He Chose My Stepsister, I Left Him Forever

I'd been in the future for a week, but I still wasn't used to any of it. Then the Temporal Immigration Bureau contacted us. We had to register as a couple right away, or I couldn't be added to the residency system.

But Adrian wanted me to give my slot to Sasha.

An hour before we were supposed to register, I sat in a waiting room at the Bureau, scrolling through photos on my old phone. My chest tightened.

There wasn't a single posed photo of us.

Instead, there were photos of Adrian mixing paint beside my easel, leaning against the window, or quietly watching me work whenever I looked away.

There were also photos of museums we'd visited, sunsets by the water, and crowded subway rides.

In every one, Adrian looked at me as if I were the only person in the room. His eyes held such tenderness that I'd once believed he would still look at me that way 200 years later.

What I hadn't noticed was the person behind the camera. Sasha had taken most of those photos.

Adrian had been looking at me while she was looking at him.

I swiped back to the messages Adrian had sent 30 minutes ago.

"Thea, I'm sorry. Sasha doesn't have legal residency in this century, so she can't access the medical system at all. I'm only registering with her so she can access it through me. Once she's cured, I'll dissolve our partnership and register with you. You understand, don't you? Sasha wants you to come to the registry with us. She says she'd feel safer if you were there."

The old me would have fallen apart. Adrian was the man I loved more than anything. The thought of him making room in his heart for someone else would have destroyed me.

Two days ago, he'd left me alone in the apartment, stranded in a world I could barely navigate.

He said he was going to pick someone up.

Then he came back with Sasha, and every fear I'd tried to bury came rushing back.

She was pale. She'd entered the cryo center three days after I had. Until then, I'd had no idea she'd made the entire journey with us.

"She came to me after she was diagnosed with cancer," Adrian said. Sasha was still weak from the pod, and he held her in his arms as he spoke. He sounded guilty, but he never let her go. "I couldn't stand by and watch her die. In this century, almost every type of cancer can be cured. I was going to tell you once she was better."

Sasha hid behind him and spoke in a small voice. "Thea, I couldn't stand the thought of you watching me waste away a little more every day. It's stomach cancer. One of the deadliest kinds..."

My heart felt like it had been cut open.

Adrian had it all worked out. Once Sasha was cured, we could simply go back to the way things were.

But he had never once asked if I was willing to wait for him.

I wasn't.

I wanted to go home.

There was no immortality back home. No mind-link. No miracle cure for cancer. But there was real sunlight, real grass, and real earth beneath my feet. There was the texture of paint on canvas, something no machine could ever reproduce exactly. And there was the Adrian I had loved, back when he still felt human to me.

The Bureau had been perfectly clear about what happened to undocumented arrivals.

They were detained and sent to a waste facility to sort garbage until someone agreed to sponsor their residency.

Adrian didn't care.

All he could think about was Sasha and her supposed illness. He didn't even notice the healthy color in her cheeks.

And he certainly didn't think about me. I had trained my hands to paint for years. Now those same hands were expected to sort garbage.

There was only one other option. Anyone who refused detention would be forcibly returned to their own time.

The moment Adrian gave my slot to Sasha, I turned myself in.

Now all I had to do was finish the paperwork. I tapped Confirm.

Adrian was the reason I had followed him into this strange century. He was the only reason I'd ever wanted to stay.

Not anymore.

I'd barely tapped Confirm when a voice pulled me from my thoughts.

"Thea, are you ready? Let's head over together."

Adrian was wearing a black suit. Sasha wore a white dress identical to mine.

"Thea, thank you for letting me have this." Her voice was weak. "I know this isn't fair to you. But without residency, I can't even get into a treatment pod."

"Save it," I cut her off. "If they really can cure you, then at least coming here wasn't for nothing. I hope you enjoy your life here after I'm gone."

Something flickered in Adrian's eyes.

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

I didn't answer.

Sasha was the first to tear up.

"I must have upset her. Adrian, go talk to her. You're the only person she knows in this whole century. She'll run off just to prove a point. She used to do that all the time when we were kids..."

That seemed to reassure him.

Without residency, I couldn't even get past the gates of the complex. Where could I possibly go?

The concern in his eyes disappeared.

"Thea, the registration is only so she can get treatment. Once Sasha is better, I'll dissolve our partnership and register with you. I'm not giving you up. Don't turn this into something bigger than it is."

Then he took Sasha into the registration room.

But Adrian would never get another chance to choose me.