Embracing My Past A Decade of Second Chances

Following the death of my child, my mind shattered.

Food turned to ash in my mouth. Days blurred into a gray, indistinct haze. Sarah Harding hired the country's top psychologist for me, tending to my every need for over six months.

I didn't want to be a burden anymore. I fought to cooperate with the treatment, forcing myself to read, to write, to anchor myself in reality. I tried every trick to shift my focus away from the grief.

Just as the fog began to lift, a line of text materialized on the page of my diary.

*"Leave Sarah Harding. If you don't, you will die a miserable death."*

My first instinct was resignationmy psychosis had returned.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, but the words didn't vanish. Instead, fresh red ink began bleeding onto the paper, forming new sentences, line after terrifying line.

*"Jayden Henson, I am you, ten years in the future."*

*"I know this sounds impossible, but you must listen."*

*"Sarah Harding betrayed you long ago. The child's death? She is involved."*

*"In three months, she will take you to Bali for a 'vacation.' She will conceive her lover's child there."*

*"She will gaslight you, claiming your condition is worsening, and commit you to a mental asylum."*

*"When you need her most, Sarah will take your money, marry her lover, and raise their family on your grave."*

*"So... while there is still time, run."*

*"Don't let yourself be trapped."*

The handwriting was mine. The tone was mine.

But the wordsthose belonged to a nightmare I couldn't comprehend.

The pen slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor.

The bedroom door creaked open. Sarah walked in.

Exhaustion hung on her like a second skin. Her shoulders slumped as she collapsed onto the bed beside me, her voice a soft purr laced with sweetness that suddenly felt cloying.

"Hubby, are you feeling any better today?" She nuzzled closer. "I've been so busy lately. I hate that I can't be here with you. Once this crunch time is over, let's go to Bali. Just the two of us. How does that sound?"

*Bali?*

My heart slammed against my ribs.

My gaze flicked involuntarily to the notebook on the nightstand. A cold seed of suspicion took root in my gut.

The woman in my arms had her eyes closed, her breathing even. Fatigue was etched into her delicate features. After our baby died, Sarah had been devastated. But she buried her grief to be my pillar. I had seen her weeping silently on the balcony, only to turn around with a forced smile the moment she sensed my presence.

If not for her patience, her unwavering support, I would have ended it all months ago.

Sarah, who loved me. Sarah, who was so gentle, so family-oriented.

Could she really... cheat?

The diary was too bizarre. A hallucination.

It had to be.

But the doubt gnawed at me. Hesitantly, I reached for her phone.

The password was still my birthday. The wallpaper was still us at eighteen, young and untouched by tragedy.

No dating apps. No games. I opened WeChat. Aside from a wall of work-related messages, the only pinned chat was me. Everything was pristine.

Flawless.

The tension in my chest uncoiled slightly. A long, ragged sigh escaped me.

*It's the sickness,* I told myself. *The doctor warned me. Long-term use of the medication can cause auditory and visual hallucinations.*

*I need to see the doctor tomorrow,* I thought. *The dosage needs adjusting.*

I prepared to set the phone back on the nightstand.

The screen lit up.

A notification from her work group. Someone had tagged Sarah.

Before I could tap it, my elbow knocked the diary off the table. It hit the floor with a dull thud.

Sarah jolted awake. Her eyes darted around in confusion before landing on the lit phone screen. She snatched it up. As she read the message, her expression tightened. She scrambled out of bed, grabbing her coat.

"There's a crisis with the project. I have to go back to the office immediately."

She paused at the door, her voice dropping to a soothing cadence. "Jayden, stay put. Be good. I'll have the housekeeper come over. Call me if you need anything."

She stepped into the hallway, then hesitated. Seeing me sitting motionless in the dark, she turned back.

"If... if you really don't want me to go, I can stay."

The hallway light backlit her silhouette, leaving her face in shadow. But exhaustion dripped from every word. Since my breakdown, I had been a volatile burden. To support us, to pay for my treatments, she ran herself ragged between the company and our home.

The coffee table was always stocked with my favorite fruits. The bookshelves were filled with therapy guides she had bought. Her eyes were perpetually bloodshot.

Sarah, who sacrificed everything for mehow could she be cheating?

Where would she even find the time?

I reached out, my fingers brushing her cheek.

"It's okay," I said, my voice hoarse. "Go. Handle your work."

"I took my meds. I'm feeling stable. I'll cooperate with the doctor. I want to get better for you."

Relief washed over her face. She leaned in, kissed my cheek, and hurried away.

As the front door clicked shut, I frowned.

Was it my imagination?

Or did a faint scent linger in the air?

*Cigarette smoke.*

I shook my head, dismissing the thought, and bent to retrieve the diary.

New ink glistened on the page.

*"Go to the Mid-Mountain Villa. You will find your answer there."*

*Mid-Mountain Villa.*

My hands began to tremble. A chill radiated from my spine, freezing the blood in my veins. I bit my lip, fighting back the sting of tears.

Mid-Mountain Villa was the dream home we had poured our life savings into.

It was also the tomb of our happiness.

Years ago, we sacrificed our health for our careers. Conception was a miracle after years of failure. Sarah was ambitious, and I understood her drive, so I stepped back. I became the househusband.

When our child was one year old, I slipped.

I fell down the stairs. The baby in my arms... didn't survive.

The guilt had hollowed me out. I punished myself with starvation, with pain, drowning in memories to escape the reality of my empty arms. Sarah, watching me wither, sold the villa. She moved us here to save me from the ghosts of that house.

Mid-Mountain Villa was a taboo.

A scar we never touched.

I thought she sold it to protect me.

But the diary was screaming a different truth.

*She kept it. To hide her lover.*

Nausea roiled in my stomach. On the page, the words appeared faster now, jagged and urgent.

*"Jayden, I know this hurts. But you have to wake up."*

*"Sarah doesn't love you. She hasn't for a long time."*

*"She is sick of your moods, your depression. She found comfort in the arms of her secretary."*

*"The scraps of affection she once had for you were worn away years ago."*

I shook my head violently.

*Impossible.*

We built this life from nothing. I saved her when we were young. I changed her destiny. She loved me. She would never betray me.

I tried to slam the diary shut, to silence the hallucinations.

But the next paragraph tore my heart to shreds.

*"Stop blaming yourself for the baby. It wasn't your fault."*

*"While you were home raising the child, Sarah claimed she was working. She wasn't. She was with Xavier Pruitt."*

*"The day the baby died? They were upstairs."*

*"Xavier knocked over a bottle of lubricant. That is why you slipped."*

*"When the ambulance took you away, Xavier was hiding in the nurserythe room you decorated with your own hands."*

*"While you were drowning in self-loathing, Sarah was comforting Xavier."*

*"And just now? Sarah didn't leave for work. She left because Xavier summoned her."*

*"They are at the Mid-Mountain Villa right now, plotting how to transfer your joint assets."*

*"Jayden Henson, wake up!"*

*"The only one who can save you is yourself."*

The handwriting deteriorated from neat script to frantic scrawls, vibrating with desperation.

I gasped for air, my chest heaving. The moonlight outside the window felt cold, mocking. The notification on her phone... the smoke... the "work" emergency.

It all coalesced into a black hole threatening to swallow me whole.

Was Sarah a monster?

Or was I finally losing my mind completely?

I didn't know.

But the Mid-Mountain Villa held the truth.

I grabbed my medication and shoved the diary into my bag. I hailed a taxi, giving the driver the address of the place I had vowed never to return to.

As the city lights blurred past, I opened the diary again, desperate to find a tether to the past, to the love I thought we shared.

The entries began from the day we met.

*December 30, 2015. Sunny.*

*First snow in Harbin.*

*I found a girl freezing on my doorstep. She said she was a student my father sponsored. Her grandfather passed away, her relatives seized her home. She had nowhere to go.*

*I couldn't tell her the truththat my parents divorced, that my father abandoned us both. He wouldn't care if she lived or died. But looking into her eyes... I couldn't turn her away.*

*I let her stay in the shop. Room and board included. The wages are enough for her to survive.*

*They say good deeds are rewarded. I saved a girl; maybe Heaven will save my mom.*

*December 31, 2015. Sunny.*

*Sarah is a hard worker. She never stops moving. Having her here makes things easier.*

*She eats a lot, though. Our savings are hitting rock bottom.*

*I don't know when Mom will get better.*

*February 11, 2016. Sunny.*

*The hospital issued a critical notice for Mom.*

*The rain was torrential. No taxis. I ran all the way to the hospital and broke my leg in the fall.*

Sarah Harding was my rock as we rushed to the hospital.

But I still missed the chance to see Mom one last time.

Sarah handled everythingcontacting the funeral home, arranging the service, managing the grief I couldn't process. Watching her move through those impossible hours, it struck me how much she had grown. The child who had once curled up on my doorstep, shivering and helpless, was now a woman capable of holding up the sky on her own.

*March 18, 2016. Sunny.*

*The college entrance exams are approaching. Sarah's grades are solid. Her teachers say she has talent to match her diligence. If she pushes just a little harder, a top-tier university is within reach. I hesitated, but in the end, I scraped together the last of my savings to enroll her in tutoring. I don't know when it happened, but it feels like it's just the two of us against the world now, leaning on each other to survive.*

*March 19, 2016. Sunny.*

*Sarah refused the money. She said I've done enough, that she'll repay me when she's capable. But honestly, I haven't done much. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have survived these lonely years either.*

*June 23, 2016. Sunny.*

*The results are out. On the day she received acceptance letters from both Tsinghua and Peking University, she confessed to me. It turns out the gardenias in the vase, the small gifts... none of it was accidental. Perhaps because of what happened with Dad, I'm slow when it comes to emotions. I only just realized Sarah's love had shifted into something else. But how do I respond? Dad's betrayal made me fear marriage. But Sarah... could she be the exception?*

*July 17, 2016.*

*We're together. I'm happy.*

Long-term medical treatment had slowed my cognitive functions and eroded my memory. This diary was supposed to be my anchor, helping me rediscover the happiness I had lost. It reminded me of days that were hard but threaded with hope.

I was much older than Sarah, yet she was far steadier than I ever was. It took me only a year to raise her, yet she had spent over a decade protecting and cherishing me. I had always thanked the heavens for letting our paths cross.

Reading the joy overflowing between those lines, a smile finally touched my lips.

But when I flipped to the last page, the smile froze.

On the yellowed paper, jagged, furious characters had been scrawled over the original text.

*"Don't believe it. Even a beautified diary can lie."*

My head snapped up. We had arrived.

The long-uninhabited villa blazed with light. Sarah's car sat parked neatly in the driveway. Through the window, silhouettes danced against the curtainsunmistakably hers.

I pulled up the villa's surveillance feed on my phone.

The screen flickered to life.

Sarah and Xavier Pruitt. Locked in a tight embrace. A smile played on her lipsa radiant, unburdened smile I had never seen directed at me.

Brighter than the sun.

Betrayal. Already etched in stone.

Strangely, my heart didn't shatter. It was calmer than I expecteda dead sea of silence. I watched Sarah laughing with another man. I watched as new handwriting began to manifest on the diary page, stroke by bloody stroke.

Red ink appeared out of thin air, writing frantically, detailing the end that awaited me.

*"The Bali trip. Sarah gets pregnant again."*

*"You are overjoyed. But when you accompany her to the prenatal checkup, you run into her sworn enemy."*

*"The man Sarah drove into bankruptcy is there. He has a knife. He wants to die, and he wants to take Sarah with him."*

*"In the chaos, Sarah pushes you into the blade."*

*"The knife meant for Sarah pierces you instead. You lose your ability to have children forever."*

*"But this time, Sarah doesn't nurse you back to health. She doesn't care."*

*"Because the child in her belly belongs to Xavier."*

*"She commits you to a mental institution. Within a year, she transfers all your assets and files for divorce."*

*"You spend the rest of your life in misery, rotting away."*

As the red script bled onto the page, memories I had deliberately suppressed exploded in my mind. The pain I had locked away, the past I refused to faceit all came rushing back like a tidal wave.

I remembered.

The countless nights Sarah refused to come home.

The faint, cloying scent of foreign tobacco clinging to her clothes.

The tears, the humiliation, the screaming matches.

The day I lost our child. Sarah had pointed a manicured finger at my face, her eyes filled with venom.

"Jayden Henson, you are useless trash! You live off a woman like a parasite!"

"You couldn't even keep a child safe. What good are you?"

"What right do you have to police my private life? If I were you, I'd have bashed my brains out against a wall long ago!"

Those words had pushed me over the edge.

That night, after Sarah slammed the door and left me alone yet again, I took a razor to my wrist. The bathwater turned crimson, terrifying the housekeeper who found me. I was rushed to the hospital, subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, hypnosis, and heavy medication.

The high-intensity treatments and experimental drugs erased the trauma. My mind's defense mechanism rewrote history, beautifying Sarah, turning a monster into a savior.

Gradually, my brain turned to mush. I forgot the cheating. The betrayal. The rage. I only remembered the ancient historythe love from a decade ago that had long since turned to ash.

But now, the dam had broken.

The Jayden from ten years in the future, filled with hatred, was screaming the truth at me.