Chapter One:

Aurora's POV

"Aurora, open this door. Are you dead or something?"

Megan's voice cuts through the bathroom door, sharp and annoyed, and then the handle jerks hard under her hand.

For one sick second, my whole body locks.

Dead.

The word slams into me so hard my fingers slip against the sink. I stare at my reflection and stop breathing.

Twenty-six. Alive. Unbroken.

But I died; I know I died.

I still remember the cold floor under my body. Damien is standing over me. Megan laughed behind him, like my life ending was a problem finally solved. I remember trying to breathe and getting nothing. I remember thinking, right before everything went black, that I should have never trusted any of them.

Then I opened my eyes here. Six years earlier. Same apartment. Same bathroom. Same voice outside the door.

"Aurora!" Megan bangs once more. "If you're alive, answer me!" I force air into my lungs and grip the sink harder.

This is real; I am back, and everyone who ruined me is still exactly where I left them.

I have three years before Damien steals my designs. Three years before my father stopped believing me. Three years before I end up on that floor.

Not this time.

"Aurora, I need your red dress. The one in your closet. Hurry up."

There it is. Not a hello. Are you okay? Not even fake concern; just take.

My throat tightens for a second, not from sadness but from the force of memory. I know that dress. I know exactly what she does with it. She wears it to the Cross Media dinner, spills wine on it, returns it without apology, then stands there and watches me cry like I am embarrassing her.

In my first life, I handed over everything.

I turn on the tap and splash cold water on my face.

Not this time. "It's at the dry cleaner," I say.

Silence, then suspiciously, "Since when do you dry-clean that dress?"

Since I stopped being stupid, I think. "Since I felt like it," I say instead. "Was there something else?" Another pause. Longer this time.

I can almost hear her thinking through it, testing the shape of my voice, looking for the old Aurora in it.

She won't find her.

A few seconds later, her footsteps move away.

I let out a breath and unlock the door.

Megan is in the kitchen, pouring herself coffee like she pays rent here. She does not turn around right away. She never rushes when she thinks she already has the upper hand.

Then she glances at me over her shoulder, and I see the exact moment she notices something is off. Not enough to name, but enough to bother her. She is wearing my cream sweater. The one she said she had not seen. Of course she is.

"Damien called," she says. "He wants to know if you're coming to his father's dinner on Friday."

"I haven't decided."

That gets her full attention.

She turns all the way around now, mug in hand, eyes moving over my face like she is checking for cracks. "You haven't decided?" she repeats.

"No."

Her brows lift. Just slightly. Megan has always been good at pretending her surprise is concern.

"You seem weird today."

I walk past her and pick up my phone from the counter, mostly so I have something to do with my hands. "I didn't sleep well." She keeps looking at me.

In my first life, that used to work. It used to make me explain myself. It used to make me rush to fix whatever she quietly suggested was wrong with me.

Today, I just let her stare. Something cold passes through her expression. Fast. Gone in a second, then the smile comes back.

"Tell Damien yes," she says lightly. "It'll be good for you to get out."

Good for me. I almost laugh.

What she means is useful for them.

Friday's dinner is not just dinner. It is a doorway. In my first life, Megan made sure I missed it. She convinced me to stay home and finish a design deadline that somehow became urgent that same afternoon. I believed her. She went in my place. By the time I understood what I had missed, Damien was already building his future on top of mine.

"I'm thinking about it," I say.

Megan studies me one last time, then shrugs and heads for the door like she is too above all this to care. She leaves. The second the door shuts, the apartment goes quiet.

Too quiet.

I stand there and press my palm flat against the counter to steady myself.

This is the part no one talks about in revenge fantasies. The part where your body remembers before your mind catches up. The part where every ordinary thing feels wrong because you already know how it ends.

My portfolio.

That is the first thing I move for.

I turn, cross the room fast, and pull open the drawer where I used to keep my main design folder. My fingers shake once when I touch it.

Still here.

I open it.

Page after page. Original sketches. Fabric notes. Draft labels. Early logo work. The first clean bones of the fashion line Damien later takes from me, piece by piece, while calling it love, partnership, and future.

I close the folder and hold it against my chest for one hard second.

Then I put it down.

One thing at a time. Friday first.

And somewhere inside Friday, whether I understand it yet or not, is another name I cannot stop thinking about.

Sebastian Reed.

I do not know him. Not really. But I know he matters. In my first life, I understood that too late. This time, I will be in that room when our paths cross.

My phone buzzes in my hand. I look down, expecting Damien, unknown number, just one message. I know you don't belong here, Aurora.

Every part of me goes still. I read it once. Then again, the air in the room changes.

Not because of the words themselves. Because of what sits underneath them.

Not who I am, but what I am.

My thumb hovers over the screen. My first stupid thought is Megan. My second is Damien. But no. Neither of them would say it like this. Neither of them knows enough to say it like this.

I put the phone down.

Pick it back up.

My pulse is loud now. Too loud.

I have spent every minute since waking up planning for Damien. Planning for Megan. For Victoria. For Friday. For every move I remember from the life that killed me.

I did not plan for someone who already knows I came back.

The phone buzzes again. same number.

One new message.

I can see you right now. Put the phone down and go to Friday's dinner. We need to talk. And Aurora, smile. You look exactly like her.

My blood turns to ice. Her, I look at the door.

Then the window, then the dark screen of the turned-off television. Whoever this is, they are not guessing. They are watching, not later. Not from memory.

Now.

Close enough to know where I am standing. Close enough to know what my face looks like while I read their message. Close enough to know there is someone else I am supposed to remind them of.

Someone tied to everything, I died, not understanding. My hand tightens around the phone so hard it almost hurts. This morning, I woke up thinking I was the only one carrying the truth.

I was wrong. Someone has been waiting for me to come back.

And they are close enough to see me breathe.

I am not the only one who remembers something I was never supposed to know.

And whoever sent those messages is already inside my second life.