Part 1You Deserve To Lose Me

Melody’s mother stole my father, and in doing so, she killed my mother.

Years later, history decided to repeat itself.

The boy I grew up with, the one who had been by my side for eighteen years, lied to my face. Behind my back, he spent his evenings helping Melody with her college applications, even gifting her the limited-edition vintage vinyl I had begged him to find for me.

And when Melody hacked into my college portal and withdrew my Ivy League acceptance, replacing it with a local community college, he actually defended her.

"Melody didn’t mean any harm, Caroline," he pleaded. "She was just playing a practical joke on you."

But there was nothing funny about it.

* * *

Just days before the final college decision deadline, I experienced a violent, inexplicable tear in time.

I was hurled ten years into the future.

I saw myself. I saw a girl who had scored a 1550 on her SATs now limping on a shattered right leg, her hair unwashed and tied back with a fraying rubber band, busing tables at a greasy diner.

Meanwhile, my stepsister Melody had graduated from an elite university, married my childhood sweetheart, Connor, and given birth to a picture-perfect pair of twins.

I remember the blood draining from my face. "How did this happen?"

My twenty-eight-year-old self offered a hollow, broken laugh.

"Melody changed my college portal. By the time I found out, the deadline had passed. It was too late."

"Dad and Connor both took her side. They said she didn’t do it maliciously, that it was just a prank, that I needed to take a joke."

"But I couldn't swallow the injustice. I confronted her. We fought at the top of the stairs, and she threw herself backward, framing me. Dad... Dad wanted to teach me a lesson. He hired the best prosecutors to press aggravated assault charges and let me rot in a juvenile detention center for six months."

"Connor promised he’d wait for me. But the day I got out, I found them tangled up in his bed."

"I snapped. I grabbed a kitchen knife. I hurt them both."

"That time, Connor hired the most ruthless defense attorney in the state to ensure I got the maximum sentence. Five years."

Her words were like lightning striking the base of my skull. My whole body went rigid. I heard my own voice trembling as I fought back:

"No. That's impossible. Connor and I grew up together. He loves me. He promised he’d protect me for the rest of my life."

"He knows how much I despise Melody and her mother. He would never help them destroy me."

The older version of me stared back, her eyes rimmed with red. She looked down at her ruined, asymmetrical leg.

"Why wouldn't he? People change, Caroline."

"Even this leg... Connor paid off one of the guards in lockup to look the other way while an inmate took a metal pipe to my knee."

She jerked her head up, her gaze fierce and desperate.

"Caroline, listen to me. If you don't want to lose your future, if you don't want to become a convicted felon scrubbing grease off diner tables, wake the hell up! Stop letting Connor play you for a fool!"

The sheer magnitude of the information hit my brain like a physical blow. The world tipped on its axis.

The next second, I collapsed onto the hardwood floor.

When I opened my eyes, the sterile, chemical scent of hospital bleach flooded my lungs.

"Caroline, thank God, you're awake!"

Connor was sitting by the edge of my hospital bed. Both of his hands were wrapped tightly around my left hand, his dark eyes wide with unfeigned panic and concern.

"You passed out in your room last night. You scared the life out of me!"