Sarah Wilson thought that she had it all, until she didn't, but now she lay here in the middle of the road with her blood coming out of places that it shouldn't be. And she never saw it coming, but she didn't see a lot coming. What Sara regretted was allowing herself to live with such ignorance and faith of people who do not deserve it. Her vision was getting blurry as she watched her car that was being driven by her half-sister, Veronica Walker way from her after it was used to hit her. What made this even worse was that her husband, Allen Wilson, was in the passenger's seat.

Veronica gleefully let her know that they had been planning on getting rid of her for a while; they just chose to get rid of Veronica's husband, well, late husband Jared Walker, first. A few months ago, he was hit by a car, and Sarah condoled her half-sister. She wanted to be there for her, and now it made her sick as she was losing the feeling in her body that she did, and that others would do the same for Allen.

Everything was hazy, and all she felt was humiliation and anger. She didn't deserve this, and neither did Jared. She didn't want to die, but Sarah could tell she was going to. There was nothing she could understand about how Veronica and Allen betrayed and hurt her. Veronica was literally her sister, and she had been with Allen since high school.

Her vision was darker now, and she was fighting to keep her eyes open, but that was useless, so Sarah vowed that if there was another life, she would do everything differently and that she would make sure that she and Jared survived.

There was a sense of nothingness, and it felt like nothing and forever at the same time, almost like madness.

That was until she opened her eyes, and it was ten years in the past, before she married Allen, and before Veronica met Jared.

Sarah’s head was reeling as she took in her surroundings, the soft grass beneath her, the birdsong, the ice-cream cone dripping onto her hands, leaving thick sticky trails of mint choc chip on her fingers.

She over at Veronica. She was younger, dressed in layers and layers of polo shirts, talking about her college boyfriend who had made her a mixtape CD full of Britney and Green Day. The name crossed her mind in a daze. Jared Walker, the boy in Kelly’s architecture class.

Sarah’s heart sank slightly as she realised where she was. Visiting her older sister on campus again, fifteen and full of love for the world, and suddenly very aware that she held all the knowledge of a decade to come within her body. The rest of the conversation glided across her like butter on a hot pan, the imprint of memory baked into every word. By the time Veronica got up and walked back to her dorm, leaving Sarah sat on the green in silence, she wondered if every minute would feel like this, up until...

...her death.

That was the present, she remembered suddenly, and all the conspiracy and plot came back to her with a pounding of blood in her abdomen, pulsing against the absent stab-wound that was a decade yet to come. Sarah stayed very still on the picnic blanket, as if any sudden movement might shatter the thin membrane between past and future she was somehow suspended inside.

Her fingers tightened around the cone, now nothing more than a soggy wafer and a smear of green. She stared at it, at the absurdity of holding ice cream when she had died. When she had felt herself die.

A tremor ran through her. She wiped her hand on her jeans, the same pair she remembered wearing that day: low-rise, embroidered pockets, the kind she’d thought made her look older. She was fifteen, and yet her mind was thirty, bruised and betrayed and furious.

Across from her, a student in a hoodie bobbed his head to music leaking from cheap headphones. Sarah watched him, wondering if he had any idea how fragile life was, how easily it could be stolen by the people you trusted most. She wondered if she had ever looked that carefree. Probably.

Her stomach twisted.

She pressed her palm to it, half-expecting to feel the warm bloom of blood again, but there was nothing. Just smooth skin under the fabric of her Hollister cami.

A bird cawed above her, and her breath hitched. She closed her eyes, letting the noise ground her, letting the past settle around her like dust. She had vowed to do everything differently. To save herself. To save Jared.

Jared.

If she was here, and this was real, then Jared was alive somewhere.

A wave of nausea rolled through her.

The sun dipped behind the clouds as students around her began to pack up, go home, and the restaurants around her turned their lights off. Sarah stood, legs shaky, hands out at her sides as if the world might tilt. People brushed past her, as she stepped onto the main path off the green, the cool evening air hit her face, grounding her. She inhaled deeply, tasting the faint scent of diesel and damp concrete. Everything looked exactly as it had: posters for summer festivals, the fading graffiti, the flickering lampposts that had annoyed her back then.

But she wasn’t the same.

She needed to get home. She needed to figure out what rules governed this… rebirth.

And then, halfway across the street, she froze.

A familiar voice drifted from behind her. “Sarah? Hey, Sarah Wilson?”

She turned slowly.

Jared Walker stood a few feet away, backpack slung over one shoulder, hair a little too long, smile warm enough to melt the last of her fear.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Hi,” she managed, her voice trembling.

Jared’s smile widened. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Veronica said you were visiting today.”

Sarah swallowed, her pulse thundering.