After my rebirth, I intentionally kept missing my fiancé at every turn. If he left work through the front doors of the command building, I took the back exit. When he took his first love out to the movies, I stayed home alone, quietly organizing my case files. All because in my past life, I forced him to marry me, perfectly aware that his heart belonged to another woman. But after we married, he left me to sleep in an empty bed for the rest of my life. We became the most notoriously miserable couple on the military base. He hated me for pulling strings to get his first love transferred to a remote, desolate border outpost. And I hated him for marrying me but never showing me an ounce of affection. Over ten years of marriage, we tore each other to pieces in countless, bitter arguments. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer that he finally started treating me with gentleness and taking care of me. I foolishly thought he had finally learned to love me. But when my last round of chemo failed, right as I was about to close my eyes for the final time, he whispered: "I’ve repaid the debt I owed your father." "In the next life, don't marry me. I won't need you or your father to save me. Let's just spare each other." When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day the military was assigning cross-base transfers. I marched straight into the Chief of Staff's office. "My military background makes me a much better fit for the remote outpost in Alaska." Liam, I thought to myself. In this life, I’m leaving your true love right by your side. I’m giving you your freedom back. Colonel Reynolds looked up from his stack of paperwork, his brows furrowing. "You submitted three separate transfer requests last month, explicitly pulling strings so you could stay here at Base Command with your fiancé. That's the only reason we put Sarah on the deployment roster instead." "We finally got the orders finalized, and now you want to change it again?" I slid the application form across the desk, standing perfectly at attention. "Sir, I’ve thought it through. I am volunteering for the remote outpost in Alaska." Colonel Reynolds stared at me for a long time before finally waving his hand dismissively. "Suit yourself. But let me remind you, that base is isolated in the mountains, sitting at sub-zero temperatures with brutal conditions. The last officer we sent up there had a boyfriend waiting for her for two years... she ended up leaving him for a civilian contractor." I saluted him, turned on my heel, and walked out. Out in the hallway, my colleagues were clustered around the bulletin board. Sarah Jenkins' name was at the very top of the deployment list. Her head was bowed, her eyes rimmed with red. A few other officers were whispering consolations to her. "You got straight A's on your psychological operations evaluations. If it weren't for someone relying on nepotism..." "Seriously. You and Colonel Hayes were practically engaged, and then this happened..." The whispering abruptly ceased the moment I appeared. A dozen pairs of eyes stabbed into me like knives. I walked straight through the crowd, my expression completely blank. In everyone's eyes, I was the despicable villain who stole Sarah's man. But it didn't matter. I would be giving Liam Hayes back to her very soon. In my past life, when Liam was leading a special ops team on a border mission, his unit was ambushed. My father, a General, defied direct orders and led a rescue team to extract him. My father took a fatal bullet and died a hero. I had weaponized that suffocating guilt to force Liam into marrying me. I knew he was deeply in love with his childhood sweetheart, Sarah, so I manipulated the system to deploy her to the frozen wasteland of Alaska. I used to think that as long as I gave enough of myself, I could eventually win his heart. So, I woke up two hours early every day to organize his training schedules. I stayed up all night helping him run tactical simulations. I stocked every drawer in our quarters with his ulcer medication and frostbite ointment. Slowly, he began to tolerate me straightening his uniform collar. He stopped pulling his hand away when I reached for it. He even started accompanying me to midnight movie premieres. I honestly thought he was finally falling for me. Until the night I suddenly collapsed during a joint-forces training exercise. Liam rushed me to the hospital and paced outside the operating room all night. Because of that, he missed an emergency SOS transmission from Sarah. The next morning, the devastating news arrived: Sarah's recon unit had been ambushed in a blizzard, and she had died covering her team's retreat. After that, Liam went to Arlington National Cemetery and stood silently in front of her headstone for an entire day. He never spoke her name again. Shortly after my surgery, I was diagnosed with bone cancer. Liam requested a transfer out of his combat unit and spent the next five years exclusively taking care of me. To any outsider, he was the absolute perfect, flawless husband. But I was the only one who knew the truth. When he looked at me, there was never any tenderness in his eyes. There was only a suffocating, mandatory debt that had to be repaid. A wave of bitter acidity washed over my heart. I took a deep breath, forcing down the turbulent emotions. This time, I was going to let them have their happy ending. And I was going to set myself free. After work, Liam came down to the administrative building to pick me up, as usual. The walk to his truck was dead silent. I knew he had already seen the updated deployment roster. I opened my mouth to explain, but he cut me off: "Sarah is deploying to Alaska next month. A few of the guys from our old unit are getting together tonight for a farewell dinner." "You stole her spot here at Command. Morally speaking, you need to be there." I didn't say another word. I just followed him into the private room of the restaurant. Sarah was sitting in the center of the table, her eyes still red from crying. Someone had deliberately left the seat next to her empty for Liam. He sat down naturally. Without caring, I walked over to the furthest empty seat near the door. As soon as we sat down, Sarah raised her glass of whiskey. "Liam, thank you for always looking out for me all these years. This one's for you." Out of sheer muscle memory, I reached out to stop him. "He has a bad stomach ulcer. He can't drink." In my past life, I tagged along to every single one of his dinners just to intercept drinks for him. But this time, Liam completely ignored me. He picked up his glass and downed the whiskey in one shot. Sarah smiled softly. "See? Liam can drink just fine." A guy sitting next to them chimed in, "Major Carter, you clearly don't understand our Commander. Whether he can drink or not depends entirely on who he's drinking with." A chorus of knowing, muffled laughter echoed around the table. Liam didn't say a word to defend me. The conversation quickly shifted to their shared past—surviving boot camp together, coming home for the holidays from West Point... Every single memory was a timeline I could never be a part of. I ate my food in silence. In my past life, I fought so desperately to force my way into his world, completely forgetting that to him, I was nothing but an unwanted burden. When dinner ended, someone suggested going to the movies. Liam looked at me. "Take an Uber home yourself." With that, he walked out the door with Sarah and the others. When I got back to the base housing, my phone rang. It was Mrs. Henderson—a Gold Star mother who had reached out for help last week. Ever since her son was killed in action, her survivor housing benefits had been stalled in bureaucratic limbo. I had spent the last few days running around base, compiling all the necessary documentation for her. "Don't worry, Mrs. Henderson. I'll go coordinate with the housing office first thing tomorrow morning." After hanging up, I went into the home office to grab the blue folder containing her files. It was gone. I waited until 9:30 PM when Liam finally returned. I immediately asked him: "Have you seen the housing documents for Mrs. Henderson?" Liam hung his patrol cap on the rack, his tone perfectly flat. "I gave them to Sarah." "I already spoke to your department head. That case has been transferred to her." I froze for a second, then marched straight toward the front door. "No. I'm going to go get them back." Liam grabbed my arm, his brow furrowed in deep annoyance. "It's just a routine housing allowance. The stipends add up to a few hundred bucks at most. Why are you being so petty?" "I promised Mrs. Henderson I would handle it personally." "Sarah is deploying to Alaska soon. When the end-of-year evaluations come around, handling a high-profile veteran's case like this will look great on her record. She needs this more than you do." I was just about to tell him that I was the one deploying to Alaska, when Liam's phone buzzed. It was Sarah. She had questions about the paperwork. Liam turned and walked into the study, his voice instantly softening. "Under the Military Survivor Benefits Act, Section 28... yeah, read that part first." "For cases like this, you can reference the precedent from the Western Command last year. I'll email you the file." I stood frozen in the hallway. I remembered my past life, when I had just transferred to the Family Programs department. I was dealing with a massively complex military dependent dispute, and I went to ask him for advice, since he was an experienced Special Forces Commander. He had merely glanced at the file. "These are basic policy issues. Don't you know how to look up the regulations yourself?" I tried to explain: "I did look them up, but the criteria for combat-related disability ratings is vague..." He had cut me off instantly. "I don't have time for this. I have a training sim tomorrow." I had stayed up for three consecutive nights untangling that bureaucratic mess myself. The day the issue was finally resolved, I excitedly told him about it. He just gave a dismissive "Mhm." I always thought it was because he was too busy, because my work was too trivial. Now I finally understood the truth—he just didn't want to waste a single second of his time on me. The phone call in the study lasted for over an hour. I turned and walked back to the master bedroom. My phone vibrated—a photo from Liam's buddy, Marcus. In the dim lighting of the movie theater, Sarah had her arm looped tightly through Liam's. He wasn't pushing her away. Right beneath the photo was a text: [Some things just can't be forced.] I stared at the picture and let out a self-deprecating laugh. I opened my chat history with Marcus and scrolled up. The entire log was filled with messages I had sent in the past: "Marcus, Liam's birthday is coming up. Do you guys know what he's been wanting lately?" "Last time you mentioned your kid likes model jets, I had a friend track down a limited edition one for him..." Every single text I sent reeked of careful, desperate people-pleasing. And every single reply from Marcus was polite, short, and completely dismissive. I had degraded myself to such pathetic depths just for a one-sided love. I tapped Marcus's profile and permanently deleted him. I turned off the lamp and lay down. There was no phantom, agonizing ache from the bone cancer, and there was no suffocating anxiety over whether Liam loved me. For the first time since my rebirth, I slept incredibly deeply. The next morning, I went to the base hospital for a full physical. In my past life, the oncologist had told me that if my cancer had been caught earlier, the survival rate would have been significantly higher. In this life, a healthy body was my most valuable asset. Just as I checked in at 8:30 AM, Liam called me. "Come to my office right now. It's an emergency." "I'm at the hospital getting a physical." "Your physical can wait," his voice was dictatorial and unquestionable. "I just got emergency orders to attend a joint-command seminar. You need to take my Spec Ops cadets to their tactical simulation. You already know the entire curriculum." In my past life, demands like this were a daily occurrence. I edited his cadets' training reports, coordinated simulation resources, and even drove sick cadets to the ER in the middle of the night. When he'd get back and I'd brief him on everything I did, he would just toss out a casual, "Thanks for the hard work." As if I was his personal, unpaid assistant. "Those are your cadets. Make your own arrangements," I replied coldly. The line went dead silent for two seconds before Liam's voice dropped into a dark growl. "I do not have the time right now—" I hung up on him. My test results came back quickly. The military doctor pointed at my CT scans. "There are no signs of malignant tumors right now. But a few of your blood markers are slightly elevated. I'm prescribing some preventative meds. We'll need you to come in for regular checkups." I took the lab results, my fingers trembling slightly. The massive boulder crushing my chest was finally lifted. As I walked out of the hospital, an Instagram notification popped up on my phone. One of Liam's cadets had posted a video story. In the video, Sarah was at the tactical simulation center leading the cadets. The camera panned, capturing Liam rushing into the room. In the background, the cadets could be heard saying: "Lieutenant Jenkins' commands were flawless today!" "Commander Hayes and Lieutenant Jenkins look so perfect standing next to each other!" In the final few seconds of the video, Liam suddenly swayed. He clutched his stomach, his face draining of all color, and collapsed to the floor. "Liam!" Sarah screamed in horror. The video cut off. It was only then that I realized I hadn't reminded him to take his ulcer medication for two days. My phone rang. It was Sarah, her voice thick with tears. "Evelyn, get to the base ER right now! Liam has a bleeding ulcer, he's in emergency surgery! I don't have his military ID or his insurance card, they won't let me process the paperwork!" When I arrived at the hospital, the red light above the operating room was still on. Sarah and several of the cadets were huddled outside the doors. A male cadet spotted me and immediately glared. "You know Commander Hayes has a terrible stomach condition. Why didn't you remind him to take his meds?" A female cadet chimed in quietly, "If you had just helped cover the simulation like he asked, he wouldn't have had to rush back in such a panic." Sarah pulled the girl's sleeve gently. "Stop it. The most important thing right now is that Liam pulls through." I ignored all of them, walking straight to the nurses' station. I used my military ID to process all of his admission paperwork. An hour later, the operating room doors swung open. The surgeon walked straight toward Sarah. "Family?" "I am," Sarah lied smoothly. "How is he?" "Acute gastric hemorrhage. We've stopped the bleeding. Moving forward, he needs a strict diet and has to take his medication exactly on schedule." As the surgeon gave his instructions, Sarah nodded repeatedly, and the cadets listened with rapt attention. No one noticed me standing in the corner. I waited until the surgeon finished speaking. I walked over, shoved the payment receipts and medical chart into Sarah's hands, and said: "I'm leaving." As I turned and walked down the hallway, the sound of their voices faded away behind me. Over the next few days, I buried myself in my remaining paperwork and drafted my formal handover reports. A week later, I came home to the base housing. The moment I pushed the door open, I froze. Liam was sitting on the living room sofa, his face still pale. Sarah was sitting right next to him, peeling an apple for him. Liam's parents were also there. His mother shot me a cold glance. "You finally decided to come home?" I nodded as a greeting and turned to head to my bedroom. His father barked, "Stop right there! Liam was in the hospital for days, and you didn't show your face once. Now that he's home, you're not even going to ask how he is?!" His mother piled on. "You were the one who practically begged for the joint-assignment paperwork to get him! Now that you've trapped him, this is how little you care?!" I turned back around. "Actually, I—" "Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, please don't be angry," Sarah interrupted with her soft, gentle voice. "Evelyn has been incredibly busy at work. I'm sure she feels terrible inside." Liam's mother's face instantly softened. She patted Sarah's hand affectionately. "At least you understand how to treat people." Liam glanced at me, but ultimately said nothing. The four of them went back to chatting in low voices. The atmosphere was so warm and harmonious, they looked like the perfect family. Whatever. Explaining myself would be a waste of breath. I quietly walked into my room and shut the door. On my final day at Division Headquarters, I cleared out my office bright and early. I gave my potted plants to a colleague next door, archived all my classified files, and emptied my desk drawers. My entire life fit into a single camouflage tactical duffel bag. Just as I stepped out of the command building, a mob of people suddenly swarmed me. Several of them had heavy news cameras perched on their shoulders. "Major Carter! Do you have an explanation for the missing VA benefit files for Mrs. Henderson?!" "As the commanding officer in charge of her case, do you admit to gross negligence?!" Microphones were practically shoved into my eyeballs. I was pushed backward by the aggressive crowd. The sharp plastic edge of a camera lens slammed into my forehead, sending a dull throb of pain through my skull. Realizing things were escalating, I quickly turned around and retreated back into the secure building. The armed guards at the entrance immediately stepped up, blocking the reporters from entering. My heart was pounding wildly. My phone was vibrating non-stop. A colleague sent me a news link: [Military Officer Loses Critical Documents; Gold Star Mother's Survivor Benefits Delayed for Six Months!] The article claimed that Mrs. Henderson's son had been killed in action during a border operation. The survivor benefits she was legally entitled to had been stalled because her paperwork was "lost." Worse, her husband was severely ill and desperately needed that money for life-saving surgery. At the bottom of the article was a leaked screenshot of the internal department task log. Under the "Lead Officer" column, it clearly stated: Evelyn Carter. My colleague sent another text: [Wait, wasn't Sarah handling this case? When did it get transferred to you?] I frantically opened the internal department server and checked the logs. Two days ago, the name assigned to Mrs. Henderson's file had somehow been manually changed from "Sarah Jenkins" to "Evelyn Carter." A chill washed over my entire body. I immediately texted my Department Director: [Sir, why am I listed as the lead on Mrs. Henderson's case? I have never touched those files.] I received an almost instant reply: [Sarah told me two days ago that she had already officially handed the case over to you, and that you agreed to process it. Why are you suddenly claiming ignorance now that it's blown up in the press?] I found Sarah's number and called her. The line was busy. I called her over a dozen times. Still unreachable. It wasn't until the sky grew dark and the mob outside the building finally dispersed that Sarah answered her phone. I suppressed the boiling rage in my chest. "Where are you? We need to talk face-to-face." From the other end of the line, I heard the clinking of bowls and spoons. Then came Sarah's cheerful, smiling voice: "I'm over at your house! Liam just got discharged from the hospital and needs someone to look after him. I knew you were busy with work, so I came over to help cook dinner." I hung up the phone. I sprinted back to the base housing and threw the front door open. Sarah was sitting right next to Liam, holding a bowl of soup. Seeing me walk in, she stood up. "Evelyn, you're back! I made some—" I took a massive step forward and slapped her directly across the face. SMACK! The porcelain bowl shattered on the hardwood floor, hot soup splashing everywhere. Sarah clutched her cheek, her eyes wide with theatrical, absolute disbelief. Liam shot up from the sofa and grabbed my wrist. "Are you insane?!" I violently wrenched my arm free and glared at Sarah. "Where did you put the original case files? You are coming with me to the Director's office right now to confess what you did." Sarah's eyes instantly filled with tears, spilling over her cheeks. "Evelyn, I'm so sorry... I was at the hospital taking care of Liam those few days, and I made a careless mistake at work... I'll go explain it right now!" Liam grabbed her by the shoulders, stopping her. "No. If you step forward now, it will only make the media circus worse. They'll put a permanent black mark of gross negligence on your record. You might even be dishonorably discharged." He turned to look at me. "We'll have Sarah admit there was a minor miscommunication during the handover. You will write the formal incident report and take the primary responsibility. That's the only way to minimize the damage to the unit." I let out a cold laugh. "So I'm just supposed to be the scapegoat? I am not taking the fall for her." Liam stared at me in silence for a few seconds. He stepped closer, lowering his voice into a dark, terrifying whisper. "If you don't take the fall for this, I will dig up the combat reports from the mission where your father died. I will expose his tactical command failures." My entire body went rigid. I stared at him, looking at him like he was an alien creature. During that border mission, my father had defied direct orders specifically to save Liam's trapped unit. He died taking a bullet meant for him. And now, Liam was weaponizing my father's sacrifice to blackmail me. The living room was terrifyingly quiet. A long time passed before I finally spoke. My voice was completely raw. "I agree." That night, a formal incident report bearing my name was published across the military's internal intranet. The comment boards refreshed endlessly, every single message dripping with venom. People cursed me, saying I "didn't deserve to wear the uniform." Some doxxed my base housing address. Others took my official military portrait and photoshopped it with a black memorial ribbon. I shut my laptop, but the vicious words continued echoing in my skull. At 4:00 AM, I booted up my encrypted military terminal. I began compiling every single document related to Mrs. Henderson—the initial application logs, the scanned death certificates, the hospital diagnostic records. By the time the sun came up, I had encrypted and archived everything, saving three separate backups. The next morning at 9:00 AM, the doorbell rang. Sarah stood outside, holding an official military body-cam and a small tripod. Her tone was sickeningly sincere. "Evelyn, the Inspector General's office asked me to record a quick video statement from you regarding the incident." Liam had already left early for the training grounds. The red recording light blinked on. I sat down in front of the lens. "I am Major Evelyn Carter from Family Programs. Regarding the lost VA paperwork for Gold Star mother Mrs. Henderson, I sincerely apologize..." Just then, loud, chaotic noises erupted from the hallway outside my door. The shouting grew louder. "This is the unit! Evelyn Carter, get out here!" Fists started pounding violently against my front door, accompanied by furious screaming. I sensed something was horribly wrong. I instinctively looked over at Sarah. She was looking down at the screen of the body-cam. Her finger swiped quickly across the glass, a malicious smirk forming on her lips that she didn't have time to hide. I lunged forward and snatched the device out of her hands. The screen wasn't recording a private video file. It was an active Instagram Live stream. The viewer count read 178,000 and was climbing by the second. The live chat was scrolling at a blinding speed: [I knew it was her! She doesn't give a damn about Gold Star families!] [Look at how robotic her apology is. Who is she trying to fool?] [How is trash like this allowed to be an officer?!] I looked up at Sarah. She offered a provocative, triumphant smile. "Evelyn, a live-streamed apology feels so much more sincere, don't you think?" The pounding on the front door was getting louder, the wood beginning to splinter. I turned around, walked into the kitchen, and grabbed my heavy-duty tactical multi-tool—the one Liam used to use for wilderness survival training. I tapped my smartwatch and sent an emergency SOS alert to the Base Military Police. I walked back to the front door, took a deep breath, and violently ripped it open. I held up Sarah's live-streaming device, pointing the camera directly at the faces of the people leading the mob: "Trespassing in a restricted military housing zone, right? Come on, let's get you all on camera clearly. Building 7, Unit 3. I've already dispatched the Military Police." In my other hand, I gripped the tactical knife, the heavy blade pointed toward the floor. The angry mob instantly went dead silent. The man leading the charge froze, glancing nervously over my shoulder at Sarah. She had long since retreated to the back of the living room, her face pale as a sheet. "H-hey! Don't do anything crazy!" The man took a half-step back. I pointed the camera lens at my heavily dented door lock. "I am standing my ground. The MPs will be here in less than two minutes. Trespassing on a federal military installation is a felony. That'll get you all locked up for a very long time." People in the back of the crowd started quietly backing away. "Are you leaving or not?" I took one step forward. Half the mob instantly scattered. Five minutes later, the Military Police arrived and arrested the remaining stragglers. After giving my official statement and filling out the reports, I shut my broken door. I walked into my bedroom, opened the closet, and pulled out my tactical deployment duffel bag. I only packed my military ID, my driver's license, my debit cards, a few sets of OCP uniforms, and my medical records. Everything else—the photos, the souvenirs, the expensive military watch Liam had gifted me—I didn't touch a single one. Half an hour later, I carried my duffel bag downstairs. I waited at the gate for twenty minutes before catching a military transport shuttle heading to the joint-forces airfield. The driver was a veteran contractor in his late forties. "Heading to Alaska?" The veteran glanced at my heavy duffel in the rearview mirror. "Rushing home for the holidays?" I froze for a second. "It's New Year's Eve, Major," the veteran said as he put the shuttle into gear. "Didn't your family call to rush you home?" Outside the window, the sky was growing dark. In the distance, the scattered lights of the base glowed against the snow, and faint fireworks from a nearby town burst into the sky. "Yeah. I'm going home," I said quietly. The shuttle drove out of the city and merged onto the desolate highway. The streetlights grew sparse, replaced by barren, frozen mountains on either side. Three hours later, the shuttle pulled up outside the military airfield. The massive engines of the C-17 transport plane roared against the freezing, biting wind. Standing in the dim, yellow light of the cargo bay, a profound, crystal-clear realization washed over me for the first time: This time, I was truly leaving Liam Hayes behind forever.
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