The first time Jessica Miller and Megan Flores destroyed my life, they pushed me from the roof of a thirty-six-story building. The second time, I opened my eyes in our high school library and heard the boy they had killed me for say, “Ryan, come on. We made a promise. The four of us stay together.”
Chapter 1
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe. My palms were flat against a scarred wooden table, my laptop glowed in front of me, and afternoon sunlight streamed through the tall windows of Lincoln High. Across from me sat Jessica and Megan, both eighteen again, both beautiful and confident and very much alive.
Between them sat Ethan Blake.
He wore the same wounded expression I remembered. His brown hair hung over his forehead, and his shoulders slumped as though the world had spent years mistreating him personally. Jessica had one hand on his arm, while Megan leaned so close their shoulders touched.
“We already decided,” Jessica said. “South Side Community College. All four of us.”
My stomach turned cold.
This was the day.
In my first life, Jessica, Megan, and I had been among the strongest students in our graduating class. Jessica had scored a 1490 on the SAT. Megan had scored a 1510. I had offers within reach from schools my parents and I had dreamed about for years.
Ethan barely managed a score good enough to keep his teachers from recommending remedial work.
Yet somehow he had convinced the girls that following him to South Side Community College was romantic.
“Think about it,” Ethan said, smiling hopefully. “At Harvard or Stanford, you’d be nobody. At South Side, we’d be the smartest people there.”
Megan nodded. “He has a point.”
I remembered that sentence.
I remembered arguing for three straight days. I remembered calling their parents when neither girl would listen. Their applications had been corrected before the deadline, and both eventually entered excellent universities.
Ethan went to South Side alone.
Six months later, he jumped from a campus building after months of academic trouble, humiliation, and conflicts with other students.
Jessica and Megan never forgave me.
They said I had separated them from him. They said if they had been there, he would have survived. Every scholarship they won and every opportunity their universities gave them became, in their minds, proof of what I had stolen.
Then one cold evening, they asked me to meet them downtown.
They took me to the roof of a thirty-six-story building.
“If you hadn’t interfered,” Jessica told me, “Ethan would still be alive.”
Megan had been crying.
I remembered thinking she might stop Jessica.
Instead, she grabbed my other arm.
Then they pushed.
The last thing I heard was Jessica screaming that I had ruined everything.
Now I was back in the library, staring at the same three faces.
Ethan gave me a pleading smile. “Ryan?”
I slowly closed my laptop.
“College is a major decision,” I said. “I’m talking it over with my parents.”
His smile disappeared.
Jessica frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means my first choices are Harvard and Stanford.”
Megan stared at me. “And us?”
“You can go wherever you want.”
Ethan’s eyes immediately filled with tears.
It was remarkable how quickly he could do that.
“So that’s it?” he whispered. “You think you’re better than us?”
Jessica put her arm around him. “Ryan, apologize.”
“For what?”
“For humiliating him.”
I looked at the girl who had known me since kindergarten. Jessica had once punched a seventh grader for stealing my lunch money. Megan had once spent an entire Christmas vacation helping me recover after I broke my leg skiing.
Before Ethan, I had believed those friendships could survive anything.
I had been wrong once.
I would not be wrong twice.
“I’m not apologizing,” I said. “Go to South Side. Stay together. Rule the place. Do whatever makes you happy.”
Megan’s face hardened. “If you walk out, don’t expect us to speak to you again.”
“Then we understand each other.”
I reached for my laptop.
Ethan moved faster.
He snatched it from the table and jumped behind Jessica.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re upset,” he said. “You’ll regret this tomorrow.”
Before I could reach him, Jessica stepped in front of me. Megan grabbed my arm.
Ethan opened my college application portal.
“Stop,” I said.
He grinned.
“I’m helping you keep your promise.”
He deleted my university selections.
Harvard disappeared.
Stanford disappeared.
Yale disappeared.
Then he replaced them with South Side Community College.
My heart pounded, not because I feared losing those schools, but because memory and reality were suddenly blending together. Jessica’s fingers around my wrist felt too much like hands holding me at the edge of a rooftop.
Ethan clicked submit.
“There,” he said triumphantly. “Now we’re all going together.”
I lunged for the computer.
Megan shoved me.
I hit the floor.
Ethan looked down at me with an expression so smug that something inside me became perfectly still.
“Students only get three changes,” he said. “I used all of yours. You can’t fix it now.”
Jessica crossed her arms. “He did it because he cares about you.”
Then Megan laughed.
“Besides, Ethan promised to choose one of us as his girlfriend after college starts. Whoever he doesn’t pick can date you.”
They actually expected me to accept that.
In another life, I had died still wondering how two girls who once loved me like family could become strangers.
This time, I understood.
They had already made their choice.
I rose slowly, took my laptop from Ethan’s hands, and walked toward the door.
Behind me, he called, “See you at South Side, Ryan.”
I stopped for half a second.
Then I smiled.
Because there was one thing Ethan didn’t know.
The three-change limit he thought had trapped me did not work the way he believed it did.
And by nightfall, my father intended to make sure Ethan learned exactly what happened when he tried to steal someone else’s future.
