Rebirth: The New Bride Wants A Divorce-Chapter 492: She had finally acknowledged it

"Strange?" Kathrine blinked, her expression genuinely startled.

Ethan caught it immediately. Before she could spiral into the wrong conclusion, he lifted his free hand slightly. "Not in a bad way. I just mean... sometimes 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 memory flashed in fragments. The dim lights. The weight of alcohol. The overwhelming guilt that had spilled out before she could stop it.

She remembered 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, momentarily unsure if she was simply curious or quietly interrogating him.

"Nothing else," he replied carefully. "But that moment... that’s when I knew something was off."

He did not hesitate this time.

"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 something 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.

Memories that did not belong to this timeline.

He would think she was unstable.

Worse, he would look at her differently.

And if he knew she had lived once before and remembered fragments of loving someone else, of destroying things she could never repair, of becoming someone 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 immediately.

"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. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

She had hurt Anna.

Just not in this lifetime 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 met 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 me 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 me you won’t understand," she continued, her voice unsteady despite her effort to keep it calm.

His jaw tightened slightly.

"Then make me," he said immediately.

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 came 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 fragments of regret stitched into her soul.

’Was this the right time?’

The right moment to tell him that her guilt did not come from imagination, but memory?

Her fingers tightened against his shirt unconsciously.

Ethan watched her closely.

He could see it. The storm behind her eyes. The way she seemed to be weighing something enormous. The way her breathing shifted when she almost spoke.

"You look like you’re about to confess a crime," 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 means 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 something 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 moment. "Maybe you’ve imagined the worst outcomes 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 something to hold her upright.

"I died once."

Silence swallowed the balcony.

The city below kept moving. Cars passed. A distant horn echoed. Somewhere, 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 remember things. Not clearly all the time. But enough. I remember making choices. I remember hurting people. I remember losing everything."

Her voice trembled despite her effort to steady it.

"And then I woke up here. With pieces of that life still inside me."

She watched his eyes carefully, searching for disbelief.

"There was a version of me," 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 came 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 something enormous. Something most people would laugh at or run from. She did not expect him to understand it immediately. 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 measure 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 meaningless illusions stitched together by a restless mind. They were fragments she had buried. Pieces of a life she had refused to examine because looking at them would mean confronting herself.