📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 05
Cheers for Ivy rose from the bleachers as both teams took their positions. Arianna rolled the volleyball between her palms, reacquainting herself with a body she had thought lost forever. Her muscles remembered the court even after her mind had lived through years of weakness. Every steady breath felt like a gift, and she had no intention of wasting it on another performance designed to flatter Ivy.
Her teammate moved beside her with a warning glare. “Look, I know you’re a total simp for Derek,” the girl said under the noise of the gym, “but if you go easy on Ivy, I’ll break your nose.” The threat sounded fierce, yet desperation lay beneath it. This game mattered to someone besides Arianna.
“Who said I was going easy on her?” Arianna asked. Her teammate stared as if she had begun speaking another language. In their previous life, Arianna had apparently made her priorities so obvious that no one expected her to choose fairness over Derek. The realization was uncomfortable, but she accepted it instead of becoming defensive.
“Oh, please. The entire school knows you’d do anything for Derek,” the girl replied. She nodded across the net, where Derek hovered near Ivy despite not being part of the match. “And Derek would do anything for Ivy. The three of you have some weird love triangle going on.”
The words landed with the force of a public verdict. Back then, Arianna had believed she and Derek shared a private, profound love that outsiders simply misunderstood. In reality, the entire school had watched him favor Ivy while Arianna financed and served them both. Everyone had seen the truth except the person most determined not to look.
Arianna followed her teammate’s gaze. Derek gave Ivy an encouraging gesture, then turned toward Arianna with a warning in his eyes. He did not need to repeat his order. His confidence rested on years of evidence that she would sacrifice reputation, friendships, and dignity whenever he asked.
She remembered defending him to her father after teachers complained that Derek took credit for her work. She remembered lending him the family car until classmates assumed it belonged to him. Each favor had erased another boundary, and every lie she accepted helped him become the man who would one day kick her while she bled.
“So everyone could see it,” Arianna murmured. “I was the only one who was blind.” Her teammate’s expression softened briefly, uncertain whether the admission was a joke. Arianna did not explain. No one would believe the full truth, and she did not need belief to change what came next.
The girl adjusted her knee pads and lowered her voice. “I’m applying to college on a sports scholarship. If you make me look bad in front of Coach, you’re officially my enemy.” Her future depended on evaluators seeing what she could do. Arianna’s staged failure in the first life had not been a harmless favor; it had threatened another student’s opportunity.
Guilt stirred beneath Arianna’s anger. She could not repair every consequence of choices that now belonged to a vanished future, but she could stop repeating them. “You won’t look bad because of me,” she promised. The certainty in her tone made her teammate study her again.
Across the court, Ivy laughed with another player, relaxed and unworried. She expected Arianna to throw the match because Derek had always arranged her comfort. Perhaps that expectation had begun as a series of small requests, but it would grow into the entitlement that allowed Ivy to wear Arianna’s ring and confess to attempted murder without remorse.
Derek caught Arianna’s eye and discreetly pointed downward, a silent command to keep the ball weak. She looked away. Even that tiny refusal made irritation flash across his face. He could sense his control loosening, though he had no idea why.
The coach checked both sides of the net. “Arianna, you start.” Conversations faded as attention shifted toward the service line. Arianna stepped into position while her teammate moved to receive the return. The court seemed larger than she remembered, filled with all the choices that had led from this gym to her death.
She bounced the ball once. In her first life, she had sent the serve deliberately into the net and laughed it off, pretending incompetence to spare Ivy embarrassment. Derek had rewarded her with a distracted smile, which she treasured for days. The memory now tasted like poison.
Arianna raised her eyes to Ivy. Winning one school game would not destroy Derek’s plans or avenge her death, but revenge had to begin somewhere. More importantly, refusing to lose would prove to herself that the obedient girl Derek knew no longer existed. This was the first decision of her second life made entirely for her own sake.
Her teammate crouched, ready. “Don’t make me regret trusting you,” she muttered. Arianna gave a slight nod. Whatever happened with the opening serve, she would adapt, fight, and finish the match honestly.
The whistle sounded. Arianna tossed the ball into the air, tracking its rise beneath the bright gym lights. Her body moved on instinct, shoulder rotating and palm striking forward. For a heartbeat, time seemed to hold the ball above the line separating her past from her future.
Derek leaned forward, expecting the familiar failure. Ivy wore the smile of a winner before the first point had even been decided. Arianna saw them both and felt the last trace of hesitation leave her. Their certainty was another thing they had taken from her, and she intended to make them choke on it.
Her hand connected with a sharp crack that echoed across the gym. The ball shot toward the net, and every gaze followed its flight. Arianna landed on both feet, strong and alive, ready for whatever came back.
The ball clipped the wrong angle and dropped outside the boundary. A whistle declared a failed serve, and laughter erupted from Ivy’s side. Derek relaxed with a satisfied smirk—but when Arianna turned toward her worried teammate, there was no surrender in her eyes, only the quick calculation of someone already preparing a different way to win.
