Chapter 1

"Emma, please accept my condolences Mr. Carter sacrificed himself heroically while covering his teammates during a multinational counter-terrorism mission," the young soldier said, his voice heavy with sorrow.

He stood before me in his crisp military uniform, his face solemn as he delivered the news that struck me like a bolt from the blue.

I just stared at him, my ears ringing.

Sacrificed?

There it was again.

Each word felt like a poisoned blade, cutting right into the deepest wound in my heart, stirring up all the bitterness and anger that had burned in my soul when I died last time.

But this wasn't the end.

I had travelled through time.

I found myself twenty-five again, right at the moment that had flipped my whole life upside down.

After the shock wore off, memories from my past life flooded in all at once.

In my last life, when I heard the news, I passed out right then and there.

When I came to, everyone kept saying, "You're still young, you should find someone else."

But I was the only one who held on tight to the promise I'd made to Michael on their wedding night.

"Michael, since I married you, it's you and me for life. No matter what happens, rich or poor, good times or bad, life or death, I won't ever betray you," I had vowed.

I kept that promise, turning down every matchmaker who came my way.

By then, Michael's father was long gone, and the only one left at home was my mother-in-law, bedridden and paralyzed from a stroke for years.

I held back her grief, wiped away my tears, and carried the weight of this shattered home all by myself.

It had been twenty long years.

I started out as a pretty young woman with a slim figure, but after years of hardship, I became a worn-out old woman—my hair gray, my skin rough, and my back hunched.

I spent every day and night taking care of my paralyzed mother-in-law, handling her bathroom needs, massaging her, turning her over, making medicine, feeding her.

All that nonstop work and poor nutrition wrecked my health; I ended up with serious liver problems and chronic back pain.

By forty-five, I was already like a candle flickering in the wind.

When I finally died, the mother-in-law she'd looked after for twenty years was still there in bed, weak but hanging on longer than Emma ever did.

I figured her life had been miserable, but at least she had a clear conscience. I'd done right by everyone, and by Michael.

But after I died, my soul drifted free, and that was when I finally saw the truth.

Michael wasn't dead at all.

He claimed he had a head injury and "lost his memory" during that mission, which gave him the perfect excuse to stay at a military base near the border of a Southeast country.

There, he lived with his first love, Olivia Reed, the leading performer of the army's entertainment troupe.

They even had a son together. By the time I died, that son was already in his twenties and had graduated from college.

My soul watched them, the three of them living it up, while Michael used the generous military benefits meant for the families of fallen heroes to buy Olivia fancy dresses and send their son overseas for college.

To them, I, the woman Michael actually married, was nothing but a free nurse for his paralyzed mother.

A fool to be dumped when she was no longer needed, kept in the dark all the way to her grave.

Twenty-plus years of youth, health, and everything I poured out, just thrown to the dogs!