The flip phone buzzed against her nightstand. Ava blinked at it in confusion. The screen, scratched and dull, lit up with a number she didn’t recognize—except something about it felt wrong. Like it didn’t belong in 2010. Like it hadn’t been invented yet. Her stomach tightened.
She picked it up with trembling fingers. “Hello?”
Static crackled. Then—his voice. “Ava?”
Nathaniel. Her fiancé. Her future. Her knees buckled, and she dropped onto the edge of her bed. “Nathaniel?” she whispered.
“Where are you? What’s happening?” he asked, his voice warping through the interference. “You just vanished. Are you okay?”
Ava stared at the wall, unable to breathe. Time wasn’t just bending. It was bleeding. Her past and present were touching in ways that made her dizzy. “I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she whispered. “I don’t know who I am.”
“I’ve been calling for days. Everyone’s been looking for you. Your mom, your boss, even the wedding planner.”
Ava shut her eyes. That life felt a million years away. The polished version of her. The diamond ring. The dress fittings. Nathaniel’s perfect grin.
“This isn’t real,” she whispered to herself, but the phone was hot in her palm. His voice was real. The panic was real.
“Where are you, Ava?” he pleaded. “Tell me what’s happening.”
Her throat closed. How could she explain any of it? That she’d fallen through time, into her high school body, into a nightmare that kept shifting beneath her feet?
That Jace Preston had become something more complicated than a bully?
“I don’t know,” she croaked. “I think I’m losing myself.”
“Come home.” But she didn’t know where home was anymore.
Was she supposed to go back? Had she left her real life behind? Was this all some strange coma dream? A second chance? A punishment?
Her heart pounded as memories from both timelines flooded her—Nathaniel’s soft laugh at brunch, the exact way Jace had looked at her the last time they spoke.
Her chest felt like it would split open. “Nathaniel,” she whispered, “what if this version of me isn’t just a glitch?”
His voice trembled. “What do you mean?”
“What if I’m not supposed to come back?” she said. “What if this is me now?”
The static grew louder. “Ava, don’t say that. You’re not making sense.”
But to her, it made too much sense. The longer she stayed, the less she missed the future. Or maybe, the more she feared it hadn’t really belonged to her.
She clutched the phone, her vision blurring with tears. “There’s a version of me here that I left behind,” she whispered. “She was hurting. She didn’t know how to breathe. I hated her.”
Nathaniel was quiet. “What are you talking about? You’re not her anymore.”
“Aren’t I?” she snapped. “Or did I just dress her up better?” Her voice cracked, and the tears finally spilled over. “Maybe I was never healed. Maybe I just got better at pretending.” The silence on the other end stretched too long.
“I don’t know what to say,” Nathaniel admitted.
“Then don’t,” she said softly. “I think I need to say it to myself first.” The room spun.
She stood up, the phone still pressed to her ear.
“I miss you,” Nathaniel said suddenly, desperation sneaking into his tone. “We’re supposed to get married, Ava.”
The word felt foreign now. Marriage. Wedding. Forever. With a man who didn’t know the girl she used to be. Who maybe wouldn’t have loved her if he had. Her chest tightened.
“Do you love all of me?” she asked. “Or just the version that knows how to smile at brunch?”
His breath hitched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s the problem.” She closed her eyes, the weight of everything pressing against her ribcage. “If I come back… I don’t know if I’ll fit there anymore.”
Nathaniel’s voice cracked through the static. “Don’t say that. Don’t leave me here.”
She wiped her cheeks, even though no one could see her cry. “I’m not trying to leave you,” she said quietly. “But maybe I need to find myself before I become someone’s wife.”
The phone went dark. She sat on the edge of her bed again, staring at her reflection—at her younger face that carried the exhaustion of every year between now and then.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she whispered into the emptiness. Her voice cracked. “But I think I’m starting to figure out who I was supposed to be.”
And then something shifted. The air. The silence. A shadow fell across the hallway. Her door creaked open, just slightly. Ava turned slowly, her heart already recognizing the shape before her eyes did.
Jace. He stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.
His body still. His hands at his sides. But his eyes—his eyes had heard everything. She didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. Long enough to hear her voice break. Long enough to hear Nathaniel’s name.
Ava’s mouth parted, but no sound came. The tears on her cheeks hadn’t dried. She didn’t know how to explain.
Because he’d heard it all.