"Strange?" Kathrine blinked, her expression genuinely startled.
Ethan caught it imdiately. Before she could spiral into the wrong conclusion, he lifted his free hand slightly. "Not in a bad way. I just an... sotis I find you hard to understand."
She stayed quiet, watching him carefully.
He hesitated for only a second before continuing. "That night at the bar, you were crying. You were holding Anna’s hand and asking her to forgive you. You kept saying you regretted what you did and that you would never repeat it."
Kathrine’s throat tightened.
The mory flashed in fragnts. The dim lights. The weight of alcohol. The overwhelming guilt that had spilled out before she could stop it.
She rembered saying those words.
She had not realized Ethan was close enough to hear.
"What else did you hear?" she asked, her tone sharpening slightly despite herself.
It was subtle, but the shift was there.
Kathrine needed to know. How much had Ethan seen. How much had Daniel understood. How convincing had Anna’s response been.
Ethan noticed the tension in her voice and blinked, montarily unsure if she was simply curious or quietly interrogating him.
"Nothing else," he replied carefully. "But that mont... that’s when I knew sothing was off."
He did not hesitate this ti.
"You weren’t apologizing because of Daniel," he continued. "That wasn’t about your marriage. It felt deeper than that. Like you were asking forgiveness for sothing bigger."
Kathrine’s heart began to pound against her ribs.
He had seen too much.
And Anna had played along so naturally that even he had been left confused.
Kathrine realized she had not taken a proper breath in several seconds. Her lungs burned faintly as she forced herself to inhale slowly, keeping her expression composed.
If she tried to explain the truth, it would sound absurd.
Rebirth.
A past life.
mories that did not belong to this tiline.
He would think she was unstable.
Worse, he would look at her differently.
And if he knew she had lived once before and rembered fragnts of loving soone else, of destroying things she could never repair, of becoming soone cold and self centered...
Everything between them would shift.
"You’re overthinking it," she said finally, keeping her voice steady. "I was drunk. I say dramatic things when I drink."
Ethan studied her face.
He was not convinced, but he did not push imdiately.
"You don’t cry like that over nothing," he said quietly.
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides.
"It was guilt," she replied, choosing her words carefully. "I hurt her once. Maybe not in the way you think. But I did."
That part was not a lie.
She had hurt Anna.
Just not in this lifeti the way he imagined.
Ethan’s expression softened slightly, though confusion still lingered in his eyes.
"I wasn’t judging you," he said quietly. "I just didn’t understand."
His arm around her loosened just slightly.
It was not dramatic. Not obvious. But Kathrine felt it.
And when she looked up, she caught that faint flicker in his eyes. Not anger. Not suspicion.
Hurt.
As if he had reached out honestly, and she had t him with a wall.
Guilt pressed against her chest.
Before his hand could slip away completely, she caught it.
"I know you’re trying to understand in every way possible, Ethan," she said softly.
He looked at her then. Not casually. Not playfully.
He really looked at her.
"But there are things about you won’t understand," she continued, her voice unsteady despite her effort to keep it calm.
His jaw tightened slightly.
"Then make ," he said imdiately.
She blinked.
"I’m willing to try," he went on, stepping closer until there was barely space left between them. Their foreheads touched. The tip of his nose brushed hers. His breath mingled with hers in the cool night air. "Even if it’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever thought. Even if it sounds impossible."
There was no mockery in his tone. No challenge.
Only insistence.
Kathrine’s heart pounded so loudly she was sure he could hear it.
He was not accusing her. He was not cornering her. He was offering himself.
"If there’s more," he said more quietly now, "I want to know. Not so I can judge you. But so I can stand beside you properly."
Her lips parted. But no words ca out.
Because what could she possibly say? That she had lived before. That she had loved before. That she had destroyed things she could never undo. That she had woken up in this life with fragnts of regret stitched into her soul.
’Was this the right ti?’
The right mont to tell him that her guilt did not co from imagination, but mory?
Her fingers tightened against his shirt unconsciously.
Ethan watched her closely.
He could see it. The storm behind her eyes. The way she seed to be weighing sothing enormous. The way her breathing shifted when she almost spoke.
"You look like you’re about to confess a cri," he murmured gently, trying to ease the tension.
She almost laughed, but it caught in her throat.
"Ethan..." she began, her voice barely steady.
He did not move away.
"I’ve done things," she said slowly, choosing each word with care, "that I regret more than you can imagine."
His expression softened instead of hardening.
"Okay," he said.
She blinked. "Okay?"
"Regret ans you’ve grown," he replied. "If you didn’t feel it, I’d be worried."
She shook her head slightly. "You don’t understand. It’s not just small mistakes."
"Then they’re big ones," he said simply.
His hands slid to her waist, grounding her.
"Kathrine, everyone has a version of themselves they don’t like," he continued. "Everyone has sothing they wish they could erase."
Her throat tightened.
"But if you’re standing here now, trying to be better, then that version doesn’t control you anymore."
She searched his face desperately.
"What if I told you," she whispered, "that it feels like I’ve lived through consequences already? Like I’ve seen how badly things can end?"
He did not laugh nor did he dismiss her.
"Then I’d say maybe your mind is protecting you," he replied after a mont. "Maybe you’ve imagined the worst outcos so vividly that they feel real."
Her heart skipped.
That was the safest explanation he could accept.
And for a brief second, she almost took it.
Almost let him believe it was just anxiety. Trauma. Overthinking.
But the truth burned at the back of her tongue.
"This isn’t my first life, Ethan," she said suddenly.
The words tore out of her before she could stop them.
Her fingers tightened around his shirt as if she needed sothing to hold her upright.
"I died once."
Silence swallowed the balcony.
The city below kept moving. Cars passed. A distant horn echoed. Sowhere, a dog barked.
But between them, everything stilled.
Ethan did not pull away.
He did not laugh.
He did not speak.
Their foreheads were still touching, but now the air felt heavier. Charged. Her heartbeat thundered so loudly she could feel it in her ears. His breath brushed her lips, slightly uneven.
She forced herself to hold his gaze.
If he looked at her like she was insane, she would see it.
If he stepped back, she would accept it.
Seconds stretched painfully.
Ethan blinked once.
Then again.
"You... died," he repeated quietly, not mockingly. Not dismissively. Just... processing.
Kathrine nodded, her throat dry. "I rember things. Not clearly all the ti. But enough. I rember making choices. I rember hurting people. I rember losing everything."
Her voice trembled despite her effort to steady it.
"And then I woke up here. With pieces of that life still inside ."
She watched his eyes carefully, searching for disbelief.
"There was a version of ," she continued, her voice soft but urgent, "who only cared about herself. Who ignored warnings. Who destroyed relationships because pride mattered more."
Her breath hitched.
"I watched it all fall apart. I lived the consequences. And then... it ended."
She swallowed.
"I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I ca back."
The confession hung between them, fragile and irreversible.
Ethan did not move.
He did not step back. He did not tighten his grip either.
He simply stayed there, looking at her.
And strangely, the air between them did not grow suffocating. It did not shatter into disbelief or awkward distance.
It was quiet. Processing. Human.
Kathrine knew she had just handed him sothing enormous. Sothing most people would laugh at or run from. She did not expect him to understand it imdiately. She did not even expect him to fully believe her tonight.
But still...
A small, stubborn part of her did not want to wait anymore.
For once, she did not want to asure her words. Did not want to swallow the darker pieces just to keep things simple.
She had finally acknowledged it.
The dreams were not random shadows of stress. They were not aningless illusions stitched together by a restless mind. They were fragnts she had buried. Pieces of a life she had refused to examine because looking at them would an confronting herself.
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