Mira's POV
The steering wheel jerks hard in my hands.
I scream as my car flies off the bridge, but no sound comes out. Everything moves in slow motion—the black sky spinning, the fence disappearing behind me, my phone sliding across the dashboard. Time stretches like taffy, giving me too many seconds to know I'm about to die.
This can't be happening.
But it is. The dark water rushes up to meet me, and I know exactly whose fault this is.
Three seconds ago, I saw her face in my rearview mirror. Vivian. My sister. Her car slammed into mine from behind, pushing me through the fence like I was nothing. Like I was trash she needed to throw away.
The front of my car hits the water first. The impact snaps my head forward so hard I taste blood. Ice-cold river water explodes through the broken glass, hitting me like a thousand frozen needles. I gasp from shock, and water rushes into my mouth, down my throat, choking me.
No, no, no!
My hands race for the seatbelt, but my fingers are already numb. The water is so cold it burns. It's filling the car fast—up to my chest now, my neck, my chin. I tilt my head back, trying to find air, but there's nowhere left to breathe.
The car is sinking. I'm sinking.
And Vivian pushed me here on purpose.
My lungs are on fire. I need air. I need to breathe. But there's only water now—dark, cold water that doesn't care that I'm only thirty years old. That I don't want to die. That I have so many mistakes.
As the last bit of air leaves my lungs, my life doesn't flash before my eyes like people say it does. Instead, I see one moment repeated over and over: Vivian's face in the mirror. Her eyes weren't scared or sorry. They were angry. Jealous. Satisfied.
She finally did it. After five years of watching me with those evil eyes, she finally killed me.
But why? What did I do that was so terrible?
The water covers my head completely now. Everything is black and cold and quiet. My chest feels like it's going to pop. My brain screams for air that isn't coming. I'm dying, and the worst part is I know I don't deserve this.
I was a good wife. I was a good sister. Where did everything go so wrong?
Ethan.
His name appears in my thoughts like poison. My husband. The man I loved with my whole heart for five years. The man who smiled at me every morning while sleeping with other women every night. The man who spent my money—millions of dollars I earned and gave him secretly—while telling me I was useless.
I was so stupid.
I gave Ethan everything. When his business needed partners, I used my secret savings—money my grandmother left me that nobody knew about. I made fake investor names and sent him millions. I watched him take credit for success I bought him. I smiled when people called him a smart businessman, knowing every dollar of his "genius" came from my bank account.
And what did I get? A guy who called me boring. Who came home smelling like perfume that wasn't mine. Who told me I should be grateful he married someone as plain as me.
The water pressure squeezes my head. Black spots dance in my view. I'm running out of time.
But even dying, I can't stop thinking about her. Vivian. My sister who was supposed to love me.
Five years ago, we both met the Blackwell brothers—Adrian and Ethan. Everyone said Adrian was cold and scary. They said Ethan was perfect—charming and kind and fun. When Vivian picked Adrian, I thought she was so smart. She got the rich, powerful bigger brother. I got stuck with the younger one.
Except it was all backward.
Adrian built a big company. He became one of the richest men in the city. Meanwhile, Ethan used my secret money to look successful while his real businesses failed over and over. But from the outside, Ethan seemed to be catching up to his brother. People muttered that maybe the younger Blackwell was just as good as the older one.
Vivian heard those words. And she was angry.
I remember the day everything changed. Six months ago, at a family dinner. Vivian's eyes kept jumping between Ethan and me, assessing something. Adrian left early for work like he always did, and Vivian looked angry with each minute he was gone.
"Your husband actually stays home with you," she said to me, her voice sharp like a knife. "Mine is always working. Always gone. Do you know how lucky you are?"
Lucky? I almost laughed. Ethan only stayed home because he had nowhere else to be. Adrian was building a kingdom. Ethan was building nothing except a pile of my money he thought was his.
But I couldn't tell Vivian the truth. If she knew Ethan's success was fake—that I was secretly funding everything—she would've told everyone. The shame would've killed us both.
So I said nothing. I let her be jealous of a marriage that was dying from the inside.
And somehow, that jealousy turned into murder.
My body is giving up. The cold has seeped into my bones. My muscles won't move anymore. The black spots in my vision are growing, covering everything. This is it. This is how I die—alone in freezing water because my sister couldn't stand that I seemed happy.
If I could do it over...
The thought comes from nowhere, cutting through my dying brain like lightning.
If I could go back, I would choose differently. I would see Ethan for the liar he was. I would pick the brother everyone said was cold and cruel—because at least Adrian was real. At least he was honest.
But I can't go back. Nobody gets second chances. That's not how life works.
My eyes close. The darkness swallows me fully.
Everything stops.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound drills into my brain like a hammer. What is that? Why won't it stop?
Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyes snap open.
Sunlight pours through a window, so bright it hurts. I throw my hand up to block it, confused. Wasn't it nighttime? Wasn't I underwater? Why can I see? Why can I breathe?
I sit up fast, panting, my hands flying to my chest. My clothes are dry. My lungs work perfectly. There's no water anywhere.
Where am I?
I look around wildly and freeze. This room. I know this room. The white desk by the window. The shelves with my old college textbooks. The picture of a band I loved when I was twenty-five.
No.
This is impossible.
My hands shake as I grab my phone from the nightstand. The screen lights up, showing the date.
Five years ago.
The exact day I met the Blackwell brothers for the first time.
The exact day that ruined my entire life.
My phone buzzes with a text message. From Vivian: "Ready for tonight? We're meeting our future husbands!"
The phone slips from my frozen fingers and lands on the bed.
I'm not dead.
I'm not in the river.
I'm in my old bedroom, five years in the past, on the worst day of my life.
And somehow, impossibly, I remember everything that happens next.