Loving You Got Me Killed Once Already

Everyone around us knows I'm in love with Ryland Wood. But from his 21st birthday on, he despises me. It takes three years and my accidental death for him to finally be free of me. When I open my eyes again, I find myself reborn, right back on the day of his 21st birthday. This time, I choose to run. Now, I refuse to be the lovesick fool, and I refuse to cling to him. Chapter 1 Thea's POV "Ms. Reeves, we've arrived at the Woods'." The car rolled to a gentle stop, and I was jolted awake by Barton Yates, our family driver. "The Woods'? Barton, why did you bring me here?" "Ms. Reeves, your mother just called. She said Mr. Wood got into a fight with his parents at his birthday party, and she wants you to go over and calm him down. So that's where we headed." The moment I heard his explanation, everything clicked. I had been reborn on the day of Ryland Wood's 21st birthday. Ryland and I had grown up together, and everyone knew I was in love with him. But starting from this very day, his 21st birthday, he had begun to hate me. Thankfully, none of that had happened yet. I pulled out my phone, scrolled through my contacts until I found the number for the girl Ryland actually liked, and sent her a text. "Ryland got into a fight with his family. You should go check on him." Once the message was sent, I let out a breath of relief and turned to Barton. "Let's head back, Barton. Take me home." He looked at me in surprise. "Ms. Reeves, you're not worried about Mr. Wood?" "I asked a good friend of his to go comfort him." Barton didn't seem entirely convinced, but he started the car and drove us back toward the Reeves estate. I sat in the back seat, staring out the window as memories from my past life came flooding back. Dad and Ryland's father were close friends, and Ryland was a year older than me. We had grown up side by side, attending the same schools from kindergarten all the way through college. His parents traveled for work constantly, so he ended up eating dinner at our house more often than at his own. In my past life, I had listened to my mother without question, hung up the phone, and rushed over to the Woods' in a panic. The moment I stepped through the door, I ran right into Ryland storming out of the house. His expression was cold, and he barely glanced at me before walking right past. I was worried he would do something reckless going out that late in such a bad mood, so I followed him. After a lot of coaxing, I finally convinced him to come back to my place to cool off. That night, I stayed up talking with him for hours, and we had a few drinks together. Maybe it was the alcohol, but at some point, we both passed out. By the time we woke up the next day, it was already noon. When I walked out of the room, I found the living room packed with family and friends, including Ryland's parents. Just like that, the "fact" that Ryland and I had spent the night alone together was out in the open. No matter how we tried to explain, both sets of parents just smiled at each other, as if the two of us being together was the most natural thing in the world. What I hadn't expected was that the news spread through campus too. Ryland was already the most popular guy on campus, so once the news got out, the rumors about us spread like wildfire. Ryland stopped seeing me entirely, while I scrambled to take down posts and explain myself to anyone who would listen. "Thea, marry me." Three days later, Ryland showed up at my doorstep in a suit, holding an enormous bouquet of roses. His expression was dead serious. I was thrilled. I actually thought his serious face meant he was taking the proposal to heart, that he truly meant it. It was the first time I had ever seen him in a suit, and the first time he had ever given me roses. Getting engaged to the man I loved made me feel like the luckiest woman in the world. Everyone knew how I felt about him, and everyone wanted us to end up together. So when I said yes, it was exactly what everyone expected—the natural next step. Then we got engaged. Chapter 2 Thea's POV During those days, everything had felt sweet. I had spent countless hours imagining what our life would be like after we got married. I would be the best wife I could be, stand by his side through everything, and give him a house full of beautiful children. But on our wedding day, I noticed that Ryland was completely out of it. His eyes kept drifting to one person in the crowd of guests. I knew her. She was a classmate from our university, in the same department as Ryland. Her name was Payton Ames. After the ceremony, I found Ryland in the lounge, drunk, still murmuring Payton's name. "Ryland, do you have feelings for someone else?" "Yeah, I do. So what? I still married you, didn't I?" He shoved me away, his voice dripping with anger and resentment. I hit the ground and scraped my knee open, but I didn't even feel the pain… because the pain in my chest was so much worse. I truly had no idea he had feelings for someone else. I had never seen any sign of him dating another woman. Yes, I loved Ryland, but I had never forced him to marry me. And the other night, I had just passed out from drinking. Nothing had even happened. "Ryland, I really didn't know you liked someone. If you don't want to be with me, we can get a divorce right now." "Thea, how are you this good at playing innocent? You just married me, and now you're talking about divorce? You got what you wanted and you're still putting on the act. You make me sick." He stood up after that, slammed the door, and left. That was the moment I realized just how deep his hatred for me really ran. And it never faded, not even a little, not until the day I died three years later. The sound of my phone ringing snapped me out of the memory. The second I picked up, Mom's voice came through, already irritated. "Thea, why aren't you here yet? Some woman just showed up, and Ryland left with her." "Mom, she's the one Ryland likes. He'd rather be with her right now." "Oh, Thea. Never mind, we'll talk later. His mother got so upset she's not feeling well. We're taking her to the hospital." Mom sighed and hung up. She and Mrs. Wood probably both thought I should have been the one by Ryland's side tonight, that it was the perfect chance to bring us closer. Instead, I had handed that opportunity to someone else, and they were disappointed. But I felt lighter than I had in a long time. In this life, I hadn't shown up to whisk Ryland away, which meant there would be no night spent alone together, no scandal, no forced narrative. This time, Payton was the one who left with him, and if anything happened between them, it would be because they actually wanted each other. By the time I got to the hospital, Mrs. Wood was already on an IV drip. She took my hand and tried to explain. "Thea, Ryland is just being foolish. Please don't be upset with him. Once he's back, his father and I will set him straight." "Mrs. Wood, I'm not upset. She's the one Ryland cares about. He's happier with her." "But Ryland's the one you love. We all hoped the two of you would—" "Mrs. Wood, you can't force something that isn't meant to be. Let's just let things happen naturally." After hearing that, both sets of parents exchanged looks, clearly regretful but resigned. My parents and I stayed in the hospital room with Ryland's parents for a long time after that, keeping them company and trying to lift their spirits. They were so low that none of us felt right about leaving. We didn't head out until Mrs. Wood's IV was finished, and by then, it was well past midnight. Chapter 3 Thea's POV After we got home, I took a shower and crawled into bed, but I couldn't sleep. I figured I would head to the study and find a book to read, and that was when I stumbled across an old diary of mine. The cover was worn and faded, which made sense. I had written it back in seventh grade. But I still remembered everything inside. It was all about Ryland and me. "September 1st, 2012. Sunny. "I'm so happy. Ryland and I went to register at our new school together today. We were wearing the same uniform, walking through the gates side by side, and everything just felt right. "He even carried my boxes, and I wiped the sweat off his face. I wanted to lean in and whisper that I liked him." Every entry in that diary captured a moment between us, and every single one of them had felt like something beautiful. But when Ryland found the diary, his reaction was nothing I could have prepared for. That moment was seared into my memory. It was the second year of our marriage, and things between us had seemed to thaw a little. He wasn't as cold toward me anymore. Every now and then he would actually talk to me, and when I was in the study, he no longer turned around and walked out. Then one day, he found the diary. The moment he read what was inside, his face went dark. "Thea, so you've been scheming this whole time. You planned all of this from the start. You genuinely disgust me." He threw the diary at my feet and stormed out. The pain hit me right in the chest, and tears burned at the edges of my eyes. That diary was something I had written when I was a naive kid, full of nothing but innocent feelings for him. How could that possibly make him uncomfortable? How did that make me a schemer? Our relationship hit rock bottom all over again. It wasn't until much later that I found out the truth. The reason things kept getting worse between us was that Payton had been stirring the pot the entire time, ruining Ryland's image of me from the inside. I had tried to explain things to him, but he never gave me the chance. He wouldn't even come home to sleep. I stopped having any illusions about our marriage. Ending it felt like the only real option left. But just as I had everything ready for the divorce, Ryland's family business ran into serious trouble. I still couldn't let go of him, and I couldn't bring myself to watch him face a crisis alone. So I quietly hid all the divorce paperwork and borrowed a significant amount of money from my family to help pull his company through. Once the business was back on its feet, I finally let myself breathe. I thought that surviving something like that together might soften things between us. But the opposite happened. He seemed to resent me even more than before, stopped coming home entirely, and wouldn't so much as look at me. This wasn't the marriage I wanted, but I had no choice except to accept it. I had always believed that marrying the man I loved meant we would grow old together, happy for the rest of our lives. Instead, we became strangers held together by a piece of paper, bound to each other with nothing left between us. The love and partnership I had dreamed of turned into nothing more than a business arrangement between two families. I stopped trying to hold our marriage together and just let it drift. Then one day, Payton sent me a photo. In it, Ryland was wiping a smudge from the corner of her mouth. A lavish spread of food covered the table in front of them, and despite how large the table was, the two of them were sitting pressed right up against each other. The love of his life was back, and seeing how happy they looked together, it hit me all at once that letting go might be the best thing I could do. Setting them free would set me free too.