Chapter 1
Jasper dropped to one knee right in front of me, a glinting diamond ring held out in his open palm. "Ella, will you marry me?"
Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto me, and their whispers buzzed through the air like a swarm of annoying mosquitoes.
"Look at that i***t, does she even know what a proposal is?"
"Jasper must be out of his damn mind, wanting to marry a dead weight like her."
"C'mon, it's only because she saved his life. If it were you, you'd do the same thing."
Back then, I could never parse the ugly meaning hidden behind their words. I only felt the sharp, stinging malice rolling off them, and I'd scramble to hide behind Jasper, shaking like a leaf.
But now... I finally understand.
They think I'm not good enough for him. And they're convinced he doesn't even love me.
All of a sudden, memories from my past life came flooding back. I saw him shielding me with his whole body as we ran out of a raging inferno.
His burned flesh fused to his singed clothes, and his whole body shook uncontrollably from the agony, but he still lifted a shaking hand to pat my head and whisper, "Ella, don't be scared."
When I went into labor with our son, I was screaming in agony, half out of my mind with pain.
He pressed his red, teary face right next to my ear and shouted encouragement over my cries, "You can do this! Our baby's waiting for you, and I'm waiting for you too!"
I saw our little boy, soft and tiny, just a little squishy round bundle, curled warm and safe in his arms.
He smiled down at the baby, nudging him gently to talk. "Say mama, that's your mama right there."
For a long time, everything was perfect. It stayed that way, until Monica came back.
There she was, in her pretty dress, smiling as she looped her arm through Jasper's and called him, "Jas."
After that, Jasper came home later and later every night. And when he did, I could catch the scent of Monica's perfume clinging to his clothes.
He stopped sitting patiently and listening to me fumble through my stuttered sentences.
When I held up our son's drawing to show him, he only patted my head half-heartedly, his mind clearly somewhere else.
As our son grew older, that soft, dependent look he'd always given me slowly turned to cold disgust.
He slammed the cake I'd prepared carefully onto the floor, shouting, "Stop coming to my school to pick me up! All the other kids say I have a crazy mom. They look down on me because of you. Stop ruining my life. Only Monica deserves to be my mom!"
And in the end, he shoved me with all his strength, straight into the middle of the road, screaming, "Just die! Give Dad back to Monica!"
Then there was the look on Jasper's face when I drew my last breath, heavy with grief, yet sharp with relief all at once.
"I've paid back everything I owed you, fifteen years of it. When you die, just let me go. Let me be happy with Monica," he said.
I thought to myself: a fool and a normal person really don't belong together.
Now, those old memories drifted away like smoke, but they left my chest aching so sharply it burned, my heart twisted with a bitter, throbbing pain.
I dropped my gaze, staring at him, who still knelt on one knee in front of me, waiting for my answer.
"No," I said. "I don't want to marry you."
