2. Second chance

Jordan

"There's no one in the building except the guy monitoring the CCTV," Billy's voice began to fade now as I felt a deep sleep pulling me into darkness. I tried to force my eyes open.

No! I can't… I can't die just yet. I have to tell my lawyer to remove both of them from my Will.

Fuck no! Ah, is there a way to turn back time? If that isn't possible, please just keep me alive... I begged and pleaded to whoever it was that was listening. I could make a deal with the devil at this point. I can't let them win. God, no!

The thick darkness swallowed me whole, but then suddenly, a tiny light appeared at the end of it. Is that heaven? So I died?

Haha! What was I thinking? That life was a movie… I could wish to be saved and someone would appear just in time?

I felt a dry scratch in my throat. My hand flew to my chest, waiting for the terrible pain I was used to feeling whenever I coughed. My head throbbed so hard, like it always did when the migraine kicked in. I winced as I coughed, my other hand flying to my head as if holding it would somehow ease the excruciating pain pulsing through the left side.

Something’s missing. What is it?

Ah. Aside from the pounding in my head, I couldn’t feel the usual sharp stabs in my body, my chest, my stomach. The cough had come out... smoothly. That’s new.

And... and—

Crash!

I bolted awake at the surprising sound of a crash. Bright light pierced through my eyes the moment they opened.

Wait. I’m in a familiar room.

A little voice, soft and teary started crying. My eyes followed the sound. I turned slowly, confused, and then it hit me like a rock.

What? My son? Wait he's smaller… like—he was two years old again.

Am I reminiscing on my life after death, or is this the part where people say your entire life flashes before your eyes? Am I seeing my memories right before drifting into the great beyond—heaven, hell, or wherever the hell human souls are meant to go?

“Daddy!” he cried out as he tried to get up from the floor. I should move, I should help him up, but my body felt frozen in place.

“Chris!” I heard Ashley’s voice. Instantly, my body stiffened, my brows furrowed.

“Your Dad isn’t feeling too well today. Go play with your nanny,” she said as she picked him up, straightened his little Spider-Man t-shirt, and led him out. Both of them disappeared through the door like a scene I had lived before.

I winced again. My head—yeah, it still hurt—but something felt oddly... familiar. Déjà vu maybe?

Like all this had happened before.

This is the part where Ashley walks back in with a tray of food and some migraine pills, right?

I didn’t even finish the thought before the door creaked and she came in, holding a white tray just like I remembered. She placed it beside me on the bed, and my eyes locked onto her movements.

“Why do you keep staring at me like that?” she asked, her voice soft but annoyed.

“Like what... What are you doing?” I asked immediately.

Wait. Is my life really on rewind?

“Okay, baby. You need to take your medication for that migraine. I can see you wincing.” She opened the pill container, poured out two tiny capsules I knew too damn well, and handed them to me with a glass of water.

My stomach turned.

Those pills…those exact pills—Billy...

A phone lit up on the table beside my bed. I turned to it.

My old S22 Ultra?

I quickly reached for it, my heart thumping fast. The screen lit up, and the date smacked me in the face.

June 12, 2022.

Wh—what is going on?

It was June 20, 2025, the day I was hit with that damn vase and died.

So how the hell am I seeing myself in the past? Back to three years ago?

Back to the very beginning... when I just started taking those pills?

“Here—” Ashley stretched her hand to me again with the medication.

I took it slowly, placed it under my tongue without her noticing, and grabbed the glass. I tilted my head back like I swallowed it, but I didn’t.

Stepping down from the bed, I moved toward the bathroom. My legs felt light, like they hadn't carried the weight of sickness for years. The usual sharp joint pains—gone. The fatigue? Not there. My body felt… alive.

God, is this real?

As soon as I reached the toilet, I spat the pill into the bowl and flushed it.

I rinsed my mouth, not because it had any real taste, but because I wanted to erase the trace of the poison I had once willingly taken.

Was my prayer actually answered? I don’t know what this is, but if it’s a dream, I don’t want to wake up.

I want to rewrite this shit. All of it. I want to make them pay.

I grabbed the edge of the sink and stared into the mirror.

There he was.

Jordan Blake. The version of me I had forgotten. The real me.

No sunken cheeks. No dead eyes. No grey skin. No dark circles or thinning hair. No IV lines taped to my hands. The me before—

“Billy said he’s coming to stay for a few days for a business meeting he has in town,” Ashley’s voice came from the room again.

Ah.

So it really is the beginning of the entire disaster.

Billy comes into town at this time, and ends up staying with us for a year. I slowly begin to deteriorate, drift away from my business, and guess who I let take over?

Yeah. Him.

I was too sick to notice the whispers, the late-night stares between them, the private meetings I wasn’t invited to, the nights she claimed she was helping him with reports.

I was just too tired, too drained, too trusting.

They were fucking behind my back for months and I didn't see a damn thing. But not this time, this time, I won’t be sick. I won’t be absent. I won’t be clueless. I won't have the same future.

This time, I’ll change the dice. A future where they both pay for what they did to me. A future that belongs to me and my son.