hirteen Years of Toxic Love Burned in a Shared Vision

The implosion of my seven-year marriage to Jake Ryder wasn’t a slow drift; it was a head-on collision. I was twenty-nine. We were already on the way to the lawyer’s office. I was weeping, the kind of ragged, hysterical crying that shreds your throat. “I gave you my whole damn life since I was seventeen, and you cheat? Are you completely sick, Jake?” He didn’t flinch. He just offered a cold, humorless laugh. “You’re not sick? Sleeping with a man at seventeen.” My body started to shake, a seizure of pure adrenaline and shock. In that terrifying next moment, a massive semi-truck roared through the intersection and bore down on us. The next time I woke up, I was back in the cramped apartment building. The one where I’d dropped out of high school to live with Jake.

1 Dust motes danced in the lone shaft of sunlight cutting through the window. The air was close, smelling faintly of mold and cheap cleaning supplies. On the twin bed—a mattress crammed against one wall—was a faded, threadbare duvet cover patterned with generic cartoon bears, probably salvaged from a thrift store. I lay still for a long moment, then slowly reached up and touched my face in the scratched mirror across the room. Seventeen. I was actually seventeen again. It was strange. Back then, I honestly didn’t think this life was hard. Seeing it now, though—the sheer, bare-bones squalor—I wondered how I’d ever managed to convince myself that this was better than a life of stability. Jake had a rough childhood. His parents died young, and he grew up with his grandmother. When she passed, he raised himself, wild and fast, like an untamed thing. He was tough, fearless, and quickly earned a reputation as the biggest troublemaker in our part of the city. My life was the opposite. My parents were both college professors. We weren’t rich, but we were secure, comfortable, and privileged. They’d planned a meticulously stable life for me: Northwood High, an Ivy League acceptance, maybe a sensible job in finance. By all rights, Jake and I should never have crossed paths. Until the day I was walking home and saw him fighting a group of guys. I can still picture him: lying on the slushy, half-frozen pavement, breathing hard, his face pinched in pain. He was only wearing a thin, black hoodie, and a dark stain was already spreading underneath him. My instinct screamed at me to leave, to pretend I hadn’t seen anything. But then I noticed the logo on his torn jacket—our school colors. We were classmates. My heart softened. I called 911, hesitated for a beat, and then knelt beside him, pulling off the expensive white down jacket my father had bought me and draping it over him. “Hey… are you okay?” The pale, handsome boy opened his eyes and looked up at me. His eyes were the shape of a hawk’s—sharp, beautiful, and assessing. “You’re not running?” he asked, his voice low and ragged. I whispered, “I’m from Northwood, too. We’re classmates.” I took a breath, trying to be brave. “Fighting is wrong. You should stop.” He offered a cynical, half-smile. He shifted his fingers, and I braced myself, expecting him to throw my jacket away. Instead, he just closed his eyes, silent and still. I stayed there, shielding him from the light snow, until the EMTs arrived. I even paid the ambulance fee out of my emergency twenty-dollar bill. I forgot about it quickly. It felt like a bizarre moment that didn’t belong to my world. But just as I’d almost wiped the memory clean, Jake Ryder walked into my honors English class. The whole room fell silent. Ignoring the flustered teacher and the gasps of the students, he strode right up to my desk, slammed a crumpled thirty dollars down on my textbook, and raised an eyebrow. “For the ambulance,” he said. He paused, scanning my face, then added, “And… thanks.” He left as abruptly as he came. Immediately, my friends swarmed me. “Ellie, how do you know Jake Ryder?” one asked, looking horrified. “He runs with the motorcycle gangs! My brother says he’s been in real trouble—you need to be careful.” Another girl, breathless with excitement, nudged me. “He is so hot. Can you introduce us? He’s seriously a total rebel.” I was still reeling when I started walking home. My stomach flipped as a loud, black motorcycle suddenly cut me off. The black helmet came off, revealing Jake’s sharp, handsome features. He flashed a devastating, careless grin. “Hey, good girl,” he said. “Get on. I’m taking you out.” A few of his friends were behind him, laughing, throwing out suggestive comments. “Ryder, this one’s too sweet, man. No fun.” “Yeah, the vocational school chicks are way better! They know how to move.” I was terrified. I just shook my head, avoiding eye contact, and scurried around the bike, almost running down the sidewalk. I heard the chorus of laughter fade behind me. … I hated him back then. I thought he was trash—a path to ruin, completely incompatible with my life. But he was relentless. He started showing up every day after school, demanding to walk or drive me home. Then came the night I stayed late for detention. Walking down a dark alley that cut between two blocks, I was cornered by a sloppy, drunk guy who started getting handsy. Suddenly, Jake appeared out of nowhere. A single, sickening crack as his fist met the man’s jaw. “Get lost,” Jake commanded, his voice ice. He took off his hoodie and wrapped it around me, pulling me tight against his side. “Don’t be scared, Ellie. I’m here.” He walked me all the way to my front door. As I climbed the stairs to my second-floor window, I looked back. He was still there, standing motionless under the flickering streetlamp, just watching. 2 The romance of youth is faster and hotter than a summer thunderstorm. Jake and I fell into each other. We were discovered. My parents were furious—especially my father. They made me kneel, begged me to break up with him, and locked me in the house. But I loved Jake. For the first seventeen years of my life, my parents’ control had been absolute. I remembered the one time I brought home a 98 on an algebra test. I was beaming. But instead of praise, I got a stern interrogation: Where did the two points go? Followed by a silent hour kneeling on the floor. I was the perfect daughter, walking the path they laid out for me, year after year. Jake was the explosion in my meticulously ordered world. He smashed the shell around my life, dragged me out, and showed me a kaleidoscope of chaos and excitement I’d never known. He took me skipping class. He taught me how to mix drinks at a late-night dive bar, laughed when I choked on the liquor, and then brought me hot chocolate. I don’t know if I loved him, or if I loved the world he showed me. All I know is that to stay with him, I climbed out of my second-floor window and ran. We met at the bus station. I remember his fierce, crushing hug. His heart hammered like a drum against my chest. “Ellie, you scared?” he asked. I yelled back, full of reckless, blinding love, “No! I’m not!” “Good,” he promised. “Then let’s go. I promise I will take care of you. I will always be good to you.” … And he was. For a long time, he was. We had nothing. We were in the cheapest rental we could find. In the dead of a freezing winter, even the field mice were shivering. Jake would always give me the single egg from his instant ramen, and he would stick my icy feet under his shirt to warm them on his stomach. We were young, fueled by desperation and delusion. Love was the only meal we needed. A few years passed. Jake was smart and driven. He partnered with someone, made his first big payout, and we started our own small company. He was a machine, working eighteen-hour days. I wanted to help him. I pushed myself, learning everything about the business, moving from a terrified novice to a smooth, confident negotiator. Our efforts paid off. Within a few years, the company was a monster. We moved from the shack to an apartment, then from a luxury condo to a sprawling villa in the hills. When he proposed, the spectacle was enormous. He set off so many fireworks the entire city saw them. In the years of our success, his friends rotated through a parade of girlfriends and affairs. But Jake stayed grounded. He let me check his phone, video-called me from every trip, and insisted on coming home every night. I honestly thought we would be the one couple that made it to the end. Until I turned twenty-eight and found out he was sleeping with Sierra Davis, a fresh college intern at his company. The fighting started. The screaming. We’d smash things, replace them, and smash them again. My tears turned to fury, then to a hollow kind of numbness. The lovers who once would have died for each other were now trading the cruelest barbs, wishing each other into the ground. I closed my dry, exhausted eyes, then opened them again. On the nightstand, a faded photo: eighteen-year-old Jake, his arm around seventeen-year-old Ellie, both of us beaming. 3 While I sat there, lost in shock, the door opened. Eighteen-year-old Jake looked at me. His eyes were wide, but I saw something there that only years of sleeping next to someone could reveal: the soul of a thirty-year-old man, raw and recognizing. We both knew. We were both back. In the tiny room that used to be crammed with reckless love, we sat, two bitter strangers, thick with resentment. “Look,” Jake broke the silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that stuff in the car… I was just pissed.” I looked at him and felt a sudden, profound urge to laugh. I remembered sitting in this very room at seventeen, freezing, wrapped in his arms. His eyes were red with dedication when he gently warmed my feet on his stomach. “I’m the failure here, baby,” he’d whispered. “I’m putting you through this hell. But I promise, I will never let you down. I’ll love you forever.” I believed him then. I just never imagined ‘forever’ would be so short. Thirteen years. That was the lifespan of his promise before he looked me in the eye and spat, “You’re not sick? Sleeping with a man at seventeen.” We sat in silence, inhabiting our separate corners of the small room. “You—” Jake started, but a rapid, frantic knocking on the door cut him off. I opened it and gasped. My mother stood on the threshold, distraught. Her meticulously styled, expensive haircut was frazzled and flat. The daily makeup ritual was gone, leaving her skin looking sallow and her eyes red-rimmed. She grabbed my arm. “Come on. You’re coming home with me. Now.” My memory surged back like a tidal wave. This was it. The exact moment. In the previous life, she’d somehow tracked us down and driven across the state to bring me back. I’d stood my ground. I loved Jake. I was staying. She’d slapped me—the first and last time she ever hit me—and cried, “I raised you for seventeen years, and you’re throwing it all away for a boy? You’d rather lose your parents than leave him?” What did I say? I couldn’t recall the words. I only remembered her final look of utter, crushing disappointment. She choked out the words: “Then I’ll pretend you’re dead. You don’t have a mother, and I don’t have a daughter.” After that, we never spoke again. Years later, when Jake made his fortune, we tried to reconcile. My parents threw our expensive gifts into the street. The relationship I had personally severed became the source of an eternal, aching regret. My mother’s voice was hoarse. “You come back now, and we’ll pretend this never happened. We’ll be a family. Otherwise, I swear, you have no mother, and I have no daughter—” She was still speaking, but I couldn’t hear the rest. I just looked at her face, familiar yet agonizingly alien, and my eyes blurred. How long had it been since I’d seen my mother look like this—vulnerable, heartbroken, stripped bare? She was waiting for my defiant refusal. I reached out and gently took her hand. “Okay, Mom,” I said, quietly. “I’m coming home.” “You don’t come back and I’ll pretend you’re dead—what?” My mother froze, her eyes widening in disbelief. “I said I’m coming home.” My original departure was so dramatic and definitive that my immediate compliance stunned her. Jake, still seated, whipped his head around. My mother saw him, and her face hardened, though she maintained a sliver of polite decorum. “Jake,” she said, her voice tight. “Don’t think I’m trying to split you two up just to be cruel. But look around. Look at this building. What can you give my daughter?” She drew herself up. “Ellie wasn’t spoiled, but her father and I always provided. She should never have to suffer like this. She’ll break eventually, and you’ll break up. Better to end it now and not waste any more time.” She sounded relieved, pulling me toward the door, not even waiting for me to grab my coat. I forced a faint smile. My mother wasn’t wrong. If it weren’t for Jake, I would never have had to suffer this way. But she was also wrong. In the last life, I didn’t break. The one who broke, the one who walked away, was Jake. In my periphery, I saw Jake’s face drain of color, turning stark white. I didn’t know if it was my mother’s words or the reality of me leaving. All those years, no matter how cold or broke we were, I never considered leaving him. Even the divorce was his demand. He never thought I had the power to walk away first. I wanted to say something, a final word. But I stopped. What was the point? We had said everything, the good, the bad, and the hateful, in the life we just lived. I closed the door and left. 4 My father was just as shocked to see me walk back through the door so compliant. He intended to yell, maybe even hit me. He raised his hand, but his eyes went red, and he let out a long, shuddering sigh, lowering his arm. “Just come home, Ellie. Just come home safe.” “Your mother and I… we won’t pressure you anymore.” That evening, my mother cooked a feast. She wanted to talk, to lecture, to question. But in the end, she just kept piling food onto my plate. “You’ve been through a rough time, haven’t you? Eat up. You need to gain your strength back.” … That night, in the deep hours, I slipped into a half-dream state. I was back in the office. I opened the door to see Sierra sitting on Jake’s lap. The room spun. I was frozen, beyond anger. The worst part was that when the girl looked up in surprise, she had the same wide, innocent eyes I once had—the complete picture of youthful naivete. That innocence had been the first thing to burn off me during my years of fighting to build a company with Jake. Jake tried to apologize, guilt-ridden, promising to make it up to me. But betrayal isn’t a single event you forgive; it’s a wound you must forgive every time you remember it. And my patience ran dry. His guilt evaporated, replaced by frustration and anger, leading to endless arguments. I fired Sierra; he hired her back as his personal assistant. He bought her a luxury apartment and started spending entire nights away from home. Thirteen years of love, devotion, and shared struggle were devoured by the long nights staring at the ceiling and the vicious, hurtful words we hurled at each other. The star-crossed young lovers ended up wishing each other dead. I woke up while it was still dark. The alarm clock on the nightstand glowed a faint blue: 2:53 AM. I got out of bed and walked to the window—the same one I’d jumped out of to run away with Jake. Moonlight poured in, illuminating the room. The whole thing surfaced again. Was I really in love with Jake back then? Or did I love the freedom he represented, using his affections as a weapon to escape my parents’ control? It didn’t matter now. In the previous life, my rebellion had cost me everything. But the universe, mercifully, had given me a second chance. The whole relationship with Jake had been a terrible, glorious detour. This time, I wouldn’t let my life derail. 5 I went back to school. My academic record was strong, and though I was behind after dropping out, the damage wasn’t irreversible. I slipped back into my old classes. My parents told everyone I’d been home recovering from an illness. The gossip faded quickly, and I returned to my quiet, structured life. Jake also disappeared. I vaguely recalled that around this time in the first life, he’d gotten seriously sick. He looked strong, all muscle and confidence, but his health was poor. Growing up orphaned and feeding himself on scraps, he was constantly malnourished. He had a bad case of the flu that turned into a nasty infection. It was serious; he was coughing up blood. I stayed at his side, nursing him until he recovered. After that, I took over his diet, forcing him to eat properly and taking care of his health until he was fully recovered years later. Without me now, would he pull through? I felt a sudden, familiar twist of pain, but I quickly suppressed it. The memory of his cruel insult—sleeping with a man at seventeen—hardened me. I had given him my best, only to be branded “sick.” Why would I chase after that? I owed him nothing. We were done. I fully expected our paths to diverge forever. But a month later, Jake reappeared. Walking home after school, my friend gasped. “Look at that guy—he’s gorgeous! Wait, isn’t that Jake Ryder? I heard he dropped out. Why is he back?” She nudged me playfully. “I heard you two were a thing. Is he here for you?” I kept my face perfectly neutral. “We were never a thing. Stop the rumors.” She scoffed. “Seriously? I thought you snagged a total knockout. Girls from the rival school are lining up to date him!” “I don’t care,” I said, walking ahead, refusing to look. I couldn’t imagine Jake was looking for me. Just as my feelings for him had been annihilated, his feelings for me must be just as toxic. I had cursed him, hated him, and finally agreed to the divorce only after I’d drained him of all affection. We were, quite possibly, the last two people on earth who ever wanted to see each other again. But then, Jake started walking straight toward me. As he got closer, I could see he was much thinner. His face had the waxy, pale look of someone who had recently been very ill. He addressed my friend. “Excuse us. I need to speak to Ellie.” My friend winked at me and scurried off. “Got it! I’ll see you tomorrow!” I frowned. “What do you want?” Was he here to try and lay claim to the company projects from our previous life? If so, I wouldn’t yield. I was already planning to launch my own venture after graduation. With a decade of experience, I was ready. To my surprise, he didn’t mention business. He looked down at me, pausing. “…I’m sorry.” I kept my voice flat and distant. “I don’t accept your apology. Is there anything else? If not, I’m leaving.” A simple apology couldn’t erase years of pain. I didn’t have the capacity to forgive the man who had hurt the old Ellie. “Ellie, let’s talk,” he insisted, running a hand through his hair, looking agitated. “I swear, Sierra was nothing. It wasn’t what you think—” “Not what I think?” I laughed, a bitter, sharp sound. “Were you just covering up with the comforter and having deep discussions about market strategy?” “Don’t be like this. It was a stupid mistake, a moment of weakness. It was just a fling. I never wanted to lose you. I knew our marriage was the most important thing, and the divorce was only because I was angry and you kept pushing me—” “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I cut him off. “Jake, we are separate people now. Our paths split. Don’t look for me again.” His face darkened. After a moment, a reckless, familiar smirk spread across his lips. “Fine, Ellie. It’s just a breakup. Don’t act like I’m going to chase you.” He reverted to his old, careless persona. “We’ll be civilized. I wish you the best.” “I’ll have it,” I retorted. “Because this time, I won’t be with you.”