Rebirth: The New Bride Wants A Divorce-Chapter 466: I was never in love with her

Daniel had no idea how long he had been asleep.

When he finally stirred, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Not the comforting kind, but the vast, open stillness that made him instinctively alert. He blinked, disoriented, and realized their car was parked at the top of a hill, overlooking a stretch of darkened land glowing faintly under the evening sky.

A moment of wariness washed over him.

Then he turned his head.

Anna was sitting beside him, watching him quietly.

Her eyes held a softness that made his heart constrict—a tenderness so fragile it almost hurt to look at. Not pity. Not fear. Just quiet presence.

Relief crashed into him so suddenly it left him breathless.

For a terrifying second after waking up, his mind replayed the same thought it had been torturing him with all day—she’s gone. The session had shaken him more than he wanted to admit. The memories, the fragments of the past clawing their way back into his consciousness, had left him restless, unstable, half-afraid he would wake up and find himself alone again.

He hadn’t even remembered falling asleep.

All he remembered was panic.

The moment he hadn’t found Anna earlier, something in him had fractured. And when she finally returned, he hadn’t spoken—he had simply pulled her into his arms and held her like she might disappear if he loosened his grip.

He didn’t know how long he’d held her like that.

Minutes. Hours.

It hadn’t mattered.

Now, sitting here again, the echo of that fear still lingered in his chest.

"Why didn’t you wake me?" Daniel asked quietly, his voice low, steady only because she was here. His eyes stayed on her as if she were the only thing keeping the world in place.

"I couldn’t," Anna replied softly. "You looked peaceful."

She lifted her hand and brushed her fingers against his cheek, her touch slow, grounding.

He closed his eyes briefly at the contact.

Anna knew what today had cost him. She knew the decision he’d made—to open doors he had locked for years—had dragged memories to the surface he wasn’t ready to face. Pieces of a past he had buried too deeply, too painfully.

She didn’t ask.

She didn’t push.

Because she could already see it.

In his eyes—there was guilt. Regret. Yearning. A quiet, aching longing that felt heavier than words. He looked like someone who had remembered something precious too late.

"I’m here," she said gently, as if answering thoughts he hadn’t spoken. "I’m not going anywhere."

Daniel swallowed, his jaw tightening.

"I hate that you saw me like that," he murmured. "So... lost."

Anna shook her head. "I didn’t see you as lost. I saw you as someone brave enough to remember."

His gaze softened, something breaking and healing at the same time.

She had hated him in their past life.

Not the loud, burning kind of hatred that screamed and destroyed—but the quiet kind that settled deep in her bones. The kind that made her turn away, that made her promise herself she would never look back, never reach for him again.

She had wanted to leave him behind.

But now, sitting beside him in the car, watching his hands tremble as he struggled to breathe through his own memories, Anna felt a sharp pain tear through her chest.

"I’m sorry for everything, Anna," Daniel whispered.

Tears burned in his eyes, his voice cracking under the weight of words that had waited lifetimes to be said.

Something inside her fractured.

The memories came rushing back without mercy. The loneliness. The nights she cried herself to sleep while he chased ambition. The way she had begged for him to stay, to notice, to care—only to be met with absence and silence.

The pain had never truly left her.

She had just learned how to carry it quietly.

But hearing him apologize like this—broken, trembling, real—made it harder to breathe than all the anger she had ever felt.

The air inside the car suddenly felt too thick. Too small.

"I need—" Anna gasped, her chest tightening.

She opened the door abruptly and stumbled out into the cold night air, her hands shaking, her lungs burning as if she had been underwater for too long.

Daniel followed instantly.

"Anna—wait."

She turned, tears streaming freely now, no longer trying to hold herself together.

"I tried so hard to forget," she said, her voice trembling. "I told myself it didn’t matter anymore. That I had moved on. That I was stronger."

She laughed weakly, clutching her chest. "But it’s still here. Everything I buried... it’s still here."

Daniel stood in front of her, helpless, terrified to interrupt.

"I lost myself loving you," she continued. "I lost my voice. My pride. My future. I waited for you to choose me, to come home, to look at me the way I looked at you."

Her tears fell harder.

"And when I needed you the most... you weren’t there."

Daniel’s breath hitched.

"You weren’t there when I was scared. You weren’t there when I was sick. And you weren’t there when I lost our child."

Her voice broke completely on the last word.

The night seemed to go silent.

Anna stepped forward and hit his chest with her fist—once, then again, not in anger, but in grief that had nowhere else to go.

"Do you know what that felt like?" she cried. "To wake up alone in a hospital bed and realize I had lost everything—and still not see you walk through that door?"

Daniel didn’t move.

He didn’t defend himself.

He didn’t stop her.

He only stood there, eyes wet, heart shattering with every word.

"I’m not hitting you because I hate you," Anna sobbed. "I’m hitting you because I loved you so much it destroyed me."

Her fists weakened, turning into trembling hands that clutched at his shirt instead.

"I carried that pain into this life," she whispered. "I didn’t even realize it. I told myself I was over it, but I was just surviving it."

Daniel reached out slowly, gently, as if afraid she might disappear.

"I deserve every word," he said hoarsely. "Every tear. Every scar I left behind."

His voice broke.

"I can’t change what I was," he continued. "But I swear to you, I am not that man anymore. I didn’t realize what I lost until I lost it forever. And I’ve spent two lifetimes regretting it."

Anna’s grip loosened.

She was exhausted.

Not from crying—but from carrying a grief that had never been spoken out loud.

"I don’t want to hate you anymore," she whispered. "I just want to be free. Free from the girl who kept waiting. Free from the woman who died loving you."

Daniel pulled her into his arms, not forcing her, just holding her as if she were fragile glass.

"You don’t have to be strong anymore," he said. "Not with me. Not ever again."

Anna collapsed against him, her sobs quiet now, finally emptying the weight she had carried across lifetimes.

This was release.

And for the first time since her past had followed her into the present, Anna felt something loosen inside her.

Not love. Not pain.

But peace.

Daniel and Anna had no idea how long they stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s arms. Time seemed to lose its meaning, but what they both felt was the quiet lightness settling in their chests—especially for Anna, whose body slowly relaxed as if it finally remembered how to breathe in his presence.

"I never cheated on you, Anna," Daniel said softly.

She stiffened and pulled back at once, shock flashing across her face.

The memory struck her instantly—Kathrine’s message, the photos attached to it, the way her hands had trembled as she scrolled through them. That had been the moment the last thread of hope snapped, the moment she convinced herself that walking away would hurt less than staying.

"B-but those photos..." she whispered, her voice unsteady. "I saw them. You were with her."

Daniel exhaled slowly, as if he had been holding that breath for years.

"They were real," he admitted. "But nothing happened between us. Not the way you think."

Anna stared at him, confusion warring with disbelief.

And then it hit him—finally.

Daniel realized why Anna had asked for a divorce so suddenly. Why she had spoken about love with fear in her eyes instead of longing. Why she always seemed ready to leave before things could hurt too deeply.

She wasn’t running from him.

She was running from her past.

She believed he loved Kathrine. That he would eventually choose someone else, just like before. And so she decided to end it first—before she had to live through the same heartbreak all over again.

Anna swallowed hard. "You looked... close. In those pictures."

Daniel shook his head, his expression filled with something close to pain.

"I was never in love with her, Anna. Not in this life. Not even back then." His voice softened. "You were the only one I ever loved. The only mistake I did was to never let you know. It was only when I lost you I realized how useless my life was"