How Long Is 'And Then I Chose Myself' By Chiara Mercurio?

Right after the SAT results dropped, the admissions representatives from Blackridge University practically fought over me so fiercely it felt like they'd set the whole room on fire. They made an outrageous offer just to win me over, claiming that I could bring one friend along with full admission. As the clock reset, I chose no one this time around because I'd already lived through it once. In my last life, I didn't hesitate to pick my childhood best friend, Shawn Hooper. I gave him a ticket into a world he could never hope to reach without my help. And what did I get for it? A look of pure disgust. "You're pathetic," he sneered. "It's laughable that you'd dare use something like this to drive a wedge between Madison and me." Madison Cole was our class president. She was the golden girl and everyone's favorite girl. She couldn't handle losing both the guy she loved and the future she thought was hers. So, she jumped from the roof of a building. Shawn found her final message and lost his mind. He told me the class was having one last bonfire party just outside town. It was a lie. He took me there to torture me before leaving me to die. Our entire class covered for him. Every last one of them told the police I'd slipped near the ravine and fallen by accident. … A week after my death, my parents died in a supposed highway pileup. My soul never moved on, and that was how I discovered the truth—Shawn had orchestrated everything. When I reopened my eyes, I quickly realized I was back on the day when Blackridge University fought to recruit me. I wouldn't choose anyone this time. No, the only one I would choose was myself.

On the night my family got wiped out, someone had hidden me behind the barrels inside the wine cellar. The gunshots kept going off the entire night outside the cellar. I could only curl up between the barrels while listening to unfamiliar voices cursing in Etarino. All I could do was gnash my teeth together in order to not make any sounds. At the break of dawn, the wine cellar's door was opened from the outside. Two people could be seen standing in front of the pouring light. The first person was Antonio Corleone, a 15-year-old teenager who was also the oldest son of the Corleone family. He was still holding a gun, which had smoke wafting from its barrel. The second person was Matteo Corleone, Antonio's younger brother. His clothes were stained with blood that didn't belong to him. Antonio crouched down before draping a coat over my body. "Don't be scared, Elena," he said. "From today onward, I'm your family." Matteo squeezed Antonio away before stuffing a warm slice of panettone into my hands. With red-rimmed eyes, he said, "My brother is right. I'll kill whoever has the guts to hurt you." It was Christmas Day of 1999. Back then, I was ten years old. For the next 20 years, I grew up in the estate located in Vosaro and became an essential part of the Corleone family. At the same time, I also grew up to be the woman both Antonio and Matteo have a crush on. The entire family has noticed their obsession and love for me. Antonio and Matteo help me exact vengeance on the people who killed my family. They even buy a football team and name it after me. Everyone thinks that the brothers are head over heels in love with me. They patiently wait for the news when one of them will marry me. Even I also think the same. But on the night before my 30th birthday, when Don Corleone asks the brothers who among them wishes to marry me, Antonio snuffs out the cigar in a crystal ashtray. "Father, you should know that I'm terribly busy with the family's affairs, so I have no time to marry anyone." Matteo swirls the whiskey in his glass while wearing a flippant smile. "Father, I'm only 33 years old, and I'm not done having fun just yet. Besides, marrying Elena is just a joking promise that I've made when I was young. I'm not going to follow through with it." The next day, the brothers decide to propose to my enemy's daughter, Sophia Volpe, at my birthday banquet which I have painstakingly prepared. They even force me to drink the entire bottle of grappa despite the fact that I've been suffering from stomach issues for ten years just to please Sophia. When I get carted into the ambulance after suffering from stomach bleeding, Antonio and Matteo immediately cover Sophia's eyes with their hands while claiming that I'm just faking my illness. The moment I feel blood rising from my throat, I've made up my mind. On the day I'm set to get discharged, I dial a phone number. "I will get married to the heir of the Rossi family."

Damon Blackwood nearly died for me once. So when he asked me to wait while another woman carried his child, I did. I told myself it was not betrayal. It was duty. I told myself a man who had given up everything for me could not possibly be choosing someone else. For me, Damon gave up his claim to the Alpha title. He endured ninety-nine lashes from the Pack elders, then knelt for three days in the ancestral shrine with his back torn open and his shirt soaked through with blood. When they finally carried him out, he could barely breathe. So when his father said the Bloodmoon Pack needed a pureblood heir before they would allow us to be together, I tried to believe him. Damon told me Victoria Hale was only a duty. He told me one child would be enough. Then Victoria gave birth to a daughter, and the promise changed. One heir became one son. One sacrifice became another year of waiting. Until Victoria’s daughter suddenly fell ill, and everyone said I had poisoned her. Alpha Conrad and Luna Catherine threw me into the dungeon before I could even defend myself. Damon stood outside the iron door. Not angry at them. Not worried about me. He looked at me like I was something he no longer recognized. “I told you to wait,” he said. “Why did you have to touch my child?” My child. Once, Damon had sworn he would only accept a child born from my body. Now he held Victoria’s daughter in his arms and called her his. When the dungeon door finally opened, I did not run to him. I chose the future I had abandoned for him.

On the day my husband, Samuel Fletcher, and I flew home, our plane ran into great turbulence, causing it to crash. We both died in that crash. When we wake up again, we've returned to the night of our graduation day. That's when I find out Samuel has never let go of his feelings for his first love, Sienna Blake, the whole time. I decide to grant his wish in this lifetime. I take off my wedding dress and no longer simp over him. After that, I part ways with him, not planning to contact him ever again. Seven years later, Samuel becomes a famous artist in the city. He and Sienna announce their relationship publicly at an art gallery. Upon noticing that I've come to the art gallery on my own, Samuel mocks me right away. "I know you love me deeply, but can you please stop being so shameless? I can't believe you stalked me all the way here!" At that moment, my daughter, Elena Dalton, runs over and takes my hand. Samuel looks extremely shell-shocked. With raised brows, he demands, "Didn't you promise you'd love me and me only? Who the hell did you have this bastard child with?"

After a long-term enemy injected him with drug that wiped his memory and left to die in the middle of nowhere, Kat has to fight and bring back his memory. But Charlotte becomes the reason he never wanted his memory back as she gave him the ferry tail life everyone would wish for, as he became the manager of a book store where he would just pass time. When life was good, several events kept on happening and it appears that Charlotte is involved in Kat’s memory loss and she’s politically connected. An ex-girlfriend who witnessed him when he was getting drugged came into his life and leads him to finding the truth about what happened to his memory but when Kat tries to get deeper in investigating the matter by himself, he gets stuck between the rock and a hard place when he realizes that Charlotte has got so many secrets under her sleeves. When he decides to search for answers Charlotte breaks the news the news that she’s pregnant, he agreed to stop the investigation for the sake of the Child. As the Child grew up, he decided to secretly search for the truth but he triggered the wrong buttons by tempering with powerful people. Crimes that would put him in prison were stage and he was blackmailed, being ensured that he would rot in prison. And the life of his daughter was now in danger as Charlotte promised to kill her if he continued to investigate. With Cindy’s help, his ex-girlfriend he would get his old memory back and began to fight against Charlotte and her notorious business partners who are in a serious drug business.

(Each second chapter will be from a different character's point of view) Imagine meeting a different version of yourself. In one world you are a billionaire physicist. Then an underboss of the Italian mafia, in another a young junkie. The fourth version of yourself is the prince of Jordan. Being at the same place at the exact same time pulls you from your observable universe and throws you into a parallel one where you never existed. Read the exciting journey when this happens to Taylen Nova. Will you be able to live with yourself?