Chapter 1 A Bad Feeling
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when Vincent Joseph dropped the love letter onto the table between my elder sister, Phoebe James, and me, Noelle James.
I unfolded the paper. It had a few sweet lines about love, but no name—no hint of who it was meant for.
"Who's this for?" I asked.
"Guess," he said with a knowing smile.
'Same old answer.'
I broke into a cold sweat and didn't hesitate to shut it down. "It's not for me. I already have a boyfriend."
The pain from my first life was still fresh in my mind.
Back then, when I got that love letter, my first reaction was happiness and shyness.
I thought my years of crushing on him had finally paid off. I said yes without thinking twice.
And sure enough, he treated me well, better than I could have imagined. He took care of everything.
I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world.
Every night, he would kiss the mole near my eye like he was obsessed with it and seriously tell me, "Noelle, you have to protect this face. No scars. Ever."
I thought it was a little strange, but I told myself he just really cared about me. So I tried even harder to be good to him.
Then came the graduation day. I had a surprise for him.
I was almost at school when I tripped and fell hard.
My forehead hit a rock. The corner of my eye split open. There was blood everywhere.
But I didn't care. I just ran into the auditorium.
I shyly handed him the couple rings I had bought.
But Vincent didn't react.
His eyes went red. He glared at me, grabbed my neck hard, and screamed. "Didn't I tell you to protect that mole?"
He shoved me past the railing on the rooftop. And only then did he tell me the whole truth.
He said, "The one I love was never you. I got with you because your eyes and brows look a little like hers."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I held back the pain as hard as I could and cried, asking him who his dream girl really was.
Before I could even process it, he pushed me off the edge.
I hit the ground. My body shattered, and I died on the spot.
My body could still feel that kind of unbearable pain. And that snapped me back to reality for good.
I said more slowly and more firmly, one word at a time, "I don't want to guess. This letter, whoever it's for, has nothing to do with me."
As soon as I said that, the buzz in the classroom died down. Everyone went quiet.
Everybody knew that Phoebe and I had chased after Vincent for years.
We had even thrown punches at each other over him.
And now that I finally had my chance, I was already with someone else.
The gossip crowd turned to look at Phoebe. Their whispers started up again. "Maybe our school heartthrob was confessing to Phoebe?"
She just rolled her eyes, snatched the envelope, and tore it into pieces right there.
The shreds floated down like snowflakes over the three of us.
Then she said, "Sorry, but I actually have a boyfriend, too. Just started dating him yesterday."
Amid all the gasps, Vincent—totally humiliated—took a deep breath. He couldn't hide how awful he looked.
He clenched his fists, walked up to us with a blank face, and let his eyes bounce between us.
"This isn't over." He dropped those words and walked away without looking back.
Phoebe and I exchanged a glance. A bad feeling crept into our hearts.
