At the end of the day, my colleague, Melody came to find me. She wanted me to cover her night shift.

I turned her down because I had commitments after work.

That night, she was caught abandoning her shift and she got fired.

Melody blamed me for it. Just when I was almost going into labor, she pushed me down the stairs.

"Do you know how hard I worked to get this job? If it was not for you, I wouldn't have been fired! If I'm going down, I'm taking you down with me!"

I died, and my baby did not survive either.

When I opened my eyes once more, I was back to the same day when Melody asked me to cover her shift. Only this time, I knew the truth.

Turns out, she had left her shift for a rendezvous with my husband.

——

Looking around at the familiar yet strange environment, I could not believe my eyes that I had returned.

The pain in my abdomen reminded me that I was not in a dream. I was in the place where I worked.

While I was still thinking about my tragic death, Melody Christie approached me. I looked at the time on my phone. I knew what she would ask.

It was the peak of summer. The city council required every unit to work round the clock. Our bureau was no exception.

Coincidentally, the city council inspection team came for an inspection that night. Melody was busy having an affair and was not at her shift.

She was caught red-handed and fired the very next day.

That was the only time the city council inspection team ever made an inspection, so I clearly remembered the date—the 25th of July.

After getting fired, Melody blamed me for it. She reckoned all that had happened because I would not swap shifts with her.

Just as I went into labor, she came to my house. She cornered me by the staircase and pushed me down the stairs.

Since I did not have my phone with me, when my husband came home and took me to the hospital, about seven hours had passed.

I had lost too much blood. I did not survive.

Thankfully, the universe was fair. I was brought back to life, returning to the time before everything had happened.

This time, I would never put myself in danger again.

As I was thinking, Melody approached me and asked to swap shifts.

I said, "Melody, can I discuss something with you?"

Melody asked, seemingly on guard, "What is it, Lucy?"

"Melody, I want to buy a house. Can you lend me 30,000 dollars? I know you have the money. You'll surely help me, right?"

Melody was stunned. Her reaction was a mixture of confusion, annoyance, and bafflement.

Before she could say anything, I picked up my bag and left. I said, "Melody, you have to help me! You know my bank account. Just wire the money to me. I need to head to my mother's to ask her for money. If I get there too late, she'll be unhappy with me and won't loan me the money."

Another colleague said, "Melody, who the hell does she think she is? The audacity she has to ask you for 30,000 dollars. She's mad. Ignore her."

It was Brandon Jensen—Melody's number-one bootlicker.

When I reached my mother's place, I never thought my husband, Zach, would be there too. Seeing the both of them working in the kitchen, tears welled up in my eyes. That was the life that should have been mine.

This time, I would make the people that hurt me pay. I would also cherish my life. I would live.

The next day, when I got into the office, there was a huge commotion.

"Lucy, did you hear? The inspection team came last night. Someone left their shift," Mary, another colleague, whispered to me.

At that moment, Melody was by the stairwell, tugging on Officer Lowe's arm. "Officer Lowe, please explain to the city council. I had a medical emergency last night. I only left for a while."

Officer Lowe, a beer-bellied man, said impatiently, "Melody Christie, you're fired. You should be looking for a job instead of crying here."

Many heads popped out from all the other offices, watching the scene unfold. After all, gossip and drama were the things that made everyone's life in the office bearable.

Melody became flustered. She stopped crying. Instead, she turned to threats. "Officer Lowe, I want to remind you that I'm in charge of the proposals and dealings with Newton Properties. If I leave, you'll have nothing."

Oh, right. About that. I quickly ran to Officer Lowe and said, "Officer Lowe, Mr. Walker instructed Melody and me to work on the Newton Properties proposal. I just finished it. Do you want to have a look?"

Melody glared at me. I flashed my innocent eyes at her. "Melody, I heard you talking about Newton Properties, so I quickly came over. Did I do something wrong?"

"You… You…" Melody huffed.

"Melody, just go. If you have any issues, take it up with the city council," Officer Lowe said.

Officer Lowe had just gained some cookie points on my side. He sure was great at getting other people to do his job.

"Alright, enough. Everyone, get back to your desk!" Officer Lowe yelled.

There was finally a change in the situation. This round, Melody had no reason to hold a grudge against me anymore.

The morning after she was fired, I was on cloud nine. However, by the afternoon, Melody had returned.

Mary was gossiping about Melody to me. "Lucy, someone like Melody should be fired! She'll only bring a bad reputation to us. How could she have left her shift just like that!"

Mary was slightly older. She had always disliked Melody's attitude and often told me that Melody must surely be a mistress in an affair.

Just as we were talking, the office doors swung open. Melody entered with a few police officers.

She pointed at me and said, "Officers, that's her. She was the one who stole 10,000 dollars from me."

Why was Melody still coming at me? She was determined that I was the one who stole the cash she put in her drawers.

"Officers, she was packing up this morning. The other colleagues had left her alone. I was the only one here. Although we were the only ones in the office, I wouldn't have had the time to steal anything from her."

Even after explaining myself, I was escorted to the police station. On the way there, I called Evan Fontana, my childhood friend. He was a lawyer.

When I arrived at the police station to give my statement, Evan had just arrived. He had produced the surveillance footage in my office. I had stayed in the building the entire day. The footage of me in the stairwell showed that I was not carrying anything.

If I had stolen Melody's money, the money should still be in the office.

Two police officers returned to the office. They searched around, yet they still could not find Melody's missing 10,000 dollars.

When the police officers returned, Evan said, "You can't just base everything on one person's words. What if she made a false report?"

Yes, why did I not think of that?

I raised two thumbs at Evan.

The police asked Melody why she had so much cash in the office. She said that she had just taken them out of the bank.

"That would be easy to verify. Check when she withdrew the money and if she had taken it to the office," Evan said.

"Alright. Ms. Lois, we'll verify this. Just sign here and you can go," the police officer said.

I looked at Evan. He immediately understood what I wanted. Of course, we had to be the first witnesses to see what would happen.

"Sir, Melody has badly damaged Ms. Lois' reputation. I'm sure Ms. Lois has the right to know the truth."

The police left us be. They went to the bank to check Melody's withdrawal records while Evan and I made ourselves comfortable in the lobby. We even ordered takeout.

Melody was still cooped up in one of the rooms.

The police were a responsible group of people. They even told us about the situation when they returned from the bank.

They suspected that the ten-thousand-dollar cash never existed in the first place. The bank showed no records of Melody withdrawing that amount.

The police would interrogate Melody. It looked like the cash was just an excuse for Melody to frame me for a crime I did not do.

There was no longer any point in waiting, so Evan and I left the station. I wondered how Melody would explain the cash. Did she falsely accuse me, or did the cash really exist?

I wanted to get Evan to find out about it afterward. Evan and I were childhood friends. We only drifted apart after I married Zach.

The next morning, I was woken up by a call from Evan.

"Lucy, Lucy! Melody's 10,000 dollars didn't come from her bank. Do you know where she got it from?"

Evan had always been a tease.

I yawned. "Just spit it out. Don't tell me she made it all up?"

"No. The cash exists, but…"

"But what?"

"It was payment for prostitution. She was paid by her so-called boyfriend that night. What is that if not payment?

"Also, do you know she's married, too? I'm sure you didn't know about that."

"Then, the 10,000 dollars?"

"Her husband didn't give her the money. This came from my friends at the police station."

Melody had wanted to set me up. I bet she never expected I would learn such a massive secret of hers instead. When I was thinking about how to deal with Melody, a strange thing happened at home.

While doing the laundry, I fished a bank statement from Zach's pocket. The amount was 10,000 dollars, right down to the cent. The date of the transaction was July 25th.

A vague yet absurd answer started forming in my head.

I had always wondered what I was missing, why Melody would keep asking me to cover her shift, and why she would blame me when she was fired.

A chill ran down my back.

Could Melody's rumored boyfriend be my husband?