Julian"s eyes widened in disbelief. "You repeat... lives?""It"s a long story."
He kept his eyes trained on me for a moment, before he turned and walked towards a plush couch, sinking into it. "We might as well sit down."
I punched the spark of hope a bit more. He might be staying to listen, but that didn"t mean he would take me seriously. He could just be humoring me. He probably thought I was mentally unstable, a delusional women who had fabricated an affair he wasn"t having (or at least, wasn"t having yet), and kept sinking further into her delusions.
I sat across from him and let out a deep breath. Whether he was humoring me or not, I had taken this step, so I had to see it through. I would tell him everything and if... if he decided to believe me, maybe... Maybe this life truly would be different.
"The first time we got married, I lived until I was twenty-four, before some of your men killed me." I watched Julian"s face closely as I told my story. His eyes widened when I said I had been killed, but I didn"t give him a chance to ask me to elaborate. "After I died, I woke up on the morning of our wedding. That was my second life. I lived until I was twenty-two, but Mia killed me. Or at least, I think it was her. I woke up again on the morning of our wedding."
"You woke up on our wedding day every time?"
I nodded. "I would wake up and then I would live a few years or so before something or someone would kill me. Eventually I tried to escape our marriage altogether, but I always died in some freak accident. I tried everything so I wouldn"t have to keep dying. I even left you to travel, but I only lasted three years. I kept dying and marrying you and you..." I finally couldn"t continue. A knot had formed in my throat that I was unable to swallow.
Julian opened his mouth as if to say something, before he shut it. Finally, he spoke, "And I... told you I didn"t care."
"Not just that!" Despite the tears threatening to spill from my eyes, I glared at him. "You would leave me for my best friend in every lifetime! You wouldn"t even let me divorce you when I found out, no matter what proof I had. You refused to admit it. Y-You"d leave me in that big house, all alone, with no allies. Your mother would always tell me I wasn"t good enough and... and then..." I was crying too hard to continue coherently. I wanted the tears to stop, but telling him this... telling him all the things I had suffered through all those lives was too much.
The only sound that filled the room for a short while was my crying. The couch beside me sunk beneath Julian"s weight and suddenly, I was pulled into a pair of large warm arms.
"Alice."
I froze. I almost wasn"t sure I had heard my name, but he"d whispered it into my hair. I lifted my head and looked at him. Julian"s face was filled with regret. He moved his hand to wipe away some of the tears streaming down my face.
I wanted to stay there in his arms. I wanted to let him hold me, to let him comfort me, but I couldn"t. I pulled away from his hand.
"You... You don"t believe me."
He shook his head. "I wouldn"t say that."
"What is that supposed to mean?" I pursed my lips, fiercely wiping at my eyes.
"I don"t know what to think. If you"re telling the truth, it would explain some things, but those could just as easily have been part of a large delusion."
I stood up in anger. "You asked me how I knew about today, and I told you. You don"t have to believe me." I started for the door. If this landed me in a mental inst.i.tution, then I suppose I had learned my lesson for my twenty-fifth life. I would never tell this man ever again.
An arm snaked around my waist and pulled me back against a hard chest.
"Make me believe you."
I turned my head to meet those intense green eyes. Julian"s face lacked any humor, but there was warmth there. The hope I had so furiously beaten down flared, bright and hot in my chest. If he looked at me like that, how was I supposed to deny him?
"What should I say?"
Julian looked thoughtful for a moment before he turned his eyes back on me. "Tell me something I"ve never told you. Something only someone in my immediate family would know."
I furrowed my brows. There was something Julian wanted me to say in particular. He was looking at me with such conviction, as if there was something he knew I could know, whether or not I was told, but something I would have found out...
"Your father," I blurted with the sudden realization. "Your father isn"t away on a retreat. He"s in the hospital, going through chemotherapy."
"...So you"re really telling the truth."