Chapter 3

The third time was in the cafeteria.

I carried my tray and spotted her sitting alone in the corner. Rare chance. I walked over and sat down across from her.

"Anyone sitting here?" I asked.

She looked up at me, then went back to eating. "Nope."

I sat down and tried to think of something to say. But she ate with total focus, clearly having no intention of talking. I looked at the food on her tray: braised pork, greens, rice, and a bowl of soup.

In our last life, she always wolfed down her food because she had to rush off and help her grandma with work.

"The way you eat has changed," I blurted out.

Her fork paused for a second, then she kept eating without replying.

I knew I'd said the wrong thing and quickly lowered my head to eat. We didn't speak a single word for the next ten minutes. When she finished, she picked up her tray and stood. As she passed by me, she paused.

"Michael." It was the first time she'd said my name.

I looked up.

She looked at me, her eyes complicated with something I couldn't read. "Some things change, and once they do, that's it. Some people get missed, and once they're gone, they're gone."

Then she left.

I stayed frozen there, watching her disappear into the crowd.

What did she mean by that? Did she really remember? Was she trying to tell me something?

The more I thought, the more tangled my head got.

Charlie started noticing something was off with me.

"Michael, what the hell is up with you lately?" He dragged me to the bleachers by the field, his face dead serious. "You stare at Emma when she's walking, when she's eating, when she's in class. Do you like her or what?"

I didn't say anything.

Charlie lowered his voice. "Don't say I didn't warn you, but Emma's not the same anymore. You know how she shot up from the bottom of the rankings to first in the grade last semester? She studied like her life depended on it and ignored everyone. Then somehow, she suddenly changed. Started making friends, joining activities, started... glowing."

She suddenly became a different person.

My heart skipped. "When? Exactly when?"

Charlie thought for a moment. "Right after freshman year started, I guess. When she first got here, she dressed in old worn-out clothes and didn't talk to anyone. Then after about a month, boom, it was like she became a whole different person. Her grades skyrocketed, she got way more outgoing, and even the teachers kept praising her."

I shook my head.

"Rebirth," Charlie said. "It was insanely good. She talked about how life can start over as long as one is willing to change. A lot of people were crying by the end."

"Do you know anything about her family situation?"

Charlie shook his head. "Nope. She never talks about it, and nobody asks. All I know is she has a grandma, and I think her health isn't great."

At the very start of freshman year.

Her speech was called Rebirth.

Wouldn't that be... after I died?

I died at thirty-two. If she changed in freshman year, then that meant she...

Had come back three years before me.

No. She'd been reborn three years earlier than I was.

My whole body went numb.

I started digging into her past like crazy.

I went to the academic office to check records, asked around with her old homeroom teacher from freshman year, and chatted with students who used to know her. Every single thing I found felt like a slap across my face.

The exact point when she suddenly changed was one month after my death. After that, she joined competitions, won scholarships, became class president, and turned into the most talked-about student in school.

She packed every day of her life full, leaving herself no room to breathe.

She didn't fall apart. She didn't wait for me. In the three years I was absent, she turned herself into someone everyone admired.

And me? I was still looking at her through the lens of our last life, thinking she was still that girl who needed my protection.

I was... such a joke.

That night, I lay in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep. The moonlight outside was bright, spreading across the ceiling like a thin layer of frost.

How had she gotten through those three years? She came back three years before me and had to face that broken home again, see her elderly grandma still there, see all the people who'd hurt her still there too. Did she carry all of that alone?

Why didn't she come find me? She clearly knew I'd come back too.

Was it because she hated me? Or... had she stopped needing me?

Then another thought hit me. What if someone else had been good to her? What if, during those three years, someone had stayed by her side, made her happy, fallen for her?

Then what was I supposed to do?

What right did I have to ask her to wait for me? In our last life, I was the one who pushed her away. Why the hell would I think she'd still be standing where I left her in this one?

But...

But she clearly knew I would come back. She was clearly waiting for me.

Why?