"LYDIA!"

The shout came from the side path.

Julian came running, his face twisted with rage.

He didn’t even glance at me. He dropped to his knees and gathered Lydia into his arms, his shoulder slamming hard into mine as he lurched to his feet.

"Are you happy now?" he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "I told you I love you! I told you I would marry you! I know you are jealous of Lydia. Now you have my promise and stop bullying Lydia! What more do you want?"

I stood my ground, looking him straight in the eye. "I didn't push her. She tripped and fell on her own. I didn’t bully her! I swear to God!"

"I don’t want to hear your excuses!" he cut me off. "You’re not yourself lately, Elena. What has come over you? You’re being irrational and cruel. You need to calm down and think about what you’ve done."

He carried Lydia away, leaving me standing alone by the fence.

I watched them go, a searing pain tearing through my chest.

But I turned and walked toward the woods at the edge of town. I had something important to do. I knew exactly who I’d find there.

There was Sebastian Whitmore lying there. The high-ranking military officer who’d taken a liking to the young war hero and mentored him, opening every door for Julian.

In my last life, he'd helped Julian rise through the ranks, reaching a senior position at a remarkably young age.

This time, I got there first.

I found him lying on the ground beside a bush, clutching his chest. I knelt down, loosened his collar, and performed CPR until he gasped awake.

The man opened his eyes and took a moment to catch his breath before speaking.

He asked for my name. I told him I was Elena Conti.

Then he asked what he could do for me in return.

In this life, I have no intention of getting revenge on Julian or Lydia. I only intend to let him see for himself just how little Julian deserves his patronage.

He fumbled in his uniform pocket and pulled out a silver lighter, engraved with his full name. He pressed it into my palm, closing my fingers around it firmly.

"If you ever need anything, take this to the military base in Manhattan and ask for me. No matter what trouble you’re in, I’ll help you. I owe you my life, and I always pay my debts."

He didn't come into town with me, saying someone would be coming to pick him up.

So, I left him there and walked back to town. When I passed the post office, Johnny waved me over.

"Your letter came, Elena."

My heart skipped a beat. I reached for it, but his next words turned my blood to ice.

“Julian picked it up ten minutes ago. He said he’d deliver it to you personally.”

I ran all the way home. I burst through the front door and found Julian sitting on the couch in the living room, an envelope in his hand.

“Julian,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Give me my letter.”

He looked up, his face completely unreadable. Then he held out the envelope.

“I’m sorry, Elena. You didn’t get in.”

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

In my last life, they had told me the same thing. They said Vassar had rejected me, said I should stop dreaming, said marrying Julian was the better life. I believed them. I bowed my head and let Lydia walk away with my future.

I had rushed here this time. I had guarded the post office, bribed Johnny with cookies, and still I was too late.

Only now, when I took the paper from Julian’s hand, I understood how far they had gone.

The letterhead looked right. The seal looked right. Even the signature at the bottom was close enough to fool anyone else.

But I had seen the real letter once.

This was not it.

“Now you can stop waiting for Vassar,” Julian said. “The wedding is tomorrow.”

I stared at him. “Tomorrow?”

“Everything is ready. Your parents have agreed. You’ve been upset lately, Elena. Once we’re married, you’ll calm down and understand this is for the best.”

I almost laughed.

For the best.

He had stolen my letter, handed me a lie, arranged my wedding for the next morning, and still believed love made him innocent.

“And if I don’t want to marry you tomorrow?” I asked.

Julian frowned, as if I had said something unreasonable.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve loved me since we were children.”

At that moment, my father walked in from the hallway. He glanced at the letter on the table, then at me, and his face showed no surprise.

So my father had known too.

He was part of it.

“You didn’t get in,” he said coldly. “That is the end of it. Julian is still willing to marry you after the scene you made with Lydia. Be grateful.”

Julian stepped closer and reached for my hand. His voice softened again, the way it always did when he wanted me to stop resisting.

“Elena, a wife doesn’t need an acceptance letter.”

I slapped him.

The sound cracked through the room. Julian’s face turned sharply to the side, and my palm burned from the force of it.

No one moved.

For thirty years, I had swallowed every insult in the name of love. I had let him owe Lydia with my time, my labor, my dignity, and finally my whole life.

Not this time.

I looked him dead in the eye.

“I have never bullied Lydia,” I said. “And this is my life. You don’t get to decide what I do with it.”

No one moved or breathed.

Julian stared at me, his hand pressed to his cheek, his eyes wide with shock.

In thirty years, I’d never once raised my voice to him, let alone hit him. I might as well have been a stranger.

My father roared with rage from the doorway.

He grabbed my arm and dragged me up the stairs, throwing me into my bedroom and turning the key in the lock.

"You can come out when you’ve come to your senses!" he shouted through the door. His heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs.

Late at night, the door was unlocked from the outside.

It was Lydia. She stood in the middle of my room, smiling like she owned the place.

"Julian loves me," she whispered. "He always has. But he’s too honorable to abandon you after all these years."

She stepped closer, her voice soft and poisonous.

"So he’ll marry you. He’ll give you his name, his house, his children. So to make up for what I sacrificed, he gave this to me."

She pulled the real acceptance letter from her coat and waved it in front of my face, the Vassar seal glinting in the lamplight.

"After tonight, you’ll belong to him. You’ll spend the rest of your life cooking his meals and raising his children, trapped in this tiny town. And I’ll be on the train to Poughkeepsie tomorrow morning. "

“Honestly, Elena, I simply don't understand why you'd give up a life of luxury just to go to university. For women like us, the priority is to marry well and look after the family. And Julian is exactly the right choice, isn't he?”

"Get out," I said, my voice shaking with rage.

"Why would I leave?" she laughed.

I lunged for the letter, but she stepped back, tucking it safely back beneath her coat.

I ran past her and threw open the bedroom door. I stormed down the stairs and found Julian in the living room, pouring himself a glass of whiskey.

"Where is it?" I demanded, slamming my hands on the table. "Where is my real acceptance letter? You gave it to her, didn’t you? You stole my life and gave it to her!"

Julian set down his glass slowly, his face hardening.

"Lydia needs Vassar more than you do," he said, his voice cold. "She has no one. Her father died saving my life, and she’s been alone ever since. You have me, Elena. You have your parents. What more could you possibly need?"

"I need my life back!" I shouted. "I worked for that letter! I studied for years, I joined the nurse corps, I did everything right! And you just gave it away to her like it was nothing!"

"It is nothing compared to what I owe her," he said, stepping toward me. "The wedding is tomorrow. You will be there. And you will not say a word about this to anyone."

I turned and ran for the front door, but he caught me by the arm, spinning me around.

"Where do you think you’re going?" he snarled. "To the school? To tell them I gave your spot to Lydia? They won’t believe you. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be Mrs. Julian Marchetti. A married woman doesn’t go off to college, Elena. No one will take you seriously."

He dragged me back up the stairs and threw me into my bedroom, turning the key in the lock once more.

"You can stay here until the wedding," he said through the door. "And don’t even think about trying to escape. I’ve posted a man outside the back door."

"Tomorrow, you won’t need the name Elena Conti anymore," Lydia’s voice whispered through the crack.

Their footsteps faded down the stairs. I slid down the door to the floor, tears streaming down my face.

A few minutes later, I heard soft footsteps outside the door.

I sat there in the dark for what felt like hours, until I felt something hard in the pocket of my dress.

It was the silver lighter Sebastian Whitmore had given me.

I pulled it out, running my thumb over the engraved name. He’d said he’d help me, no matter what.

I stood up and walked to the window. It was old, with a wooden frame that had warped over the years. I’d climbed out of it a hundred times as a kid.

I forced it open with both hands, biting back a gasp when the frame scraped skin from my palm.

The drop into the yard knocked the breath from my lungs.

I lay in the wet grass for one second, staring up at the dark window of the room where they expected a bride to wake.

Then I stood.