Chapter 4

I was lost in thought when the door suddenly pushed open.

Eighteen-year-old Jake walked in, his eyes locked on me. There was no youthful adoration in them—only a shocking complexity: the weariness and resentment of someone who'd survived a storm.

Just one look, and I understood.

He'd been reborn too.

And he knew I had been reborn.

In this small room, once filled with sweet memories, the air hung thick with unspoken tension, almost tangible.

"Um..." Jake cleared his throat, his voice rough. "Earlier in the car... I was just so furious I didn't think before I spoke, okay? I didn't mean those terrible things I said."

Looking at him, I suddenly found it absurd.

Years ago, in this very room, he had held me and said, "Ava, I've put you through so much. I promise I'll give you the best of everything in the world."

I believed him then, truly.

Just as I believed him when he called me "desperate" in the car before we died.

The love was real, and the hate was real too.

Time truly is a cruel thing; it can turn a precious gem into a worthless stone.

We sat at opposite ends of that narrow bed, neither of us speaking.

"Ava, since we're both back..." Jake was about to say something when a frantic pounding on the door interrupted him.

I got up to open it.

The moment the door swung open, I froze.

Standing outside was my mom, Sarah Reed.

The woman I remembered as always elegant and put-together now had messy hair, eyes swollen shut, and a sickly, grayish complexion, like she'd aged ten years overnight.

She grabbed my wrist in a vice grip that made me wince. "Come on! You're coming home with me right now!"

Memories instantly overlapped.

In my previous life, it was at this exact moment that my mom found me here.

She cried and begged me to come back, promising that if I did, everything from before would be forgiven.

But I was still so stubbornly naive, like I was under some kind of spell. I wrenched my hand free, yelling that I loved Jake and would never marry anyone else.

My mom trembled with rage and slapped me hard across the face. "I wasted all these years raising you! You'd throw away your own mother for a boy?"

Finally, completely heartbroken, she left, tossing one last remark over her shoulder: "From now on, I'll pretend I never had a daughter!"

From that day until I died, we never saw each other again.

Later, when Jake became wealthy, I brought gifts hoping to mend our relationship, but my dad threw me out—gifts and all.

It was the biggest regret of my life, a pain that haunted me every single night.

Now, my mom's voice was raw. "Ava, if you come home with me now, our family can still be whole. But if you insist on staying with this deadbeat, then just pretend I'm dead! Pretend I never gave birth to you!"

She continued to spout harsh words, but tears streamed down her face.

I looked at her familiar yet strangely aged face, my eyes stinging.

How long had it been since I'd seen my mom?

My stubbornness in my past life had brought me nothing but ruin and total alienation from everyone I loved.

I turned my hand and squeezed her calloused one, gently cutting her off. "Okay, Mom. I'll come home with you."

My mom's sobs abruptly stopped. She stared at me wide-eyed, like she couldn't believe what she'd heard. "What did you say? You... you'll come home with me?"

She'd clearly braced herself for a huge fight and hadn't expected me to agree so easily.

Jake, who had been sitting on the bed, spun around, staring at me with utter disbelief.