped and sat upright.

My hands immediately moved to my stomach as I struggled to catch my breath. I looked around the room in confusion, trying to understand where I was. This wasn't the hospital, and I wasn't lying in the bed where I had died. I was in my old bedroom, surrounded by things I hadn't seen in years.

My eyes moved around the familiar room, but I still couldn't understand what I was seeing. I climbed out of bed and hurried toward the mirror, and the woman staring back at me was younger. Much younger. I touched my face as if I needed to make sure it was really me before slowly looking down at my stomach.

It was already showing.

I was pregnant.

My heart started pounding as I stared at my reflection. I knew this room. I knew this place. I had lived here three years before my death, and the realization hit me so hard that I had to hold onto the edge of the table to steady myself.

I was back.

Somehow, I had been given another chance.

I looked at my reflection again, hardly able to believe what was happening. I remembered everything: the hospital, the bitter taste in my mouth, Jared taking my necklace, Chloe holding my baby, my grandfather's warning, and my death. All of it was still inside my mind, as clear as if it had happened only moments ago.

But I wasn't dead anymore.

I was alive, and I was carrying the child I had lost.

Then another thought hit me.

My grandfather.

Raymond was still alive.

I remembered that he hadn't died until later in my first life, which meant I had returned to a time when I still had him. The realization left me stunned. I had spent so much time thinking about my own death that I hadn't considered the fact that some of the people I had lost were still alive.

For the first time since waking up, I felt something other than fear.

Maybe this second chance wasn't only about changing my own fate.

A sudden sound came from the bedroom door, making me turn quickly. The door opened, and Jared walked in.

For a moment, I couldn't breathe.

He looked exactly as I remembered him from before everything went wrong. His face was softer, his expression was warm, and there was no trace of the coldness I had seen in the hospital. When he saw me standing there, he smiled.

"You're awake."

I stared at him without answering. My mind was struggling to accept the difference between the man standing in front of me and the man I had watched betray me.

Jared walked toward me and placed a hand gently on my shoulder. "You should rest. You're pregnant, remember?"

My body stiffened at his touch.

He didn't know. He had no idea that I remembered everything. He had no idea that I had already died because of him, and he certainly had no idea that the woman standing in front of him had been given another chance to live.

For the first time, I realized something that frightened me even more than death. I had three years before it happened. Three years to find out the truth, three years to protect my baby, and three years to make sure that the ending of my life would not be the same as before.

This time, I would not make the same mistakes.