Divorce Day Reset: My Wife Back at Seventeen Chapter 08
But before the day came when Liliana finally regretted everything, every so-called flawless lie she told kept pushing the limits of her conscience. Because she assumed Simon would always choose to forgive her, those temptations wrapped in desire had stopped looking dangerous.
Each time she tested him and got away with it, it only proved to her that this forbidden thrill seemed to come with no price at all. That made her sink completely into that gentle, honey-coated hell.
What she never considered was that as she was changing, so was Simon. She became increasingly reckless, and he grew painfully sensitive. His leaving now was the result forged by every choice she’d made along the way.
Yet Liliana still refused to believe it. She refused to believe he would just slip away without a word, and she still clung to that tiny shred of wishful thinking that even with sins that couldn’t be forgiven, he would somehow forgive her one more time.
Simon’s First-Person POV
To get away from this mess, I chose to move abroad and settle down in a foreign country. Everything here was unfamiliar; I had to start over and learn the rhythms of this place from scratch.
I opened a small dessert shop, hoping that the sugar rush and dopamine from the sweets would keep me from waking at midnight and slipping back into memories of my bitter, miserable life.
To cut every lingering tie, I even changed my name.
“Noah, same as always-one box of donuts to go.”
With the soft chime of the bell over the door, a familiar silhouette entered my line of sight. It belonged to a witty, talkative young woman. Every time she came in, there would be a pretty flower pinned in her hair. Almost without exception, she would leave with a box of donuts.
It seemed to have become an essential part of her daily routine. In the beginning, she would just pay and go. Later, once we grew familiar, she would occasionally chat with me about local sights, the weather, and the changing seasons. As time went on, those casual topics gradually shifted into little bits and pieces from her daily life.
She told me her name was Rina Somner-her parents had taken it from “Marina”, which symbolized the sea.
I found that interesting and couldn’t help asking, “Then why aren’t you called Mari?”
She put on a mock-serious face and joked, “Because that name got snatched up by my older sister.”
As time passed, I gradually figured out how she felt about me. But the whole reason I came here was to heal the wounds left by my last relationship. No way would I jump into a new one so easily.
I’d already learned how brutal the price of love could be the hard way. It was a lesson I never wanted to repeat.
Even so, Rina never seemed discouraged. Rain or shine, she showed up like clockwork to support my little shop. She even brought me handmade gifts from time to time. She was good with her hands-the wooden carvings she made looked almost alive.
She said to me, “If a tree’s fate is to eventually rot away, then before that happens… why not freeze it in its most beautiful moment?”
Whenever I closed the shop for a day or two, she would look especially worried the next time she came by. Maybe
we weren’t meant to be a couple, but having a friend like her in a foreign land still filled me with a quiet sense of gratitude.
Life continued like this for about half a year. Rina and I always maintained a distance that let me feel safe and at ease. I figured that maybe one day, when the scars of my past faded with time, that distance between Rina and me might get a little smaller. But that would be something for a very distant future.
One day, Rina came into the store as usual and handed me an invitation. She said there was a get-together tha night and hoped I would attend.
I took the invitation. The time and place were written clearly-it was a restaurant where I often met up with a few new friends for small gatherings.
“Of course I’ll be there,” I said, agreeing without hesitation.
With that, she left again with a box of donuts in her hands.
When I got off work and headed over at the agreed-upon time, I realized that what awaited me was a grand confession Rina had carefully planned just for me.
“Maybe this is a bit presumptuous, but Noah Rivero, would you be willing to-”
Before she could finish, a voice I knew all too well and that now made my skin crawl rang out behind me.
“If you know it’s presumptuous, then maybe you shouldn’t be asking at all!”
