She Stole My Life Once, But Never Again

Synopsis

St. Mary's General Hospital, Maternity Ward. January 1982, a little past one in the morning. That was when I came into the world. In about two hours, a nurse named Paula Green would walk through the door, lift me from the bassinet, and switch me with another woman's baby. The last time around, she got away with it. I spent twenty years scraping by in a drafty trailer on the outskirts of a nowhere town, riding a beat-up bike twelve miles to reach the city limits. I showed up on the doorstep ready to claim my real family, and the girl who stole my life handed me a glass of iced tea. She'd mixed in something meant to kill me. I barely got two sips down before I was back on the other side. But this time, things were different. I put in ten years working in the records department on the other side, filing away case folders for every rotten deal you could dream up. Babies traded for trust funds. Fake paperwork for fancy schools. Kids passed off as somebody else so a wealthy couple could feel better about themselves. I saw it all. I did my time, earned my credits, and traded every single one of them for a clean shot at starting over. I watched the plain white clock on the wall. The second hand jerked its way around the cracked face. There were two hours until Paula made her move.