Love Ends in Old Dreams

The day Asher woke from his coma, he insisted he’d been reborn. He told me that in another life, three years into our marriage, I would cheat on him with a college student. He said I would become so obsessed that I’d be willing to walk away with nothing, just to divorce him. So this time, he was getting ahead of it. He found a girl, set her up in an apartment on the other side of town. She had already given him a son and a daughter. I didn’t scream or throw a hysterical fit. I just waited until we were walking out of the courthouse, divorce papers in hand, and asked him quietly. “Asher, the person I supposedly became… did you have something to do with it?” He was silent for a long, long time. And just like that, I knew. Asher had betrayed me twice.

1 The day Asher turned cold, I had no idea what I’d done wrong. It was like a switch had been flipped. He stopped meeting my eyes. The gentle check-ins, the little gestures of affection, they all vanished. We’d only been married a month. He moved into the guest room without a word of discussion. The night he carried his pillow and blanket out of our bedroom, I sat on the edge of the bed, tears streaming down my face. “Asher, if you don’t love me, why did you marry me? If you want a divorce, just say it! We can go tomorrow!” Something I said must have snapped the last thread of his patience. He threw the bedding onto the floor. His hands clamped down on my shoulders, his voice a torrent of venom as he hurled the most vicious words imaginable at me. He said I was disgusting. Shameless. Completely unworthy of his love. The verbal assault left me reeling, stunned into silence. On pure instinct, my hands flew up, my freshly manicured nails raking across his cheek. Asher didn’t even flinch. He just gave me one long, dark look, then walked out, blood welling in the fresh scratches on his face, and drove away into the night. It wasn’t long before I heard the whispers from friends. Asher was keeping another woman, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it. Of course, I confronted them. I found her, dragged her to the ground, and lost myself in a blind rage. Asher just stood in the doorway, watching calmly. He didn’t intervene. He just watched me transform into the cliché I never thought I’d be: a screaming, unhinged shrew, driven mad by her husband’s infidelity. And he was driving me mad. I was losing my mind trying to understand. Why had he stopped loving me overnight? I wasn’t afraid of a divorce. All I wanted was a reason. And he finally gave me one, his face a mask of cold indifference as he tossed me out of their apartment. He said he was reborn. He said that three years from now, I would throw our marriage away for some college kid. The tears I’d been holding back started to fall again, hot and heavy. The excuse was so absurd, so insulting, that I refused to believe it. “Believe what you want, Seraphina. But this time, I’m the one who fell out of love first.” He was a man of his word. A month later, his new girl, Nicole, was pregnant. He told her to keep it. During that time, everyone I knew pleaded with me. If you can’t live like this, just leave him. But how could I? How could I let him divorce me without a real explanation, just so he could play happy families with his mistress and their child? No. As long as I refused to sign the papers, she would always be the other woman, and their child would always be illegitimate. I clung to that bitter thought, fueled by spite. I let my youth wither away, tangled in a toxic standoff with Asher for three long years. But in the end, it felt like I was the only one trapped in that marriage. In three years, he had two children. My stubbornness had become a joke.

2 Asher’s daughter had her one-month celebration party. Most of his family was there. I saw the photo of their perfect little family of four in the family group chat. Asher’s own parents had posted it. After three years, everyone understood that Asher and I were finished. A divorce was inevitable, so no one bothered to consider my feelings anymore. [Two kids in three years, a boy and a girl! Asher is so blessed!] [Little Ash Jr. is the spitting image of his dad as a boy. He’s going to be a real handful for his grandparents at the estate!] [It would be so much easier if Seraphina would just sign the papers. Then they could all move back here instead of all this hassle!] The house Asher and I had shared was in the same gated community as his parents’ estate, just a three-minute walk away. They were blaming me. Why couldn’t I just be gracious, step aside, and let Asher’s perfect family have their happily ever after? If this had been the old me, that thought would have been unthinkable. I would have dug my heels in deeper, ready to drag us all down into the abyss with me. But something inside me had shifted. That burning knot of spite I’d been holding in my chest for years suddenly unraveled. For the first time, I genuinely considered it. What if I did divorce him? How much could I ask for in the settlement? It would have to be a fortune. I wouldn’t settle for less. As I was lost in thought, the front door swung open. Asher stood there, reeking of alcohol, his eyes locked on me. They held an emotion I couldn’t decipher. “Does it hurt, Seraphina?” he slurred. “Watching me play house with another woman, building a family. Does it tear you apart?” I hadn’t expected him to come here. The only time he ever sought me out was after I’d made a scene with him and Nicole, and he’d come home to retaliate on her behalf. Other than that, he hadn’t willingly set foot in this house for a very long time. When I didn’t answer, he dropped the half-smoked cigarette from his fingers and pressed on, his voice raw. “Does it hurt?” A little, maybe. But not as much as he probably hoped. Three years is a long time. Long enough to get used to sleeping alone. Long enough to forget what it even feels like to have a husband. I shook my head, my voice surprisingly steady. “No, Asher. I don’t think I love you as much as I thought I did.” A flicker of genuine pain crossed his face. He looked down, and after a moment, a low, humorless laugh escaped his lips. “You’re lying.” He looked back up, his eyes dark. “You brought this on yourself, Seraphina. Because I once felt the same agony you’re supposed to be feeling right now.”

3 It seemed he’d only come back to say those few words. Without even taking off his shoes or stepping into the bedroom, he turned to leave. Just then, his phone rang. His body tensed. With his back still to me, he answered, putting it on speaker. He wanted me to hear. Nicole’s sweet, cloying voice filled the silent room. “Ash, where did you go? I just got out of the shower and you were gone.” Asher turned his head slightly, his gaze falling on me. A faint, cruel smirk played on his lips. “Just popped out to grab something, my little scatterbrain. You forgot we used up the last box.” My hand clenched into a fist. I had overestimated myself. Hearing that, a sharp pang of pain shot through my chest. He saw my reaction. The smirk widened, and his voice softened into a tender caress. “Be good. I’ll be right back.” After hanging up, he didn’t leave as promised. Instead, he walked slowly toward my bed. His long, elegant fingers closed around my chin, tilting my face up. He clearly expected to see tears. But my face was dry. I offered him a small, placid smile. “Asher, I don’t think I can cry over you anymore. Does that mean it’s really over? That whatever I felt for you is almost gone?” I wasn’t a fool. I knew, on some level, that everything he was doing was a form of revenge. Revenge for what this other, “reborn” version of me had supposedly done to him. I still didn’t buy the whole reincarnation story. But whether it was true or not, the only power he held over me was my love for him. And once that was gone, I had nothing left to fear. The smile on my face seemed to ignite something in him. His eyes turned bloodshot. He shoved me back against the mattress. Then he grabbed a pillow, his face contorted, and pressed it down over my face. “Don’t you dare smile,” he hissed, his voice cracking. “Don’t you dare. Who gave you the right to stop loving me? You sentence me to hell every single day, and you think you can just… stop loving me?” I never thought he would snap like that. I struggled, my lungs burning, until he finally came to his senses and pulled the pillow away. I gasped for air, ragged and desperate. Asher collapsed beside me, pulling me into a fierce embrace. His entire body was trembling uncontrollably. “Sera,” he whispered, his voice choked with something that sounded like despair. “If I forgave you… could we try again? Could you just be with me?”

4 That night, Asher tried to stay. He’d already taken off his pants. But I’d recovered enough to grab the toilet brush from the bathroom and chase him out of the house. And no, I didn’t take his talk of “starting over” seriously. I’m Seraphina. I don’t do recycling, especially not for trash like him. After he left, I called my lawyer and had him draw up divorce papers. I didn’t have a long list of conditions. Just one: an absolutely astronomical settlement fee. After all, if the love was gone, I’d be damned if I walked away without the money, too. As for Nicole, the mother of his two children, I knew there was little I could do. Those kids were her lifetime insurance policy. As long as she played her cards right, she had a very real chance of becoming the next Mrs. Blackwood. Initially, Asher’s parents hadn’t liked her. But faced with their grandchildren, they’d softened, gradually accepting the reality of the situation. It helped that Nicole wasn’t some girl he’d picked up in a bar. She had worked diligently at Blackwood Industries for two years. Her family background was clean, even if no one knew how she and Asher actually got together. The Blackwoods had come to terms with it. And so had I. I couldn’t spend another three years making myself miserable just to spite them. The next day, my friends invited me out shopping. They knew I’d been down and were trying to get me out of the house. I really hadn’t been anywhere in ages. I pulled a new dress out of the closet, one that had been collecting dust for years, and even put on a full face of makeup. But the moment I opened the front door, I found Nicole there with her two-year-old son. The little boy, wearing a pair of shiny black leather shoes, toddled behind his mother’s legs, peeking at me with curious eyes. My heart seized. I didn’t want it to hurt. But his face, a seven-tenths copy of Asher’s as a child, was a sharp, painful blow. Nicole’s face went pale, and she raised her voice theatrically. “What do you want? Seraphina, if you lay a hand on my son, I swear I’ll kill you.” If you’re so afraid of me, I thought, then don’t bring your child to my doorstep. Are you really not scared I’ll lose my temper and do something to him? I walked down the steps. I looked at this woman, dressed immaculately from head to toe, the woman Asher had cherished and protected for three years. I let out a cold snort. “Nicole, you don’t deserve to be a mother. You’re willing to use your own son as a pawn. I’ll give you this, you’re far more ruthless than I am.” She was using her own child as a tool, a bargaining chip, just to provoke me. But the worst was yet to come. As I walked past her, she shot me a triumphant smirk. Then, she gave the little boy a sharp, deliberate push. He stumbled, falling backward onto the pavement with a surprised cry. His small hands scraped against the concrete. A loud, piercing wail erupted from him. The sound brought Asher and his mother rushing out of the main house.

5 “Seraphina! What did you do to my grandson?” Asher’s mother charged toward me, her round frame surprisingly agile. I sidestepped, and the hand she’d swung at me met empty air. I wasn’t about to stand there and take a slap for something I didn’t do. She shot me a venomous glare before turning her attention to the boy, scooping her precious grandson up off the ground with coos of concern. Asher’s brow furrowed in displeasure as he stared at me. “He’s my son, Seraphina,” he said, his tone a low warning. “You have no right to touch him. If I find out this happens again, I won’t hesitate to repeat what happened last night. You hate me, don’t you? Fine. I’ll give you more reasons to.” This time, his words didn’t cause me any pain. Just a wave of nausea. I think I’m really, finally getting over him, I thought. I glanced at the security camera above the door and was about to pull out my phone when Nicole leaned into Asher’s chest, her voice trembling. “Asher, it wasn’t her fault. Ash Jr. just lost his balance and fell. Please don’t blame Ms. Vance. I know she doesn’t like me, but I’m sure she’s not so heartless that she’d hurt a two-year-old child. She wouldn’t have a reason to.” That sent Asher’s mother into another fury. “What do you mean she has no reason? She’s still hoping Asher will come back to her, isn’t she? If my grandchildren were out of the picture, her path would be clear!” Nicole buried her face deeper into Asher’s chest, her expression one of pure terror. “Oh my God, what should we do? Are my babies in danger?” Watching her pathetic, amateur acting, I felt the urge to drag her to the ground again. But a look at the little boy, whose sobs had quieted to whimpers, stopped me. Instead, I pulled out my phone, opened the security app, and rewound the footage. “I won’t be accused of something I didn’t do,” I said, holding the phone out. “See for yourself, Asher.” The video clearly showed the truth. When it was over, Asher’s face was a mask of regret. He reached a hand toward me, but I flinched away. His eyes reddened. He couldn’t believe I was so repulsed by his touch. His mother saw it too. With a strength I didn’t know she possessed, she spun around and delivered a resounding slap across Nicole’s face. “You little tramp! How dare you use my grandson like that! You try a stunt like this again, and I’ll have Asher throw you out on the street.” I put my phone away and took a deep breath. “Asher,” I said, my voice clear and final. “Let’s get a divorce.”