Chapter 1
I got my hands on a magical potion.
Whoever drank it would fall hopelessly in love with me.
I didn’t hesitate for a second. I tipped my head back and swallowed every last drop.
This time, I chose to love myself.
Love you, my true self.
See you tomorrow.
In my previous life, after my husband, Hunter Blackwell, cheated on me, I accidentally obtained a strange potion.
It came in a small, transparent vial filled with blue liquid.
A faded label clung to the glass, bearing a single line of text:
[Whoever drinks this will become irreversibly devoted to the one who offered it.]
Clinging to it like a last lifeline, I lost all reason and pinned my hopes on that mysterious vial. I mixed the potion into
Hunter’s coffee.
The effect was immediate.
He gradually distanced himself from the woman he’d been seeing and began focusing on me again.
He remembered our anniversaries and brought flowers home.
At night, when he held me as we fell asleep, he whispered the sweet words I hadn’t heard in years.
It felt as if we’d truly returned to the days when we were in love.
We became the couple everyone envied again.
Everyone believed Hunter loved me deeply.
Only I knew the truth: his love for me didn’t come from his own choice.
It came from mine.
I was the one who made him drink the potion that made him fall in love with me. So whenever he hugged me. whenever he kissed me, my mind filled with those obscene photos he’d once shared with someone else.
Chapter 1
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A Life and Death Lie Under Christmas Lights
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When he spoke softly to me, I couldn’t stop wondering if he’d said the same beautiful lies to another woman.
Worse still, the fear never left me. Whenever he spoke to another woman for work.
Whenever his phone screen lit up.
Whenever someone from his past reappeared.
My heart would go on high alert: Had the potion worn off?
Is he about to leave me again?
I became paranoid, almost unrecognizable even to myself.
Sensitive, suspicious, always on edge.
A momentary lapse in his attention, a slightly flat response, was enough to send me spiraling, dissecting every detail of
his feelings for me.
Then I got pregnant.
The joy lasted only a heartbeat, quickly replaced by overwhelming dread.
What if-
What if one day the potion truly stopped working?
What if Hunter turned back into the man who despised me?
What would I do then?
What would happen to my child?
Resting my hand on my still–flat stomach, I realized for the first time-
I was living inside a cage I’d built myself.
It was beautiful, yes–but painfully fragile.
My hair began falling out in clumps.
Chronic anxiety wrapped around me like a vise, gnawing away at my nerves.
Even when Hunter tried to comfort me, I couldn’t let myself fully sink into the warmth he offered.
I didn’t dare.
Because love, at its core, is a surrender of free will.
Chapter 1
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A Life and Death Lie Under Christmas Lights
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It’s two independent souls meeting–and choosing, clearly and consciously, to fall.
And I had poisoned that possibility beyond repair.
One day, Hunter said casually,
1
“Hey, babe… looks like you’ve got a few more fine lines around your eyes lately.”
Just that–so light, so careless–was enough to shatter me.
I couldn’t focus. Mistakes piled up at work, and I felt like a string stretched to its breaking point.
Eventually, after months of emotional upheaval, the child I never even got to meet… left me.
Hunter held me, whispering comfort into my ear.
But what flooded my chest in that moment wasn’t gratitude or relief.
It was regret.
I regretted everything.
I regretted degrading myself, like a beggar, using tricks to hold onto a man whose heart had already left.
So this time–this life–when that familiar blue potion appeared in front of me again, I didn’t hesitate.
I twisted off the cap, tilted my head back, and drank it all.
The liquid was faintly bitter as it slid down my throat.
Instead of exhausting myself trying to keep a cheating man, I chose something else.
I chose to love myself properly.
Love you, my true self.
See you tomorrow.
