Over & Over

Chemistry. We had chemistry and that had made me fall for him over and over again. Each century we would be reincarnated and no matter whose role I played, he would end up being the lover that betrayed me with adultery over and over again. Most would be sick of taking the same path over and over. I was, I really was. Yet whenever we met and introduced himself the same way or touched me the exact way he had a century before, I would still fall a victim to his wicked spell. Even worse, his name never changed.

  I would love to let someone else love me, someone that wouldn't hurt me every time we met but rules are rules. No matter how much yearning I put into it nothing changed. I couldn't defy the rules. Even if I attempted, the overseers of my fate made sure that my heart fell for him. They made sure that we met and stayed together until my end. They made sure that everything went as according to planned.

   No matter how much I hated him, I loved how he touched me. How he would caress my cheeks and how he told me of lies of his never failing love for me. All the good and bad of him attracted me to him each and every time regardless of whether the overseers made me love him or not. I was a sucker for his tricks. He would tell me how he knew everything about me and how I was his everything. The lies were my comfort. They comforted me until I would walk into his room, after a very specific day from work and find him kissing another girl.

The lies were my rocks. All the times I found him cheating, I would break the same antique vase. That same aqua blue vase would shatter into pieces before him and the unknown girl's eyes. I would shout out curse words. This would be followed by him chasing me while I ran to my car. I would start the engine and drive away; my tears would blur my vision. When I turned my head to gaze at my shaking legs, I would lose control of the wheel and crash. The crash sent me into a coma from which I would never wake up.

Each time I would die on the hospital bed while he ended up with the other girl. He got to live a happy life with two children from her and live happily ever after.

But I would die every time on my twenty seventh birthday. I hated that. The fact that the betrayed suffered and the betrayer would be prosperous in life.

Sometimes, I would fail to recognize myself or know my own name each time I was rebirth. Physical features would change but long time scars and certain things such as my brown eyes stayed the same. In this century, I had brown hair that curled itself and reached my mid-spine. I had small thin lips, a small round face and the same brown eyes. I hate brown hair.

What I really loved, was my original self. The body that I was first born in. The body that I first loved in. My red hair, brown eyes and smooth full lips. I never forgot how my old body  swayed to the music and my feet would control themselves, turning their movement into beautiful choreography. How my hands would know the exact angle to shoot to get an object into its target. Yet with each rebirth I slowly lost my real self.  I wanted it back but could never get it back unless I was given those exact traits in any one of my new lives. And the possibility of that was zero to none.

The year was 2027. Twenty seven years after another reincarnation and I felt anything but alive.

Four hours till I had to go home, be betrayed and die yet again. I was at work as the phone rang,

"Hello?" I answered.

"Is this Rose?" I recognized the voice almost instantaneously.

I hated the name and no matter how much I wanted to say no, I was Rose for a few more hours.

"Yes Mother." The lady on the line was my mother. She raised me by herself and was always on my back about everything I did. Because of her, I had brown hair. I was almost a carbon copy of her. Everything about me screamed that I was her daughter.

"I just called to wish my girl a happy birthday. Now when you go home, have as much fun as you like with that lovely husband of yours." My husband had fooled my mother as well.

"Mom? Trust me we won't."

I obviously knew what going home would entail seeing as I had relived the moment over and over.

"Enjoy yourself, Rose. I also called to say sorry for always being that little witch that was your mother. I always was so hard on you. It was all because I loved you." Twenty seven years and the name, Rose, still made me cringe.

I heard her voice shake and so I replied, "You did it all because you loved me. And I love you too."

My chest hurt when I told her I loved her. Saying that to anyone gave me reason to be sick with myself. I have only said those words to my husband because I had meant it then. Although I tried hard to not be sincere when I said the words to him, they always were.

"Okay then, I better let you go. You are at work at this time, right?"

"Yes Mom." I kept my answer simple badly wanting the conversation to be over.

"Bye now."

"Bye."

The last time I heard her voice while being conscious. Although she is partly the witch she claimed herself of being, she was always there whenever and wherever I needed her. She was almost like my first mother.

As I turned my head to get back to the computer in front of me, I spotted Jake. I knew he liked me. I occasionally caught him staring at me. I also knew because his best friend at the company had told me.

"Hey Rose." Hearing the name from his mouth made me wish my actual name was Rose. That is how much I wish him and I could have gotten a chance to be together.

"Hey." I smiled at him, taking in his nice smelling cologne.  He had green eyes, brown hair and a warm grin.

"So h-how is your day going?" He asked as he stammered. His hands seemed to be hiding something behind his back.

"Great." I answered a bit too positive.

"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday and I got you this. I saw that your birthday was coming up on the events calendar two weeks ago." He handed me a box with beautiful red wrapping all over it. I quickly but skillfully ripped the wrapping away. I removed the lid of the velvet coloured box inside. There in front of me was a golden watch.  I put it on slowly up, jumped out of my chair and hugged him.

"Thank you so much Jake." I whispered into his ear with my arms still around him.

"You deserve it for all the hard work you put into this company."

He was so beautiful and shy. I needed to take a different path before I died. I remembered that on that very day, I wanted to change my story. I wanted to live a little. I needed to change something.

Feeling a little rebellious, I asked Jake, "Do you want to ditch work and go somewhere?"

"What if we-"

"We have never gotten in trouble at this worksite, so one mistake equals a warning." I said to him. Business talk had gotten to me.

"What about your husband, Lane?" He asked.

"I would love to simply spend time a nice co worker. We are not doing anything explicit."

I knew that going out with Jake was a big risk. I felt the overseers of my destiny weighing my heart to go back to work. That one time, I fought against their pressure.

"Yah, of course. We are just friends, I wasn't implying there was something more." While he said that, he nervously scratched his head.

"Let's get going. We can take you car." I motioned for us to move towards the exit.

Before we were completely outside, I stopped his stride by grabbing his shirt, "You pick the spot to where we go. Drive me somewhere fun."

Quietly, we sneaked away and we raced to his car when in the parking lot. I knew his car because he had driven me home once when my car had broke down. We sped defying all the speed limits. He played a song and I had no idea what it was. He along along to it and the smile on his face was nothing but simply priceless. Soon enough my brain caught on to the lyrics and we sing together. Our harmony was utterly tragic.

Jake stopped in front of a fancy restaurant. I recognized it, this restaurant was always advertised on my television.

As we entered, I told him, "These kinds of places often require reservations and a lot of money. With our pay, both our salaries aren't sufficient to pay for a single meal."

"Don't worry," He reassured me.

We walked up to the front desk, luckily there was no line. A formal dressed lady asked: "Do you have a reservation?"

"No." I said.

"Then we cannot be of help to you. You can reserve a table for a later time or perhaps tomorrow." She opened a book as if looking for time to fit us in for another time.

"Are you sure? I am Jake Landis." Jake stated his name as if he is some big shot. I had never seen him so confident.

He pulled out his driver license to prove that he was indeed, Jake Landis.

"I am so sorry for my idiocy. There is a table right at the back waiting for you two. I'll get the waiter to set up the table right now." The woman placed a smile on her face as she saw us to our table.

"Thank you." Jake replied, placing his wallet back into his trouser pocket.

"A waiter will be right out to take care of what you would like. Enjoy your meal." As we took our seats, the lady walked off to her post at the front desk.

"Why was she surprised when you showed her your license?" I asked very surprised that we'd gotten a table because of Jake's license.

"My dad owns this place and the other franchises like it." He shrugged it off as if it was a small thing. La Cora was a multi millionaire food chain.

"Then why in heaven's name do you work?" I asked.

"Just because I like relying on myself and because I work alongside you." His head faced the floor when he finished his sentence.

"I like working with you too." I replied trying to get a positive mood around us.

The restaurant had decor from the eighties. A disco moon is attached to the ceiling. As it rotated it was reflecting beautiful blue light around.

Jake seemed as if he wanted to say something and when he did, my face lit up.

"Would you care to dance?" The words escaped his mouth so fast that I took a few seconds to decipher them.

"Yes."

Slow music came on as we approached the open dance floor and Jake's feet led mine. We danced in sync for a few minutes when Jake said something that I should have known was coming.

"I love you." He said.

With those words, I almost cried. I wanted to so badly stay here and not die today. I wanted to be able to have said love and not have it hurt me.

It hurt so much to consider loving Jake because unfortunately I was so in love with Lane, my husband.

I then hugged him so hard and I wanted him to take that as my wordless reply. But I knew it wasn't enough. So I lifted my head to face his.  Our lips brushed and I wanted to give him more but then I suddenly felt a stinging pain in my heart. My overseers were warning me to stop. Just like I should have before it ever got this far between Jake and I, I listened to them. I smiled softly at Jake and backed away.

"I have to go to the bathroom." I said and it came out gravelly and unstable.

"Okay." That was the last thing he said to me. Okay was all I got of him as last words. There should've have been more.

I rushed to the lady's room. The golden watch on my arm reads 4:55pm. I needed to have crashed my car at 5:21pm.

I recognized I had to leave Jake, standing on the dance floor, waiting for me. Waiting for something that would never happen. Just like me and Lane. Rose and Lane. Such repulsive combinations of names. I found a back door close to the washroom area and sneaked out through it.

I ran home as seeing that I don't have a car to get me home. Luckily the restaurant is not too far from home. I recognized the street I am on is a ten minutes from my house.

Seeing my house in the distance, I ran faster to get to it. When I was in front of the house, I shake a little before reaching for the knob. Lane never locked the door, that was always my job. Maybe if he did, I would have had time to lie about who the girl in our house was. He might have had time to get clothes on before running to open the door.

There is no time for maybe situations, I get in the house and took off my shoes. This was it.  The watch read 5:05pm. I took in a deep breath before walking towards our bedroom.  I did love Lane, but he was always the cause of my death. His infidelity started the chain of events that led me to die. No matter how I begged  the overseers, they would never change my life course.

  I walked down the hall leading to the room. Taking in deeper breaths, I opened the room door.

Right away, I saw the girl on top of him. That time she was kissing his neck and not his lips. She had brown hair. Instead of a face that showed she has been caught and was disgraced, she smirked.

I have been in that exact spot witnessing the exact same thing so many times but it still hurt to see Lane with another woman. I still felt my heart crumble in my chest every time.

I took that unlucky vase and smashed it to declare my anger. Although I wanted to kill her, I can't. I needed to kill myself.

"Rose, I am so sorry," His voice was unsteady. He wasn't sorry. I knew Lane well enough to know that he wasn't sorry.

"I loved you!" The loud shout erupted from within me as tears ejected from my eyes.

"I didn't mean it." Lane said with that same voice that made me his. He quickly rose from the bed and his naked body was on display for me and her.

I yelled the 'f' word at him and other profanities. I accidently stepped on a piece of the broken vase as I ran away from the scene. The broken piece pierced through my delicate flats and dug into my skin. I didn't even take the time to pull the piece out. I continued to run at a pace that was unsteady due to the glass in my foot. It didn't hurt, I knew that my overseers were preparing me for my next death.

I ran towards the car as I bled not feeling the pain. I left a trail of bloody footsteps. Lane chased after me with a bed sheet to cover his nakedness. But I ran faster even with the cut. The overseers gave me strength to do what must be done.

I picked up Lane's car keys. To my convenience he always left them hanging on the door knob of the front door. I knew every stupid thing he did.

Getting to the car, I placed it into ignition and headed to the road. The watch read 5:18pm. I couldn't have died with the watch on me.

As I drove ignoring the speed, I discarded the watch out through the  car window. I refused to have a piece of Jake with me as I met doom. I cried harder and harder. I kept my hands on the steering wheel and dropped my eyes to my shaking legs. Then the car spiralled out of my control. Unable to move my body anymore, I was stuck in the middle of the road.  An upcoming truck that wouldn't brake in time was going to crash into me. I could do nothing to stop it.

The truck hit me with immense force and that pain, I was allowed to feel. Then darkness surrounded and held me. The darkness doesn't leave me.

I know I am dead.