CHAPTER 2

I HAVE BEEN GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE

I didn't let go of Chloe's hand.

I couldn't.

If I moved, if I spoke, if I looked at her for one more second the way I wanted to, I would shatter.

The nurse kept talking. Blood pressure. Possible concussion. Observation overnight. I heard none of it. My eyes stayed locked on the digital clock.

August 14, 2023. 9:51 p.m.

I blinked hard. The numbers didn't change.

Chloe squeezed my fingers. "You're shaking. Does it hurt? Tell me where it hurts."

She acted so caring the way she always does, but it was all fake.

Ethan stepped closer, voice low and careful. "We were so scared. You just dropped. One second you were walking toward your father's office and the next—"

I pulled my hand free.

The movement was sharp. Chloe's smile flickered for half a second before she smoothed it back into place.

I reached for the side table. My phone was there, screen cracked from the fall. I unlocked it with shaking fingers and opened the calendar.

August 14, 2023.

I switched to messages. The last thread with Ethan was from this morning—him asking what I wanted for dinner. No mention of shares. No hotel receipts. No forged signatures.

I opened the private investigator's chat. Empty. I hadn't hired him yet. Not in this timeline.

Three years. I had gone back three years.

Chloe watched me the way she always did when she thought I was fragile—head tilted, eyes soft, mouth slightly open like she was ready to cry with me if I needed it.

I almost laughed. The sound stayed trapped in my throat.

The nurse left. The door clicked shut.

Silence pressed in.

Ethan sat on the edge of the bed and reached for my wrist. "Talk to me. You're pale. Did the doctor say anything else?"

I looked at his hand on my skin. In the vision, that hand had signed the papers that locked me in a hospital room with restraints. That same hand had rested on Chloe's waist while the world clapped for her.

I pulled away again.

"I need water," I said.

Chloe moved first. She poured from the pitcher on the counter and held the cup out like an offering. "Here. Small sips."

I took it. My fingers brushed hers. Cold. Steady. Nothing like the trembling concern in her voice.

I drank. The water tasted like nothing.

Ethan watched me too closely. "You were heading to see your father. Did something happen? Did someone say something to you?"

The question was soft. Testing.

In the future I had just lived, this was how it started. Small questions. Soft concern. Then isolation. Then the medical records that painted me unstable.

I set the cup down.

"I don't remember," I said.

Chloe's shoulders eased a fraction. "That's normal. The doctor said short-term memory can be fuzzy after a fall like that."

She sat on the other side of the bed and brushed hair from my forehead the way she used to when we were younger. The gesture was perfect. Practiced. Exactly the same as every time she had comforted me before.

My stomach turned.

I wanted to shove her hand away. I wanted to scream the truth into her face until the sweet mask cracked. I wanted to demand the folder of papers I had seen on that desk three years from now.

Instead I stayed still.

Because nobody in this room knew what I had seen.

Not Chloe. Not Ethan. Not the nurse who had called me Miss Laurent with polite distance. Not my father, who still believed both of them.

I was the only one carrying the future.

That knowledge settled over me like ice.

If I spoke now, they would call it confusion. Trauma. Hallucination. They would use it against me later—exactly the way they had in the vision.

I could not give them that.

Chloe's hand stayed on my hair. "You still trust me, don't you?"

The same words. The same soft tone. The same slight tilt of her head.

In the future those words had been the last gentle thing she said before the locks clicked on the hospital door.

My pulse slammed against my throat.

I met her eyes.

For one second the urge to break rose so hard I tasted blood. I could tell her everything. I could watch the color drain from her face. I could force Ethan to deny it while the truth sat between us like a loaded gun.

I didn't.

I smiled the same small, tired smile I had always given her when I was hurt and needed her to be the strong one.

"Of course I do," I said.

Chloe's eyes shone with relief that looked almost real. She leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Rest. I'll stay right here."

Ethan stood and checked his phone, already half turned toward the door. "I'll call your father. He should know you're awake."

I watched him leave.

Chloe settled into the chair beside the bed, pulling a blanket over her legs like she planned to keep vigil all night. The picture of devotion.

I turned my face toward the wall and closed my eyes.

Inside my chest something cold and precise clicked into place.

They didn't know.

They thought I was still the girl who trusted them.

That was the only advantage I had.

I opened my eyes again and stared at the clock one more time.

August 14, 2023. 10:03 p.m.

Three years of betrayal still waiting to happen.

This time I would not wait for it.