Chapter 1
Simon's POV:
Clang!
A metal bucket hit the railing. Under my blanket, I opened my eyes and dug my fingers into my left arm. The pain told me this wasn't some hallucination in my last moments.
I picked up the phone beside my bed. May 18, 2:17 a.m. I checked the date again and again, barely able to believe it. The final presentation for our senior design project was on May 19.
The earplugs I'd tucked under a textbook that afternoon were still there. I slipped them into my ears, so carefully that even the wrapper didn't crackle.
It was Derek outside. We lived in an old dorm at Harper University in northern Bellmont. Four loft beds had been crammed into what used to be a common room, and we'd hung privacy curtains around them. At the far end was a small balcony. Eight stories below was solid concrete.
In my past life, the sound of the falling bucket had made me yank back my curtain. I'd seen Derek straddling the railing and run out barefoot to drag him down. My back slammed into a metal lounge chair, and the pain left me unable to stand for several minutes.
He opened his eyes and stared at me blankly. Back then, I'd only been grateful I'd gotten to him in time. I hadn't known his mother would blame me for it and threaten to sue.
"Darling, wait for me..." Derek's voice wormed its way through my earplugs. I reached for the curtain, then slowly pulled my hand back under the blanket.
When the truck hit us, Mom had reached out to shield my head. Her wedding ring hit my forehead, one last flash of pain. I couldn't let her die again.
Maybe it wasn't Derek's fault, but I didn't have a spare set of parents to sacrifice for him.
I stared at my phone. Several times, I almost called 911, only to remember what had happened in my past life. Derek's mother had waved my call log in front of a livestream camera and wailed, "He knew something was going to happen! He called an ambulance ahead of time!" I turned my phone facedown and prayed that some student coming home late would look up. If someone spotted him and called for help, he wouldn't die, and his family would have no reason to come after me.
But the scream I expected never came. Derek said the words twice, then started singing some old country love song. When he hit the chorus, he even banged on a pipe with something.
I lay there bewildered. Wasn't he going to jump? Why was he singing? In my past life, I'd already pulled him down by now.
His singing came in fits and starts. When he finished the song, he started again from the beginning. By the time the sky turned gray, exhaustion finally dragged me under. I hadn't slept soundly once since Derek's accident in my past life.
When I woke up, sunlight fell across the ladder to my bed. I bolted upright at the sound of voices in the room.
"Stop apologizing. How could any of this be your fault?" Brady Lawson, who usually went home on weekends, sat beside Derek's bed and handed him a cup of hot chocolate. Trent Walker leaned against a desk with a thermometer in his hand.
Derek was wrapped in a blanket, his hair dripping wet. He was alive. His neck wasn't broken, there was no blood around him, and there was no ambulance outside. The tension finally drained from my shoulders.
"What happened?" The words came out so dry and hoarse that I hardly recognized my own voice.
Brady looked up. All the patience he'd shown Derek vanished as he glared at me. "You're finally awake? Simon, were you dead in there?" He pointed toward the balcony, getting angrier by the second. "Derek sat out on that lounge chair all night! The cushion's soaked from last night's rain. Even his clothes are drenched!"
The longer I looked at Derek, the worse I felt. No one had come to save him, and he hadn't jumped. He'd simply sat in the chair all night. The disaster that destroyed my whole family in my past life never had to happen.
"I was asleep."
"You can usually hear me open a bag of chips." Brady stared at me. "You expect me to believe you slept through all that noise last night?"
Derek buried his face in the blanket. "Leave it alone. Maybe he just doesn't care whether anything happens to me."
Brady's expression darkened. Trent looked at me too, but said nothing.
