Chapter 1: A Fatal Betrayal
The last sound I registered was the screech of tires.
Evan’s car slammed straight into me before I could even react. The heavy impact, the sickening crunch of my own bones, and then… nothingness.
My consciousness drifted free of my body, hovering above the street, looking down at the mangled wreck that used to be me. And then I saw her—Olivia, standing on the sidewalk, her face buried in her hands, sobbing helplessly.
Evan got out of the car and, just like after every beating he’d ever given her, dropped to his knees in front of Olivia, hysterically slapping himself and crying his eyes out. Olivia’s face was ghostly pale. She finally collapsed into his arms. She muttered that she might forgive him, and then… she helped him. She helped him clean up the scene, hide my body.
I even saw her, in the middle of hiding my corpse, take my phone and text my parents: “Going on a long trip. Might be off the grid for a while.”
I tried desperately to get close to them, to scream at them, but it was like hitting an invisible wall.
How utterly ridiculous.
Olivia, my best friend, the one who had cried to me countless times about Evan’s abuse—the physical violence, the cheating, the psychological manipulation. My heart had ached for her. I’d pleaded with her, reasoning with her to leave him. Every time, she promised she would, only to turn around and screenshot our entire conversation and send it to Evan.
She made me the villain in their twisted relationship.
“Jojo says I should break up with you.”
“Jojo says you don’t really love me.”
“Jojo says…”
I became the bad guy.
Evan would call her a “worthless slut” during their fights, say he never planned to marry her, that a girl like her should feel lucky a guy like him wasted three years on her. I told Olivia to run far away from this loser. But she sent that conversation to Evan too, swearing blind that this time she’d listen to me, that they were really over.
And then, a drunk and enraged Evan got behind the wheel and ended my life.
And the best friend I’d risked everything to protect? Through her tears and his apologies, she chose to help him hide my body and lie to my parents.
Consumed by a torrent of bitterness and regret, my consciousness began to fade. My whole life, I’d worked hard, been driven, been fiercely loyal to my friends. If it weren’t for Olivia, I never would have come to such an end.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice echoed in my mind:
“If I gave you another chance, could you escape your fate?”
“Yes!” I answered immediately.
“Good. Then try again.”
The world spun, and I found myself standing, perfectly intact, in my apartment. It felt like a bizarre, hyper-realistic nightmare. My phone was buzzing incessantly. Messages from Olivia.
“Jojo! Evan just got down on his knees in front of the sorority house to beg me to be with him! Should I say yes??”
I froze, memories flooding back.
If I remembered correctly, this was the day Olivia and Evan got together. In my previous life, I’d told her that a man who resorts to grand, desperate gestures like public kneeling is emotionally unstable, and warned her not to be fooled. But she’d accepted him anyway, telling him, “Jojo told me not to say yes, but I’m giving you a chance anyway. You’d better treat me right.”
Back then, I just thought she had a bad case of ‘boy crazy.’ Only now did I realize the truth: Olivia had always used me to boost her own value in the eyes of her boyfriends, deftly transferring their relationship conflicts into conflicts between me and them.
Evan and I were strangers, yet because of her, we became mortal enemies.
I’d urged her to break up because she constantly bombarded me with stories of how terrible he was. Olivia was the puppet master all along. While Evan’s car killed me in my last life, Olivia was just as much my murderer!
Steadying myself, I looked at the new message from Olivia: “Jojo, what do you think of Evan?”
Last time, I’d painstakingly laid out all the reasons, piece by piece.
This time, I just smirked and typed back:
“I think you two are perfect for each other.”