Ten minutes before the college application deadline.

That's when I found the post. The class beauty, the obsessive little stalker who'd been chasing my boyfriend for three years, had written it herself:

"Switched all of my dream guy's elite-university programs over to the vocational school near mine. I'll be on him every single day. No way I don't lock this down!"

In my last life, I logged into Alden James's application portal the second I saw it.

With one minute left, I changed every choice back.

Then I told Alden, and I told his mother, the one who'd gone half-mad wanting her son to be a star.

The James family called the police on the spot. Louisa Fox was dragged through the mud until her name was ruined, and that same night she jumped to her death.

Afterward, Alden and I both got into the elite national university together. We went from school uniforms to a wedding dress.

The day my water broke, our house caught fire in the dead of night.

When Alden smashed through the door and charged in through the flames, I thought he'd come to save me.

Instead he stood there watching me collapse into the fire, screaming in agony, then turned around, picked up a small box, and walked off with the photo inside.

"It's my fault. I was too young back then. I never understood who I really loved."

"If you hadn't snitched and gotten her killed, the one standing beside me right now would have been her."

"Today's the anniversary of her death. Grace Simmons, you and the baby can pay for her life together."

A roof beam snapped my spine. I burned alive in our marriage home.

Just before my consciousness slipped away, I heard Alden murmuring as he cradled Louisa's photo:

"If I could do it all over, I'd choose her."

Then I opened my eyes again.

I was back on the day Louisa changed the application.

This life.

I quietly backed out of the post.

——

"Gracie? What are you looking at? You're so absorbed."

Alden leaned in, curious, trying to peek at my phone.

I calmly switched off the screen. "Nothing."

The clock struck the hour. The last chance to change any application was gone.

This life, Alden was destined for that vocational school out in the middle of nowhere, tangled up forever with the woman he truly loved, Louisa.

I just didn't know whether Alden's mother, the one who'd gone mad wanting her son to make something of himself,

would ever let the two of them off the hook.

I turned to Alden and asked,

"Did you come to see me for something?"

"Did you forget? Today's the graduation dinner! I just passed my driver's test a couple of days ago, so I came to pick you up!"

He reached for my hand on instinct. I pulled away.

"Let's go, then. The teachers and everyone are waiting."

I ignored the hurt in Alden's eyes and headed for the passenger seat on my own,

only to find Louisa already sitting there, watching me with a challenge in her eyes.

"Sorry about that. I get a little carsick, so I took the front."

Alden's face darkened instantly. He went straight over and hauled her out.

"Who said you could sit here? This seat's for Gracie."

He turned to me, exasperated, explaining,

"Gracie, don't get the wrong idea. She was in the back this whole time. No idea what set her off this time… always stirring something up…"

Then he said to Louisa, a note of irritation in his voice,

"Let me say this one more time. The person I like is Gracie. I see you as nothing more than an ordinary classmate. If you keep pulling stunts like this with no sense of boundaries, I really will stop talking to you."

He guided me into the passenger seat, then pointed out everything he'd set up in there, fishing for praise like a kid showing off.

"Look, it's all the cartoon plushies and stickers you like. From now on this is your seat, only yours. Do you like it?"

I let out a small, dry laugh and said nothing.

If he were truly sick of her,

why would he have gone out of his way to drive over and pick her up? Why make her his very first passenger?

I remembered a lot of things from before.

Back when seats were being assigned, Louisa had shamelessly insisted on sitting beside Alden, and she'd thrown every single thing I'd laid out on my desk straight into the trash.

She'd sneak into the classroom when he wasn't around and slip on his uniform jacket, drink from his water bottle, then come parade in front of me to brag that they'd had an indirect kiss.

She'd even tried to tear Alden and me apart, hiring people to spread filthy rumors that I was tangled up with some street thugs.

Every time, sure, Alden would put on a cold face and warn her off. But which of those times did he ever truly stop her?

Every line Louisa crossed, every provocation she aimed at me,

he'd brush aside with a weightless little "Then I won't talk to you anymore,"

and somehow that was supposed to sound like a threat?

I pushed open the door to the private room of the graduation dinner,

and the moment everyone saw Alden and me walk in shoulder to shoulder, they broke into one collective cheer.

"Finally! Alden! Grace! Kiss already!"

Three years of pent-up energy let loose all at once.

Even our homeroom teacher laughed and shook his head.

"All right, all right, leave the two of them alone."

Through the laughter, someone suddenly spotted Louisa hovering behind us,

and their expression curdled instantly. They curled their lip in contempt.

"I knew Louisa would shamelessly tag along no matter what."

"Honestly, I give up. No shame at all. What's the point of fawning over him like that? They've already gone public."

"Alden and Grace are headed to the same Ivy as a couple. With her grades, what's she looking at, some second-tier state school?"

The room erupted in laughter,

and Louisa went white in a heartbeat, her eyes snapping to Alden on instinct.

Alden frowned and spoke up, almost reflexively.

"Enough. Don't say things like that."

"Don't drag Louisa and me together in front of Grace."

There was even a thread of displeasure in his voice when he said it.

But I saw it clearly.

The flicker of reluctance in his eyes when he looked at Louisa.

At the table, Alden orbited me nearly the entire meal.

Wiping my hands for me, placing food on my plate.

The girls beside us were green with envy.

"Alden's just too sweet to her…"

Right. Alden had always been everyone's idea of the perfect boyfriend.

He'd remember my period and have a cup of brown-sugar ginger tea waiting for me.

And once, because I said I was feeling down, he'd skipped evening study hall and driven all over the city through the night just to find me a cake.

Who could have imagined that a man like that, in my last life,

could watch me, pregnant, collapse in the smoke and get crushed into pulp under a falling beam.

…

A few rounds of drinks in, one of the guys got hammered.

He looked over at Louisa, bleary-eyed, and suddenly laughed.

"Hey, no, seriously, Louisa, the stuff you used to do chasing Alden was actually wild."

"I even heard that when the classroom was empty and Alden was asleep at his desk, you snuck a kiss on his lips."

"And that you cornered Alden in the equipment room, pulled your uniform zipper down to your chest, and asked if he'd go out with you."

"Best part was senior year, that one party. You got wasted and crawled right into Alden's lap, said you'd do anything if he'd just like you back."

The whole table burst out laughing.

Louisa bit down hard on her lip, her face ghost-pale,

but Max Lambert, riding the liquor, kept going with the crude talk.

"Alden's not into you, so why not give me a look? You're so pretty, I've wanted you for a long time."

"You like fawning over people, don't you? Fawn over me. I wouldn't say no."

And with that, his hand actually slid right onto Louisa's thigh.

"Get off me!"

Louisa's eyes flooded red in an instant, and she turned to Alden, tears welling.

But Alden acted as if he saw nothing at all.

Head down, he kept peeling shrimp for me, focused.

The light in Louisa's eyes guttered out. She shoved Max away hard.

"Don't touch me!"

Max stumbled into the corner of the table, and the wine splashed across the hem of my dress.

Alden's face changed in a flash. He was on his feet almost before the words registered.

A fist slammed into his face.

"You son of a bitch, you wanna die?!"

Max Lambert went down hard.

Alden looked like a man possessed, breath ragged, throwing punch after punch.

Everyone panicked. They shoved me forward to stop him.

I grabbed his arm. Alden threw me off. "Get off me!"

I crashed into the corner of the table, and the kettle of boiling water tipped over the back of my hand. The pain ripped a gasp out of me.

"Stop it!" Louisa choked on a sob and wrapped herself around him. "I don't want to drag you down with me!"

Alden froze for a second, then pushed her away, his face blank and cold.

"This has nothing to do with you. I did it for Grace."

The restaurant manager rushed in with the officers and hauled them both out.

Before he left, Alden gently smoothed a hand over my hair.

"Grace, don't come after me. I don't want you seeing any of this. Go home and wait for me."

Eyes red, Louisa stumbled out after him.

The private room fell dead silent. Someone murmured under their breath.

"Was Alden really losing it for Grace's sake? Because it kind of felt like it was for Louisa…"

I stared at the table, expressionless. At that full bowl of peeled shrimp.

I have a severe seafood allergy. Severe enough to kill me.

Alden knew that. And he hadn't noticed at all.

The same way he hadn't noticed the back of my hand, scalded red and raw.

Because his mind, from start to finish,

was on Louisa.

I lifted my head slowly. Through the glass of the private room,

I caught the scene at the restaurant entrance.

Louisa's strap was torn off, and she was crying, shaking, a wreck.

Alden stood there in silence, head bowed, tearing off his own jacket and draping it over her with the gentlest hands.

The next second she threw herself into his arms, and his arms closed around her.

Stroking her hair, over and over.

I stood up and left.

In the cab to the hospital, my phone chimed without stopping.

Louisa's post had a new update.

The post was blowing up, the comments multiplying.

"That's not pursuit, that's harassment! I checked the rest of this poster's page about her 'dream guy,' and she's just a clingy mistress. Her dream guy already has a girlfriend. She's exhausting."

"Why didn't you change his application to a top state university nearby? Why did you have to switch it to a vocational school? Are you trying to ruin him on purpose?"

Louisa replied earnestly underneath.

"He's too brilliant. I was scared that at a good college he'd meet other, better girls, and then he wouldn't choose me anymore."

"Only when he falls, when he sinks down to a vocational school where nobody fights over him, will he understand that I'm the only one who won't look down on him, the only one who'll stay by his side for life."

A few people with twisted morals cheered her on.

"True love conquers all. These days you have to claw your way to the top. We support you, OP!"

Louisa liked the comments backing her up, then fired back at the ones cursing her out.

"He doesn't actually love his girlfriend. He's just trapped by the fact that her parents once saved his life."

"It's not harassment, it's mutual! Just now someone made a dirty joke about me, and he came down on that guy with everything he had. His girlfriend got hurt and he didn't even care."

"And this wasn't the first time. Before the SATs, some thugs from the trade school were harassing me, and I called him for help. He dropped his girlfriend on the spot to come save me."

"After he taught those thugs a lesson, they went to the school for revenge and roughed up his girlfriend. She called him for help over and over. He didn't pick up a single time. All because I said I was hurt, and he was frantic to get me to the hospital to check on me."

"The truth is I wasn't hurt at all. I'm the one who sent those thugs to the school to settle the score with his girlfriend. I just wanted to see who he'd really choose. Me, or her."