Chapter 1

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.

01

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!"

02

I lay there, perfectly still, just looking at him.

Unbidden, a memory surfaced. Eighth-grade field trip to the state park. I had wandered off the trail and gotten hopelessly lost. It was Connor who spent three hours searching for me in the dying light. His shins were sliced up by thorny brambles, but he still insisted on carrying me on his back the whole way down the mountain because I was too paralyzed by fear to walk.

I thought of my fourteenth birthday. My father had thrown a massive, catered backyard gala for Melody—who happened to share my exact birthdate—and completely forgot about me.

I had hidden in the darkness of my closet, clutching a framed photograph of my mother to my chest, crying until I couldn't breathe.

It was Connor who opened the closet door. He was holding a lopsided, home-baked cupcake with a single lit candle, looking at me like a knight who had finally found his charge.

"Happy birthday, Caro."

"Don't be scared. You're not alone. I'll be here for every birthday, for the rest of your life."

I thought of all the times Melody had tried to insert herself into his orbit.

In the dead of winter, she had spent weeks knitting him a gray scarf. Connor hadn't even given it a second glance before tossing it into the cafeteria trash can.

Melody’s eyes had welled up with those trademark tears, but Connor’s voice was like ice:

"Don't waste your time. I will always stand with Caroline."

"You and your mother destroyed her family. That makes you my enemy, too."

Then, another memory. Melody’s mother, Valerie, ‘accidentally’ knocking my mother’s vintage Cartier watch off my dresser, shattering the delicate glass face.

Blinded by grief and rage, I had thrown a glass of ice water right in Valerie’s face.

Valerie was a master of the victim act. She instantly collapsed into my father’s arms, weeping.

"I was just trying to help Caroline tidy her room. I didn't mean to bump the dresser. She misunderstood... she thinks I did it on purpose."

"Richard, please, don't be mad at her."

Her calculated retreat only made my father more protective of her. He turned to me, his eyes devoid of any paternal warmth.

"Caroline Ellis, who taught you to act like such a savage? Apologize to your mother, right now!"

I tipped my chin up, my throat tight.

"I only have one mother. Valerie is just a cheap homewrecker."

The slap echoed through the hallway. My father struck me so hard my ears rang.

"I have spoiled you for too long. You have zero respect!"

As punishment, he forced me to stand in the freezing mudroom for twelve hours. No dinner. No water. No sitting down.

My legs shook. I was lightheaded from hunger.

It was Connor who shimmied up the trellis and crawled through the mudroom window, pulling a bag of warm, sugar-dusted apple cider donuts from his jacket.

I ate them through my tears, and he wiped my cheeks with his thumbs, his own face twisted in sympathetic agony.

"Don't cry. Once we graduate, we’re going to college in Boston. We’ll get as far away from them as possible."

"I’ll be your family from now on. I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you."

It never surprised me that my father chose Melody over me.

But Connor? Connor, who looked at me like I hung the moon? How could he ever betray me for her?

I didn't want to believe it.

Maybe the vision of my twenty-eight-year-old self was just a stress-induced nightmare.

I tried to self-soothe.

But reality was waiting to deliver its own slap to the face.

03

Before we checked out of the hospital, Connor ran down to the pharmacy on the first floor.

I watched him walk back into the room, holding a small paper bag. "Are you getting a cold?" I asked, confused.

He froze. A heavy silence stretched between us before he hesitated, shifting his weight.

"It's not for me. It's for Melody."

"She texted a few minutes ago saying she was running a fever, so she asked me to pick up some meds."

My heart plummeted into my stomach.

The terror of my nightmare flooded my veins, making my skin prickle. I couldn't stop the barrage of questions.

"Why are you buying medicine for Melody? Since when do you two text? Since when are you close?"

"Do you have feelings for her? When did this start?"

Seeing my escalating panic, Connor quickly set the bag down and reached for my shoulders.

"Caro, stop overthinking. How could I ever like Melody?"

"You're the only one I care about. But Melody... Melody saved my life. I'm just repaying a debt."

I recoiled. "She saved your life? When? Why don't I know about this?"

Connor finally confessed the secret he had been keeping for months:

"Two months ago, I was walking back from a party. I was crossing the street, and a drunk driver blew a red light. I didn't see it coming."

"If Melody hadn't shoved me out of the way, I would have been the one with a shattered femur."

I knew Melody had been injured. Of course I did.

But I had no idea she had broken her leg saving Connor.

Suddenly, everything clicked. It made sense why, despite missing the final two months of senior year and being confined to a hospital bed, Melody had seemed completely unfazed. She was constantly posting bubbly updates on her Instagram stories.

Her favorite captions were always:

"My favorite private tutor is here again! I’m so spoiled!