The sky was gray.
Elena Vincent stood unmoving at the graveside, the slow drizzle seeping through her black dress. The umbrella she'd been clutching had long since fallen from her hands, forgotten in the mud. Rain streaked her cheeks, mingling with the tears she no longer bothered to brush away. She no longer felt the chill. Didn't feel much of anything at all.
The crowd around her had thinned. Most of the guests had left after the service, acquaintances, family, colleagues touching her arm with gentle fingers and murmured condolences. Her publisher had spoken. Liam's business partners had taken their turn. Even the priest had quietly packed up. But she had not moved. Could not move.
The plain tombstone before her blurred behind a film of tears:
Liam Reyes Loving Husband. Devoted Brother. Beloved Man.
1985 – 2045
He was only sixty. Still smiling. Still bringing her coffee before she even got out of bed. Still calling her my muse as she worked at her easel. He had just fixed the leaky sink last week. Teased her the week before that about going gray before him. They were going to paint the house this spring. Travel. Have adventures. They had plans. And now he was gone. Her knees gave out slowly as she sank into the mud, uncaring of the dirt staining her stockings. Her trembling fingers brushed the edge of the stone as if by touching his name she could tether him back to the world.
"You weren't supposed to go first," she whispered. "We promised. You said we had time." Her voice broke mid-sentence, the wind whisking her words away like a paper bird.
There was no one left to hear her, just the trees waving overhead and the echo of him in her chest. Memories rushed in like a tide, his calm voice telling her to eat, the way he quietly draped a blanket around her shoulders when she lost track of time, the pride in his eyes when he introduced her as his wife.
The world called him a genius. A tech mogul. A self-made legend. A boy from nowhere who built an empire.
To her, he had only been Liam. The man who brought her soup when she had the flu and held her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. The one who told her that her art mattered when no one else believed in it.
In his last days, between coughs and shallow breaths, he had shared a secret. "I've known you longer than you think," he told her, voice hoarse with fatigue, eyes still warm. She blinked at him, disoriented.
"What do you mean?"
"I was a repeater," he said."Two years behind. I went to the public school across from yours. You—" he coughed again "—you were at that fancy private school. I used to sit outside the fence during lunch and watch you and your friends laugh."
Elena remembered how she had stared at him then, flabbergasted. "You knew me back then?"
He'd nodded faintly, smile flickering at the edge of his lips.
"You never saw me. But I saw you. Every day."
And then he was gone. A strangled sob tore from her throat as she leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the wet stone.
"I see you now," she whispered.
Then the world spun. Her vision blurred. Her stomach churned. Dizziness swamped her, and the pain in her chest burst into something vast and all-consuming. Her legs folded beneath her, and she collapsed beside the grave. Rain soaked through her hair, her skin, her soul.
The last thing she saw before she blacked out was his name in stone. Warmth. Sunlight gentle against her skin.
Elena's eyes snapped open. Gone was the chill, the cemetery, the heaviness in her limbs. The air smelled faintly of shampoo and dust. She blinked rapidly and sat up. She was not outside. She was not even old. The room came into focus, pink walls, posters of 2000s boy bands, a corkboard plastered with doodles and polaroids. A chunky alarm clock blinked red on a wooden nightstand beside a small stack of notebooks. The air was hot, too hot. A ceiling fan whirred lazily overhead.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. No IV drip. No nurse. No hospital monitors. She kicked off the comforter and staggered towards the mirror. The girl who stared back at her made her breath catch in her throat. It was her face, but not now. Not the woman who had just buried her husband. This reflection had no crow's feet, no laugh lines. Her skin was smooth, cheeks round. No gray in sight.
The girl in the mirror looked around eighteen. "You have got to be kidding me," she whispered. Panic clawed its way up her throat. She turned to the desk and fumbled open the nearest notebook.Her name, Elena Vincent, was scrawled across the cover in bubbly teenage handwriting, doodled with hearts. Inside, she found a school timetable. September 2003.
Her breath caught. She dropped the notebook as if it had burned her. A knock sounded at the door. "Elena! You're going to be late for school!" her mother's voice called. "You better be up!" Her mother. Alive. Just as sharp and overbearing as she remembered.
That voice had not echoed through her mind's halls in decades. Her knees hit the carpet. This was not a dream. Somehow—somehow—she had been sent back. Back in her childhood bedroom. Back in her teenaged body. Back before the marriage that broke her. Before the publishing deals. Before the surgeries. Before the fame. Before the funeral. Back before Liam.
Her chest tightened. "Liam," she said aloud as if speaking his name might anchor her. "Where are you?" A thousand thoughts roared in her mind. How had this happened? Why? Could she change anything? Did she want to? But above them all rose a singular, gut-wrenching realization: He was somewhere out there. Not as the man she had loved, but as a boy. Watching her. Across a schoolyard fence. Unseen. Unnoticed. And this time? This time, she'd find him.