1 For most of my life, I believed my best friend was the anchor keeping me tethered to this earth. When I was twelve, my stepbrother shoved me off the rocky ledge into the murky waters of the old quarry. It was Sadie who jumped in without hesitation, dragging my scrawny body out of the silt and cold reeds. After my father remarried, a hot meal at home became a rare luxury; Sadie was the one who split her brown-bag lunches with me on the school steps every afternoon. When my stepmother finally locked me out in the dead of winter, Sadie showed up at my doorstep with a spare quilt under her arm and led me to her bedroom. She used to tell me, “Don’t be scared, Tessa. As long as I’m around, I’ll never let you drown.” Years later, I married Gavin. At our wedding reception, an iron chandelier came loose from the rafters. Sadie lunged forward, throwing Gavin out of its path, and took the full impact herself. Bloodied and pinned beneath the shattered brass and glass, she looked between Gavin and me, weeping through broken breaths: “In the next life… choose me sooner.” Back then, I naively thought she was just heartbroken at leaving me behind in this cruel world. Consumed by unspoken grief and estrangement, Gavin divorced me shortly after, and I spent three hollow years visiting Sadie’s grave every Sunday, drowning in survivor’s guilt. Then, I opened my eyes—and found myself twelve years old again, sinking into the freezing quarry. A burst of wild joy tore through my chest. I opened my mouth to shout, to signal that I was alive, when Gavin’s boyish, panicked voice drifted down through the rippling surface. He was onshore, his arms locked fiercely around Sadie, holding her back from the water’s edge. “Don’t save her!” he was screaming, his voice breaking. “Not this time! In our last life, you saved her, you fed her, you dragged her out of the gutter, only to stand there and watch me marry her! We loved each other for seven years, Sadie. Seven years, and because of your damn guilt toward her, you never even let me claim you as mine! If she isn’t here this time, you won’t have to watch us walk down that aisle. You won’t have to carry your love to the grave!” Suspended in the dark, icy water, I finally understood what Sadie’s dying words had meant. All those times she had saved me… she had also been silently, desperately in love with my husband. The water rose over the bridge of my nose, stinging my lungs. Above, Sadie tore herself out of Gavin’s grip and dove in anyway, cutting through the water just as she had in our past life. She swam toward me, her small hand reaching out through the murk. “Don’t be scared,” her eyes seemed to say. “Grab hold of me.” That very hand had lifted up the first half of my life—and had just shattered the final shred of trust I had left in this world. This time, I did not reach out. I pulled my arms back against my chest. Sadie’s hand grasped empty water. Confusion flickered across her young face, and she lunged forward again. But she was only twelve; no matter how strong a swimmer she was, she couldn’t drag an uncooperative body out of the suctioning mud at the bottom. I twisted my body away, deliberately making it harder. Sadie swallowed a mouthful of water, coughing beneath the surface, but she still refused to let go of my wrist once she caught it. On the bank, Gavin went white as a sheet. “Sadie, let go of her!” She didn’t listen. The dark water rose past her chin. Realizing we were both about to go under, Gavin finally cursed and jumped into the reservoir. He braced Sadie from behind first, then clamped his teeth together and yanked me up by my collar. It took everything they had to drag all three of us onto the muddy shore. I lay on my stomach in the dirt, hacking up lake water. Gavin immediately stripped off his flannel jacket and wrapped it tight around Sadie’s trembling shoulders. “What is wrong with you?” His voice shook with fury and terror. “I told you not to go in!” Sadie’s lips were blue with cold. She looked at him as if he were completely unhinged. “She was drowning! What was I supposed to do, just stand there and watch?” “You save her once, and she’ll latch onto you for the rest of your life!” Gavin shouted, his eyes bloodshot as he pointed an accusing finger at me. “You’ll give her your food, your roof, you’ll give up your scholarships and your career for her, and in the end, you’ll die crushed at her wedding!” Sadie shoved his arm away. “Gavin, did you hit your head or something?” Gavin’s chest heaved. He opened his mouth to say more, but Sadie was already turning her back on him, kneeling in front of me in the damp grass. “Hey, your ankle’s bleeding,” she said gently. She kicked off her own canvas slip-ons and pushed them toward my feet, a faint dimple showing at the corner of her lips. “My house is just down the road. Wear these. You can give them back tomorrow at school.” It had been the exact same in our past life. She had walked me home barefoot across gravel, her soles covered in raw blisters. Whenever I brought it up years later, she’d wave it off with a laugh, saying it was nothing. Back then, I thought Sadie was simply born with too big of a heart. I thought she took care of me because that was just who she was. I nudged the shoes back toward her. “I don’t need them.” Sadie blinked, startled. “Are you mad because I didn’t reach you sooner? It’s his fault—he was holding me back. Though… weirdly enough, he was right that I’d end up pulling you out.” She offered her hand again. “I’m Sadie. What’s your name?” She was the one who had nearly drowned because of my dead weight, yet she was looking at me with worry, trying to smooth things over. In my past life, Sadie had been the only light in my miserable existence. My fingers twitched. For a split second, an old, pathetic instinct urged me to take her hand. Before I could move, Gavin grabbed my upper arm, wrenching me violently behind an oak tree away from Sadie. “Tessa, why didn’t you grab her hand in the water?” he hissed. I looked into his sharp, teenage face. “Didn’t you want her to stay away from me?” Gavin froze, the raw anger in his eyes quickly sharpening into venomous suspicion. “Then keep it that way. Stay far away from her. In our last life, she took care of you, pulled you out of that hellhole you called a family. And what did you do? You treated her like an endless well you could drain dry, and then you let her die on your wedding day.” On the other side of the tree, Sadie’s voice called out my name. Listening to that familiar cadence, I asked in a quiet voice, “Hearing you talk about our past life… you really regret meeting me, don’t you?” Maybe he didn’t realize I, too, had come back. Or maybe the resentment running through his veins had festered too deeply across two lifetimes. He didn’t hesitate for a single beat. “Yes.” That single syllable landed like a dull blade against my ribs, numbing the tips of my fingers. After all, he had been my husband for seven years. Gavin stared down at me, carving out every word: “I regret not meeting Sadie sooner. If I had known back then that she loved me, I never would have looked at you. In this life, I won’t let that tragedy repeat itself. And you won’t use her as your emotional crutch again.” I looked down at the mud on my sneakers. I remembered how, after Sadie died, he stopped speaking to me. Stopped coming home. How he dragged me through three grueling years of icy, suffocating silence before handing me divorce papers. He hadn’t been grieving the tragic loss of our shared best friend. He had been mourning the fact that he married the wrong girl. He had stayed in our marriage only to punish me, turning our home into a three-year wake for Sadie. Sadie rounded the tree trunk and shoved Gavin back with both hands. “Are you picking on her again?” “I’m warning her!” Gavin snapped. “She just crawled out of the lake, Gavin! What the hell are you warning her about?” Sadie stepped in front of me, radiating fierce, familiar warmth. She turned back to me. “Ignore him. He’s acting crazy today.” She held out her hand once more. “Can we be friends?” My throat tightened. The Sadie standing in front of me hadn’t suffered for me yet. She hadn’t fallen in love with my husband yet. Perhaps there was still time to untangle the knot before it strangled us all. Then Gavin’s words echoed in my ears: She loved me. I looked at Sadie. “What if one day, we both fall in love with the same guy?” Sadie blinked, then let out a light laugh. “Then he gets to choose. You don’t throw away a friendship over some boy.” “What if he chooses me?” “Then I find someone else.” She waved her hand dismissively, stepping closer. “I’d never touch a friend’s husband. Ever.” I looked at that outstretched hand—the hand that had carried me through the darkest days of my youth, and the hand that had held a secret that ruined my marriage. I took a slow step backward. “Thanks, but no,” I said softly. “I don’t need friends.” I assumed that after that day at the quarry, our paths wouldn’t cross again. I was wrong. When middle school started that September, Sadie was standing right there in the eighth-grade homeroom. The moment she spotted me walking through the doorway with my backpack slung over one shoulder, her face lit up. “Tessa!” Memory hit me like cold water: in our previous life, we had indeed attended the same school. I had simply missed the first two weeks with a severe fever. The teacher glanced at the seating chart. “Looks like the desk next to Sadie is open. Tessa, go ahead and sit there.” Sadie pulled the chair out for me, beaming. “See? Even the universe thinks we should be friends.” I clutched my textbooks against my chest, standing rooted to the linoleum. “Mr. Davis, I’d prefer a seat in the back row.” The classroom went dead quiet. The smile on Sadie’s face slowly faded. Taking my hesitation for shyness, the teacher shrugged and pointed me toward an empty desk in the far corner. At lunchtime, I stayed in my seat. My stepmother had given lunch money only to Derek; I had brought two plain, dry dinner rolls I’d stashed the night before. I had barely taken a bite when a Tupperware container was placed gently on my desk. “My mom made pot roast,” Sadie said, pulling up a chair across from me. “She packed way too much. I can’t finish it.” I looked at the container. Half of it was already gone. She hadn’t packed too much—she had eaten half and brought me the rest. In my last life, after my father’s second marriage, warm meals were nonexistent at my house. Sadie had noticed me drinking water from the hallway fountain to curb my hunger, and from that day on, she had split every single lunch with me. I held the dry bread, feeling a dangerous softness creeping into my chest. Maybe… maybe we could just be quiet friends. As long as I never let Gavin near my life, wouldn’t we avoid the tragedy? My fingers brushed the plastic lid, but before I could open it, two sharp taps hit the corner of my desk. Gavin stood above us, his expression dark. “Sadie. The guidance counselor wants to see you.” “Right now?” “Yeah.” The second Sadie walked out of the classroom, Gavin snatched the Tupperware off my desk. “You promised you’d stay away from her.” “I didn’t promise anything.” Gavin’s jaw tightened. He grabbed my sleeve, pulling me into the deserted corner of the stairwell, and lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “Then why the act? Pretending you don’t want to talk to her, sitting in the back, eating dry bread? You know how soft-hearted she is. You put on that pathetic, wounded-puppy face because you know she can’t ignore it!” A wave of bitter exhaustion washed over me. “If I ask for her help, I’m using her,” I said flatly. “If I turn her down, I’m manipulating her. Tell me, Gavin, how exactly am I supposed to breathe without offending you?” He choked on his words, his face flushing. After a tense silence, he spat, “Just don’t give her false hope. That’s how she got dragged down with you last time.” Sadie came jogging up the stairs a moment later. When she realized the counselor hadn’t asked for her at all, she kicked Gavin’s shin in frustration. “You lied to me again!” She snatched the container back and slammed it down in front of me on the radiator ledge. “Don’t listen to him, Tessa. The food didn’t do anything to you.” From that day forward, it was always like that. When my pen ran out of ink, a brand-new gel pen would magically appear in my cubby. When it was my turn to clean the classroom after hours, she would dawdle until everyone left just to keep me company. When I caught the flu and stayed home, she rode her bike across town in forty-degree weather to drop off her history notes. Every single time, I pushed her away. And every single time she walked away, I stood behind the window, watching her retreating figure until she disappeared around the corner. The moment that truly cemented my resolve came on a pouring afternoon in late autumn. Sadie had forgotten her umbrella. Gavin was waiting for her under the school awning, holding a wide black canopy. He scolded her for being scatterbrained, but the entire umbrella was tilted heavily over her head, letting the freezing rain soak through the right shoulder of his jacket. Sadie pulled a tissue from her pocket, went on her tiptoes, and gently wiped the rain from his cheek. “Are you stupid?” she murmured fondly. “You don’t even know how to hold an umbrella.” Gavin looked down at her, the usual tension in his eyes melting into a rare, quiet tenderness. Standing back in the shadows of the hallway, I felt a sharp pang of memory. In our past life, whenever Gavin came home drenched in the rain, I had tried to hand him a towel. He would always push past me, saying coldly that he hated people touching his face. He didn’t hate it. He just hated that the person doing it was me. Sadie caught sight of me standing by the glass doors and waved enthusiastically. “Tessa! Come on, we can share!” The warmth on Gavin’s face vanished instantly. I looked at the two of them standing beneath the umbrella, their shoulders brushing in the cold air. A quiet certainty settled deep within me. I took a step back into the dry shelter of the brick doorway. “No thanks,” I said evenly. “I’ll wait for the rain to stop.” Three years later, we all tested into the same high school. Seeing our three names lined up next to each other on the homeroom roster, Gavin pulled Sadie to his side right in front of my locker. “For the next three years, leave her alone,” he commanded me. Sadie ripped her arm from his grip. “Tessa hasn’t said a word to you, Gavin. Who gave you the right to speak for her?” Gavin glared at me. “Because she’s an expert at playing the victim.” He turned and walked toward the science wing, and Sadie followed, though after a few steps, she turned her head back to look at me. The worry and apology swimming in her eyes sent a cold shiver down my spine. Today was the day. Sophomore year. The fire in the old laboratory building. In our past life, Derek had been terrified I would rank higher than him on the midterms, so he lured me into the condemned lab building behind the gymnasium and locked the heavy wooden doors. Sadie had broken through a second-story window to get me out, inhaling so much toxic smoke that she spent two weeks in the hospital. In this life, I had slipped over yesterday afternoon and secretly swapped out the rusty padlock on the exterior fire door. Sadie, I thought, I don’t need you to save me this time. I can survive on my own. I hadn’t accounted for Derek’s malice. When the dismissal bell rang and dusk fell, I walked past the old lab building only to find myself shoved from behind. I stumbled onto the dusty floorboards, and the heavy iron door slammed shut. Instead of the padlock I had replaced, Derek had brought a thick construction chain. Through the narrow slit in the reinforced door, Derek sneered. “Think you’re smart, Tessa? Let’s see you get out of this.” A second later, the sharp smell of lighter fluid drifted through the crack, followed immediately by thick, gray smoke curling along the corridor floor. I grabbed an old wooden stool and hurled it against the exterior window frame. The glass shattered outward with a deafening crack. From below, Sadie’s frantic scream cut through the smoke. “Tessa!” I leaned out the broken frame, coughing violently. Sadie was already shimmying up the exterior cast-iron drainpipe. On the ground below, Gavin had his arms wrapped around her waist, desperately trying to pull her down. “The fire department is on their way! You’re going to get yourself killed!” Sadie kicked her leg free, finding purchase on the brick ledge. “She won’t last that long!” Unable to stop her, Gavin had no choice but to scramble up the pipe behind her. Sadie shattered the remaining jagged glass with her elbow, a deep gash slicing across her forearm, blood welling immediately against the pale skin. She didn’t even flinch. She tore off her school sweater, which she had drenched in water from the courtyard spigot, and pressed it hard over my nose and mouth. “Keep your head down,” she choked out, coughing against the thickening fumes. “Follow me.” I caught her wrist in the darkness. “Why did you come back for me?” Sadie’s eyes were streaming with tears from the acrid smoke. “Because you’re in here.” “I told you I’m not your friend.” Her lower lip trembled, the hurt finally breaking through the soot on her face. “Then don’t be. Once we’re out of here, you can go right back to hating me.” She forced the damp sweater into my hands just as a tongue of orange flame licked across the ceiling tiles. Gavin hoisted himself over the sill. Seeing the blood dripping from Sadie’s arm, his face twisted into absolute fury. “Are you happy now, Tessa? She’s bleeding for you again!” Sadie spun around, screaming at him: “I came up here on my own! Why do you blame her for everything?” A loud, splintering groan echoed overhead. A burning support beam snapped. Without an instant’s hesitation, Gavin threw himself forward, knocking Sadie to the floor and covering her entire body with his own. The flaming timber crashed squarely across his shoulder blades. Gavin turned chalk-white, a strangled gasp escaping his throat, but his arms remained locked around Sadie’s head, shielding her from the falling sparks. Sadie stared up at him from the floorboards, completely frozen. In that singular, breathless moment, the terror in her eyes was no longer that of a classmate looking at a friend. At the hospital, the moment the nurse finished bandaging Sadie’s arm, the very first words out of her mouth were: “Where’s Gavin? How bad is his back?” When the triage nurse assured her there was no spinal fracture, just second-degree burns, Sadie let out a long, trembling breath of relief. Only then did she turn her gaze toward me. “Tessa… are you okay?” I looked at her bandaged arm and kept my hands buried deep in my pockets. Nothing had changed. Not the fire. And certainly not the inevitable, magnetic pull between the two of them. Gavin stepped out of the burn unit, his back wrapped tightly under a hospital gown. The moment he saw me standing near Sadie, his temper flared past the point of control. He dragged me by the elbow into the fluorescent-lit stairwell. “Do you really have to watch her die before you finally leave her alone?” I shook my head slowly. “I didn’t ask her to climb up there.” “You knew she would!” Gavin pointed an accusing, shaking finger toward the burn unit. “That’s who she is! Even if you push her away a hundred times, the second you’re in danger, she’ll jump into the fire for you! You’re just exploiting her conscience, Tessa!” For the first time across two lifetimes, I didn’t argue back. Because in that moment, I realized I genuinely didn’t want Sadie to die. If the gears of fate were truly unyielding, would she end up dying for him all over again because of my presence? Gavin leaned in close, his voice dropping into a hard, triumphant whisper. “She cares about me now. You saw her face. Without you in the middle, we were always meant to be together.” The heavy fire door swung open. Sadie stood in the frame. She hadn’t heard what came before, only catching Gavin pinning me against the concrete wall. “Are you cornering Tessa again?” She pushed Gavin back and stood between us, turning her back on him to comfort me. “Don’t listen to him, Tessa. He’s completely lost his mind. He keeps telling me I’m going to fall in love with him, and that you were supposed to marry him. I’d never fall for a friend’s guy.” As she said the words, her eyes flicked unconsciously toward the bandage showing at the collar of Gavin’s hospital gown. It was a fleeting glance. So subtle she probably didn’t even realize she had done it. But I saw it. And with that single glance, all the forgotten details of my previous marriage came rushing back like a tidal wave. How Gavin would only drink the specific sweet hazelnut creamer Sadie preferred. How Sadie always knew which antibiotics Gavin was allergic to. How, whenever Gavin and I fought, Sadie would gently urge me not to be too harsh on him. How Gavin, no matter how cold he was to the rest of the world, never once raised his voice at her. They had carved out spaces for each other in their hearts a long time ago. I was the only fool. I had been so convinced that one was my truest friend and the other was my devoted husband that I had excused every glance, every lingering silence, as simple familiarity. Sadie looked at me, her voice small and pleading. “Tessa… can we please just start over?” I looked back at her, and the very last ember of hesitation in my heart went out. “There’s no need,” I said gently. “Our roads don’t run in the same direction.” During the second semester of our senior year, Sadie began leaving college brochures on my desk. She had her heart set on Riverton University, three hours away. Gavin was applying there too. Whenever the two of them talked about the campus, their eyes carried a shared, bright anticipation. Sadie slid the glossy booklet toward me. “Our GPA is almost identical. If we go together, we can share an apartment off-campus. You won’t be able to run away from me then.” I didn’t answer. She took my silence as quiet agreement. A week before the final application deadline, Gavin cornered me by the bleachers. “Sadie says you’re applying to Riverton with her.” His voice was cold, an interrogation. “How long are you going to keep clinging to her, Tessa? As long as you’re around, she will always put you first. In our last life, she gave up her study-abroad program for you, sold her house for you, and ended up dead on your wedding floor.” Every word was designed to remind me of what Sadie had sacrificed, and to broadcast how deeply he loved her. I met his glare and asked, “If I don’t go to Riverton… will the two of you be happy?” Gavin’s posture relaxed, a flicker of relief softening his hard edges. “At least we won’t end up where we did last time. Tessa… just let us have this life.” I stayed quiet for a long moment, then gave a slight nod. “Okay.” Gavin let out a breath, assuming he had won. What he didn’t know was that I had already submitted my Early Decision paperwork weeks ago. My first and only choice was Montana State University—more than two thousand miles away in the rugged northwest. A place with no Gavin. No Sadie. And no ghosts from a life I wanted to forget. On the day regular applications were finalized, Sadie brought me an expensive red fountain pen. “Use this to sign your forms,” she said with a bright smile. “I’m using mine too. When the acceptance letters arrive, we’ll open them together.” I took the pen, but I didn’t open my laptop in front of her. Gavin, still convinced I was playing a game, didn’t trust my promise. In our past life, he had helped me file my financial aid; he knew my portal username, and he knew my password was the date of my mother’s passing. That afternoon, he secretly logged into the state application portal from the computer lab and deleted Riverton University from my regular list. He replaced it with a small state college down south, then switched his own primary major to match Sadie’s exact program at Riverton. I stood outside the cracked door of the lab, watching his reflection in the glass as he typed. I didn’t stop him. Once he finished, he found Sadie in the courtyard. “You don’t have to worry anymore,” he said, unable to hide the satisfaction in his voice. “Tessa isn’t going to Riverton.” Sadie’s smile vanished. “What do you mean?” Gavin didn’t bother hiding it. “I changed her application portal.” “Are you out of your mind?” Sadie jumped to her feet, her voice rising in disbelief. “That is her future! Who gave you the right to touch her life?” “I’m protecting you!” “I never asked you to destroy her to protect me!” Sadie looked at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust—a look he had never received from her in either lifetime. “You keep claiming she’s the one who will hurt me, Gavin. But right now, the only person hurting anyone here is you.” She grabbed her backpack and sprinted toward the administration building. Gavin stood stunned for a few seconds before chasing after her. By the time they burst into the guidance counselor’s office, my desk was already cleared. Mr. Davis was sorting through the final admission manifests. Sadie’s voice was shaking. “Mr. Davis, someone tampered with Tessa’s application portal. Is there still time to fix it?” Mr. Davis looked up from his reading glasses, thoroughly confused. “Why would you need to change her regular application?” Gavin stepped forward, his tone sharp. “What do you mean? She put in regular applications to follow Sadie—” Mr. Davis pulled a thick official packet from an envelope on his desk. “Tessa was accepted via Early Decision. Her transcripts and file were officially transferred to Montana State University three days ago.”
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