I kept talking to him.

Every night for a week, I sat on the kitchen floor with the old phone and told the seventeen-year-old Colton things I'd never said to the man sleeping in the guest room down the hall. I told him about the joint accounts. About Marcus Webb's eight-hundred-dollar-an-hour threats. About the way his future self straightened his cufflinks when he lied.

I told him about Arianna's stomach. The pale blue dress. The way she'd rested her hand near his at dinner like she was marking territory.

He wrote back every time. Long messages. Desperate ones.

*"I won't let it happen. I swear to god, Grace. I'll make different choices. I'll be better."*

*"Tell me what I do wrong. Tell me the exact moment. I'll fix it."*

*"Please. There has to be a way."*

I didn't know how to answer. Because I didn't know when he'd stopped being the boy who waited for me in the rain. It wasn't one moment. It was a thousand small ones.

On the eighth night, his message was different.

*"I've been thinking. Maybe the problem is us. Maybe if we never get together, you'll be safe."*

I stared at the screen.

*"What do you mean?"*

*"I'm going to pull back. Stop waiting for you after class. Stop texting first. If we're not together, I can't hurt you."*

My chest went tight.

*"Colton, don't—"*

*"It's the only way. I love you too much to become that person. So I won't. I'll make sure we never happen."*

I typed fast. *"That's not how this works. You can't just—"*

But he'd already stopped responding.

I sat there for an hour, sending message after message. He didn't answer.

I fell asleep on the couch with the phone in my hand.

***

I woke up to pain.

Sharp. Burning. Running up both forearms like I'd dragged them across broken glass.

I sat up fast. Looked down.

Thin white scars. Four on my left arm. Three on my right. Pale and old-looking, like they'd been there for years.

They hadn't.

I'd checked my arms last night before bed. I checked every night now, some paranoid instinct I couldn't name. They'd been clear.

I ran to the bathroom. Turned on every light. Pulled up my sleeves.

The scars were real. Raised slightly. The kind you get from something that healed badly.

I touched one. It didn't hurt. It felt like scar tissue. Like it had always been there.

But it hadn't.

I grabbed my phone. The new one. Pulled up photos from two months ago. A selfie Diana had taken at a gallery opening. My arms were visible in the frame.

No scars.

I scrolled further back. A photo from last year. My birthday dinner. Sleeveless dress.

No scars.

I looked at the mirror again. They were still there.

The old phone was on the counter where I'd left it. I picked it up. Opened the message thread.

No new messages from Colton. But the conversation history had changed.

Messages I didn't remember writing. His responses were different. Colder. Distant.

March twenty-third: *"Hey, can you help me with calc homework?"*

His response: *"Ask Diana. I'm busy."*

April tenth: *"Are you coming to the thing on Saturday?"*

Him: *"Probably not."*

May second: *"Did I do something wrong?"*

No response.

I scrolled down. Weeks of me reaching out. Weeks of him pulling back. And then, in June, a message from me I definitely didn't write: *"Fine. I get it. You don't want to be friends anymore."*

I set the phone down. My hands were shaking.

He'd done it. He'd rewritten the past. Pulled away from me in high school exactly like he said he would.

And the scars—

I looked at my arms again.

Without Colton, I'd been alone. And someone had noticed.

I didn't remember it. But my body did.

***

I called Diana.

"Do you remember senior year?" I asked when she picked up. "Do you remember me getting hurt?"

A pause. "Grace, what—"

"Just answer."

"Yeah." Her voice was careful. "Those girls in AP English. They cornered you in the parking lot after the winter formal. You never told me exactly what happened, but you came back with your arms all cut up. You said you fell."

I closed my eyes.

"Why are you asking about this now?"

"No reason," I said. "I'll call you later."

I hung up before she could respond.

The memory didn't exist for me. But it existed for everyone else. Diana remembered. My body remembered.

In the original timeline, Colton had been there. He'd walked me to my car. Waited with me. No one would have touched me with him standing there.

But he'd erased himself. And the world had filled in the gap.

I picked up the old phone. Typed: *"Stop. Please stop trying to fix it. You're making it worse."*

No response.

I tried again. *"Colton. I know you can see this. Stop changing things."*\n

Nothing.

I waited an hour. Then two.

Finally, at 3 AM, the phone buzzed.

*"I can't stop. If I don't fix this, you marry me. And I destroy you. I'd rather you hate me at seventeen than suffer because of me at twenty-eight."*

I read it three times.

Then I typed: *"What if I tell you it's not your choice? What if I tell you my life isn't yours to rewrite?"*

The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

*"Then I'm sorry. But I'm doing it anyway."*

I stared at the screen.

Then I threw the phone across the room.

It hit the wall. Didn't break. Just clattered to the floor and lay there, screen still glowing.

I pulled my knees to my chest. Pressed my scarred forearms against my face.

The boy I'd loved was trying to save me.

And every attempt carved new wounds into my skin.