Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered from that life was the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. Mark's fists felt like concrete blocks hitting my ribs, one after another, and with every blow, I could hear a crack. It might have been my bones, or it might have been my soul.

Through the haze of pain, I saw her. Sarah. She stood by the warehouse door, her arms wrapped around a small boy, her son. Not my son. She watched me die, her beautiful face blank, her eyes showing nothing. No pity, no regret, not even fear. Just a cold emptiness.

She had made her choice, and it wasn't me. After twenty years of me trying to "save" her, of me sacrificing my own future to pull her out of the messes she made, she chose him. The gangster. The man who was now beating me to death.

Her betrayal was the final blow, more painful than any punch Mark could land.

Then, nothing.

Until a phone started ringing.

The sound was sharp, insistent, pulling me from a black void. My eyes snapped open. I was in my childhood bedroom, the posters on the wall faded by years of sunlight. My body didn't ache. My ribs weren't broken. I took a deep breath, and the air was clean, not thick with the smell of rust and my own blood.

The ringing continued. My old flip phone, sitting on my nightstand. The caller ID flashed a name that made my heart seize.

Sarah' s Mom.

I knew this call. This was the moment it all began last time. The night Sarah got into trouble with Mark at a bar fight. The night her parents called me, begging me to use my college savings to bail her out, to smooth things over with Mark.

I had said yes. I had drained my account, given up my dream school, and "rescued" her. She resented me for it for the next twenty years, claiming I'd ruined her one chance at true love with a "misunderstood" man.

The phone kept ringing, a siren song of my past failure.

I picked it up.

"Alex? Thank God," Sarah's mom sobbed on the other end. "It's Sarah. She's in trouble, a misunderstanding with that boy, Mark. The police have her. They said she needs bail, and Mark is angry. Can you please, please help? You're the only one she'll listen to."

Her voice was exactly as I remembered, full of panic and misplaced faith in me.

Last time, I had said, "Of course, I'm on my way."

This time, I took a steadying breath.

"No."

The line went silent. I could hear her sharp intake of breath.

"What? Alex, what do you mean, no? This is Sarah we're talking about."

"I know who we're talking about," I said, my voice calm, feeling a strange sense of power in the simple word. "She made her choices. She needs to face the consequences. I'm not getting involved."

"But you love her!" she cried, her voice cracking. "You've always protected her!"

"That was then," I said, and a weight I didn't know I was carrying for two decades lifted from my shoulders. "I have my own life to think about. I'm sorry."

I hung up before she could say another word. I dropped the phone on the bed and stared at my hands. They weren't broken. They were the hands of an eighteen-year-old boy with his entire future ahead of him. A future I was taking back.

A few hours later, there was a frantic banging on my front door. I knew who it would be before my mom even called my name.

"Alex, Chloe is here to see you. She seems very upset."

I walked downstairs to find Chloe, Sarah's best friend, standing in the entryway. Her face was red, her eyes puffy from crying. The moment she saw me, her expression turned to fury.

"How could you?" she shrieked, not caring that my parents were right there in the living room. "How could you just abandon her?"

"This is between me and Sarah," I said flatly.

"No, this is about you being a selfish monster!" she stepped closer, jabbing a finger at my chest. "Sarah is locked up! She called me crying! She's terrified! And all because you wouldn't help. Her one true friend. The man who supposedly loves her."

"What did she want me to do?" I asked, my voice devoid of the emotion she was trying to provoke.

"Pay her bail! Talk to Mark! You know, be the good guy you always pretend to be! You have the money saved for college, don't you? What's more important, some stupid school or Sarah's safety?"

It was the same argument I'd had with myself in my past life. The same toxic, manipulative logic that had cost me everything.

"My future is more important," I said, the words feeling solid and true in my mouth. "Sarah got herself into this mess. She can get herself out."

Chloe gasped, recoiling as if I'd slapped her. "I don't know who you are anymore, Alex. Sarah was right about you. You're cold. You're heartless."

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "Or maybe I've just grown up."

I watched the confusion and anger war on her face. She had no real argument against my calm refusal. All she had was emotional blackmail, and this time, I wasn't buying it.

"She'll never forgive you for this," Chloe finally spat out, her voice dripping with venom.

"I'm counting on it," I replied.

The words hung in the air between us. She stared at me, her mouth hanging open, searching for a comeback that wasn't there.

Defeated, she turned on her heel.

"You're a real piece of work, Alex," she threw over her shoulder as she walked out the door, slamming it behind her. "An absolute coward."

I didn't feel like a coward. For the first time in a very long time, I felt free.