The Man I Mourned for Six Years, the Man She’s Been Living With Chapter 01

The Man I Mourned for Six Years, the Man She’s Been Living With Chapter 01

After Ethan Whitmore died in a car accident because of me, I stayed single until I turned thirty.

My elders worried, my friends tried to comfort me, and even he showed up in my dreams begged me to move on.

So I agreed to a blind date, planning to finally say goodbye to him at the cemetery that night.

But as soon as I left the cemetery, I came across a post online.

[Sixth anniversary, and my husband bought me another penthouse!]

Looking at the photo, my whole body trembled, a chill ran down my spine.

In the picture, my boyfriend, the man I had buried was leaning his head gently against another woman.

I went to the address listed and knocked on the door. The moment our eyes met, I froze.

That woman was Aria Crane, the secretary Ethan had cheated on me with, the one he fired six years ago.

—

Our eyes locked, and a flash of panic crossed Aria’s face.

“Olivia…” she started.

She instinctively tried to shut the door, but I blocked it with my foot.

Just then, the voices of Ethan’s friends drifted out of the elevator.

“It’s been six years since Ethan ‘died,’ and she’s still stuck in that grief. Thirty years old and not married yet.”

“I heard she agreed to a blind date recently. Probably finally letting go.”

“Honestly though, Ethan played a cruel game. He crashed his car on the overpass because Aria sent him a private photo, but he let Olivia think he was rushing to celebrate her birthday.”

“She even tried to kill herself more than once because of the guilt.”

“But hey, since she’s agreed to the date, she’ll probably get married soon.”

“Keep your voice down. Don’t let Ethan hear…”

They turned the corner, saw me, and the chatter died instantly.

Ethan’s childhood friend, Derek, avoided my gaze.

“Olivia… what are you doing here?”

Then, a familiar voice drifted from inside the apartment.

“Babe, are Derek and the others here?”

I froze, my breath hitching as my heart nearly stopped.

I spun around. There he was. Ethan, standing there, perfectly fine, holding a bouquet of freshly cut flowers.

He froze when he saw me, his eyes trembling.

I looked at the banner hanging in the middle of the living room and let out a bitter, sarcastic laugh.

“Happy Sixth Anniversary to my beloved wife.”

“Ethan, you’ve really built yourself a nice life.”

Ethan instinctively pulled Aria behind him, his expression awkward.

Everyone else stood frozen in place. The silence was suffocating.

Six years ago, Ethan had driven onto an overpass during a rainstorm to make it home by midnight for my birthday. He crashed into the sea and drowned.

By the time I returned, all that was left of him was an urn.

I was consumed by guilt and grief, thinking over and over: if I hadn’t been so hung up on his affair, he wouldn’t have been trying so hard to make it up to me, and he wouldn’t have died.

The day he was buried, I cried until I passed out, clutching his tombstone.

In the years that followed, I missed him so much I couldn’t sleep. I would go to the cemetery alone and stay there all night.

At my lowest point, I tried to kill myself at his grave. A groundskeeper found me and saved my life.

I never imagined it had all been a lie, just a way for him to disappear.

I picked up a photo frame from the table. In it, they stood side by side under a sky full of northern lights. My eyes burned, and my heart ached.

“Nice wedding photo. Taken in Iceland?”

Back when Ethan and I were engaged, Aria, as his secretary, had been involved in everything.

Once, when I was struggling to choose a location for our wedding photos, she suggested a little hesitantly, “I think Iceland would be perfect.”

“Because every aurora is unique, a symbol of something rare and one of a kind.”

Ethan had smiled and said it was a good idea.

But soon after, I found a lipstick in his car that didn’t belong to me.

I followed the clues until I figured out who it belonged to. Aria.

I insisted on calling off the engagement. In response, he stood on the roof of an eighteen-story building.

“Olivia, if you cancel the wedding, I’ll jump.”

I gave in and decided to give him another chance to cut ties with her completely.

He erased all the evidence, fired Aria, and did everything he could to make it up to me.

He even died… or so I believed, and I blamed myself for it.

And now, here he was, alive and well, with the woman he was supposedly done with, building a home.

I let out a cold laugh and smashed the picture frame against the floor.

Glass shattered everywhere. Aria shrieked, clutching her cheek, now cut and bleeding.

“Olivia, will you stop being crazy?” Ethan’s eyes turned red as he yelled at me.

I gave a bitter, dry laugh. “Crazy? Yes, I am crazy. For the six years you’ve been ‘dead,’ I’ve been living like I was losing my mind every single day.”

Ethan’s chest heaved. His voice was full of blame. “Back then, you were the one who begged me not to die. I did everything you asked. But you couldn’t let it go.”

“You made my life miserable. Do you have any idea how draining that was?”

I slapped him across the face. My wrist stung from the impact, and tears poured from my eyes.

“Ethan, you’re the one who cheated. You’re the one who lied to me. And you think I’m the one who made your life miserable? That you were exhausted?”

Aria fell to her knees in front of me, tears streaming down her face.

“Olivia, please stop fighting. It’s all because of me.”

“I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done any of it. I was the one who crossed the line with Ethan.”

“He kept his promises to you. I’m the one who kept clinging to him. I’ll leave him. I swear.”

She placed a hand protectively over her lower belly, her voice pitying. “As for the baby… I won’t keep it.”

Ethan froze, then his expression shifted to shock. “Aria, you’re pregnant?”