The Undercover's Last Lie

The massive semi-truck barreled toward me and my four-month pregnant belly.

The sickening crunch of my snapping bones drowned out the wedding march still playing on loop in my head. Today was my wedding day. And my groom vanished.

Never actually seen a runaway groom before.

A shotgun wedding? She got what she deserved. At least the guy wasn't blind enough to stick around.

The guests' whispers hissed in my ears. Beside me, a woman in a glamorous fur coat took a sip of her champagne and let out a cold sneer. "Knox looks exactly like his dad's dead, crazy ex-wife. Let's hope he's not here for revenge."

Those words rattled around in my skull like a cracked bell. My vision blurred into a dizzying smear of colors as my feet dragged me blindly into the middle of the roaring street.

Chapter 1

When I opened my eyes again, I was pulled back three months into the pastthe exact day I found out I was pregnant.

I gripped the plastic stick, sitting on the toilet for what felt like hours. A single beam of sunlight sliced through the cracked window, highlighting the two glaring red lines.

Water dripped steadily from the bathroom sink faucet. A sharp cramp twisted my stomach. I dug my fingers into the edge of the vanity until my knuckles turned a sickly, bone-white color.

The suffocating agony of my past life still gripped my throat when Knoxs voice drifted through the door. "What's wrong?" he asked, his tone crisp and collected as always.

Just half an hour ago in my previous timeline, I had been standing at our wedding venue, praying until my lungs burned for him to show up. On this exact day in my past life, he had just returned from the outside. Cold rain clung to his black leather jacket, and he held a paper bag with my favorite Dunkin' Donuts and a black coffee. Back then, I had rushed out to hug him, practically vibrating with excitement as I shoved the pregnancy test in his face.

Knoxs expression was unreadable. He pinched the plastic stick, staring at it in dead silence. "Are you sure?"

The muscles in my face froze. The blood drained from my fingertips in an instant. I subconsciously took a step back, putting distance between us. "Do you not want it?"

"No." He pressed his lips into a thin line, giving me a long, piercing look. "We aren't married yet"

"We can get married now. Can't we?"

Knox considered it for a beat. "Yeah."

We had been together for five years before we finally walked down the aisle. But remembering the humiliation of that wedding daystanding there like a joke, clutching my phone while the crowd pointed and whispered, begging the universe for him to walk through those doors and save memy chest caved in. I gasped for air, my lungs refusing to expand.

Years ago, before my dad married my mom, he had another wife. I knew nothing about their past.

And I had no idea that from the very first day Knox met me, he had been meticulously plotting to shove me straight into hell.

The bathroom door swung open. Knox walked in. I was huddled in the corner, my face the color of chalk. Wrapped in tissue and buried at the very bottom of the trash can was the pregnancy test.

His towering frame blocked out the light. He crouched down in front of me, his sharp brows pulling together. "Where does it hurt?"

He carried the scent of the biting wind and the rough streets. I knew he was always busy, constantly moving, barely having a second to spare for me sometimes. When we first got together, he catered to my every whim. I could be reckless, banking on his obsession to catch me when I fell.

But at some point, he morphed into the man staring at me right now. Sharp jawline. Deep, magnetic eyes.

Yet the depths of his gaze were pitch-black. Even when he looked at me with tenderness, heavy shadows lurked right beneath the surface.

I had gradually smoothed out my own rough edges. I stopped acting like a clingy brat, stopped demanding he drop everything for me. He loved me. But a toxic residue had seeped into that love, making me walk on eggshells, too terrified to push him.

As he looked at me right now, was he already calculating how, in four short months, I would become just another bleeding pawn in his sick revenge plot? Leaving me strapped to a freezing operating table? At four months, the placenta was already fully anchored. They would have to scrape the child out of my body raw.

What the hell did my dad do to him to warrant such a brutal, visceral payback on my own flesh and blood?

The memories of my past life clawed at my throat, threatening to choke me. This time, I kept my mouth shut. I buried my face in my knees.

A long minute passed before I forced a raspy whisper past my lips. "I'm fine. Just ate something bad. Let me lie down for a bit."

Knox's hand paused in mid-air. Slowly, his palm dropped to the top of my head, his thumb gently tracing the shell of my ear. His voice matched the absolute ice in his fingertips. "Okay."

Five years together. Knox used to tell me I was his whole world.

Chapter 2

One winter, a freak blizzard buried the city in snow for half a month. Every evening, Knox would wait for me outside the subway station in his heavy wool coat. He'd grab my hand, pulling me under the hazy glow of the streetlights, our apartment windows glowing warmly in the distance.

Knox hated the wet and cold, but he would yank my freezing body into his oversized black leather jacket, rubbing his chin against the top of my head. "Because Hazel likes it," he'd say, "I'll try to endure it."

When exactly did he change?

Knox gradually got slammed with work. Sometimes he wouldn't come home for three to five days at a stretch. Worse, hed just ghost me for periods of time, leaving my texts on read.

Yet, every time he walked back through that door, he morphed right back into the perfect, attentive boyfriend. Hot dinner waiting on the table. Laundry washed and folded.

It was as if he was overcompensating for something.

The bedroom door clicked open, violently yanking me out of my past-life memories. Knox stood in the doorway. "Hazel, I've got to head to the office."

The office. Again.

Knox had forgotten. Again. Today was my birthday.

In my last life, I had complained and reminded him to come home early to celebrate. He had promised. I had waited up all night, practically buzzing with hope, only to watch the candles melt completely into the frosting. They left twenty scorched, black holes in the cake.

A mocking monument to my pathetic ignorance.

If he was never going to walk through that door, why bother lying?

This time, I wasn't going to beg for crumbs. I swallowed the hard lump in my throat, letting the silence stretch before giving a flat, single-word reply. "Okay."

No movement from the doorway.

Right. I remembered now. Before he left, I always gave him a kiss goodbye. Was he standing there waiting for it?

I pulled the duvet up to my chin, sinking deeper into the mattress for warmth. "I don't feel well. I'm going to sleep."

"Okay." Knox never forced me.

Click. The door shut.

Moments later, the rumble of an engine faded down the street. The suffocating, dead silence reclaimed the bedroom. I lay there for a few minutes, gathering every ounce of strength left in my bones, before I dragged myself out of bed, threw on a jacket, and walked out the door.

The truth was, over these past five years, I knew absolutely nothing about Knox. He owned a company, but he strictly banned me from visiting the office. He deflected every single time I brought up meeting his family.

If that woman in the fur coat hadn't run her mouth at my past-life wedding, God knows how long I would've played the blind, pathetic fool. Five years had wired my brain to depend entirely on him. Tonight, I was going to rip that dependency out by the roots.

The biting autumn wind howled through the streets, whipping my hair across my face. I flagged down a cab and rattled off the address.

The driver eyed me in the rearview mirror. "You sure you want to head down to the old district alone, kid?"

It took every ounce of willpower I had to force the corners of my mouth up into a rigid smile. "Just picking up my fianc from work."

That was his company's address. I had caught a glimpse of it on his phone's GPS history in my past life. Otherwise, he never would have let the location slip. Back then, when he kept pulling his vanishing acts for days on end, I had convinced myself it was just the grueling grind of a startup. But was it?

I dug my nails into the leather strap of my purse. My pulse hammered against my eardrums.

Thump. Thump. The cab rolled to a slow stop by the curb, the headlights cutting through the gloom. The driver sparked a cigarette. "This is the spot, lady. You sure about this?"

It wasn't an office building. It was a rundown apartment complex.

A sickening grey smog hung heavy over the roof, and the dead sycamore trees out front rattled in the freezing wind like bones. The heater blasted inside the cab. I sat frozen in the back seat.

Through the smudged window glass, I watched Knox walk out of the narrow alleyway alongside another woman.

My stomach convulsed.

A sharp, slicing agony ripped straight down my spine. The oxygen was violently sucked from my lungs. Every single night I had spent waiting up by the door, every desperate hope I had clung to for five years, was instantly shattered into worthless dirt.

Chapter 3

The woman was young and petite, her neck buried in Knox's scarf. When she smiled, her eyes practically sparkled. Knox used to say he was obsessed with my dimples when I smiled.

She had them, too.

She carried a brown paper bag stuffed with takeout containers, along with a six-pack of BudweiserKnoxs usual.

Knox walked lazily behind her, his hands shoved in his pockets. A trendy designer handbag dangled off his forearm. He watched her practically skip ahead of him, his posture completely relaxed, dripping with a sickening indulgence. His eyes were locked on her.

Only her.

They joked around all the way to the entrance. The second they stepped inside the dimly lit foyer, the woman spun around, shoved him against the peeling wall, and went up on her tiptoes.

A gust of freezing wind slammed the heavy security door shut, cutting off my line of sight.

All I could see through the gap at the bottom were her pointed red heels, lifting and swaying with a sickening kind of joy.

The cab's hazard lights flashed. Click. Click. Click. The driver flicked his cigarette. Gray ash drifted through the crack in the window.

"Let it go, kid. Dump him while you still can."

My fingernails sliced into my palms. I shoved the heavy car door open and threw myself onto the freezing pavement. "Knox! You son of a bitch!"

A blaring car horn instantly swallowed my scream. My boot caught the lip of a manhole cover. I slammed hard onto the concrete, tearing the skin off my knees in a heap of rotting, wet leaves.

By the time the truck roared past, splashing dirty water onto the barren street, there was nothing left. The rusty security door creaked in the wind. The couple was gone.

It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat straight to my ribs.

The cab driver eventually had to drag me back into the backseat. He let out a rough sigh. "Screaming won't change a damn thing. You can't chain down a stray dog."

On the night of my birthday, I tore the apartment apart.

I ripped through Knox's study. I gutted our bedroom. I hunted like a rabid animal for a single shred of proof that he was cheating. I didn't stop until 3 AM, when I finally collapsed onto the hardwood floor, clutching my cramping stomach.

Spotless.

Not only was there zero evidence of an affair, but he had systematically scrubbed every trace of his own existence from this apartment.

His laptop didn't have a password. The screen lit up, pristine and empty like a brand-new machine fresh out of the box. Every line of his browser history had been shredded.

I had seen Knox hunched over this very screen a thousand times, typing furiously. Why incinerate it all?

His toothbrushes, his socks, the underwear I bought himall folded with military precision. Shoved in a dead corner at the back of his closet, I found every single gift I had ever given him over the past five years. Most of them were still shrink-wrapped.

It was as if he was meticulously sanitizing his life, erasing any physical proof that I had ever stood beside him.

The illusion of our warm, cozy life violently shattered. He had worn the mask of a devoted lover perfectly. But behind my back, he was building a real home with her.

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want it?"

I lay flat on the examination table. The doctor pressed the freezing ultrasound wand into my lower abdomen. "You're only four weeks along. A little longer, and we'd be able to catch the heartbeat."

In my past life, Knox had been sitting right beside me on the day we found out. I had babbled non-stop, buzzing with adrenaline. He had just stared at the ultrasound scan for a long time before letting out a low chuckle. "It's the size of a green bean. What are you even looking at?"

I had convinced myself he didn't want kids. But as the weeks passed, pressing his ear against my swelling stomach to listen for a heartbeat became his nightly ritual.

The brutal reality crashing against my memories was making me sick. I couldn't accept that Knox had faked every ounce of his love. But I sure as hell couldn't believe he actually loved me, either.

The doctor handed me the ultrasound printout. It was nothing but a blurry cluster of black and white shadows. I couldn't see a damn thing.

Chapter 4

"If you don't want it, just tell the doctor over there. She'll write you a prescription for the abortion pills." Before I walked out, the doctor tacked on one last remark. "And honey, next time, bring the father. A pregnancy isn't a one-person job."

I thanked her and walked out into the long corridor.

The fading sunset spilled across the linoleum floor. I stared down at the blurry ultrasound paper for a long time. Suddenly, someone slammed hard into my shoulder. The papers slipped from my grip, scattering across the floor.

As I crouched down to help gather them, my eyes caught the writing on her medical chart.

The doctors scrawl was unmistakable: Pregnancy not recommended in the short term.

I looked up, and my body locked into paralysis.

It was the woman I saw with Knox.

"Thanks," she muttered, not even bothering to make eye contact. Her face was paper-white, and her eyes were puffy, like she had just finished crying. She snatched her chart and hurried down the hall.

I used to read those messed-up forums online. Couples who couldn't conceive would resort to anythinganythingto get their hands on a kid.

The sick, twisted theory suddenly didn't seem so insane anymore.

I don't even remember how I made it out of the hospital. I was standing numbly by the curb when Knoxs name flashed on my phone screen. "Hazel, you're not home."

I forced the congestion into my voice. "Yeah just caught a cold. Ran to the clinic for some meds."

"Where?"

His deep, concerned tone made my stomach turn. It felt like he had spun me tight into a suffocating cocoon, and I couldn't claw my way out. I took a deep, jagged breath. "It's fine. I'm almost home. Just wait for me."

I sat on a freezing concrete bench outside the hospital until the cold completely seeped into my bones. Only then did I finally hail a cab back to our apartment.

The autumn sky had already bled into a pitch black. When I walked up to our building, I saw Knox standing by the entrance, his heavy coat draped over his arm.

Standing right beside him was her.

My boots cemented to the pavement. It felt like someone had driven a hook into my chest and was slowly, methodically ripping the meat from my ribs.

God, it hurt.

Knox spotted me. The rigid line of his shoulders dropped. He closed the distance in three long strides, wrapping his thick wool scarf around my neck. "This is my partner, Brooke."

Maybe I was losing my mind, but I swore I could smell her sickeningly sweet perfume clinging to the wool.

Brooke extended a perfectly manicured hand. "Hi, I'm"

A wave of nausea surged from my gut. I dropped to my knees by the concrete planter, dry heaving until my ribs cracked.

In that moment, I wanted to scream until my throat bled. I wanted to tell Brooke to get the hell away from me. I wanted to tell Knox to drop dead.

Brooke just stood there, her eyes raking over me in clinical appraisal.

Knox immediately crouched beside me. He rubbed firm circles into my back, unscrewed a bottle of water, and held it to my lips. "Still sick?"

There it was again. That suffocating, paralyzing gentleness. The kind of microscopic detail that could brainwash any girl into absolute submission. If you looked at his eyes right now, you'd swear I was the only thing keeping him breathing.

I finally caught my breath. I ripped the scarf off my neck and shoved it into his chest. "I hate scarves."

Knoxs hands froze. Slowly, he bundled the wool up, turned his back to me, and crouched down. "Alright. Get on. I'll carry you up."

I didn't have a single ounce of fight left in my muscles. I slumped against his broad back. His steps were rock solid, his warm breath ghosting against the shell of my ear.

Years ago, I would have killed for him to carry me like this. Back then, I used to smack his shoulders, laughing, demanding he walk faster. He used to laugh back. "Jesus, princess, I can't move any faster. You gotta yell 'giddy up'."

It all felt like a distorted memory from a lifetime ago. Now, every point of contact made my skin crawl with revulsion.

Brooke trailed behind us. More than once, I caught her staring at me through the corner of my eye. It was the dead, calculating stare you'd give a piece of meat on a butcher's scale.

I have to get out of here.

The apartment was lit up. Dinner was already laid out on the table. And right in the center sat a pristine, delicate little birthday cake.

Chapter 5

Knox ripped open the candle packaging and jammed twenty-four of them into the frosting. "I missed it yesterday, Hazel. Making it up to you today."

Brooke's presence clamped my throat shut. She sat directly across from me, flashing a sickly sweet smile. "Heard it's your big day. Can you handle a drink?"

I shook my head.

She raised her wine glass with a mock sigh of pity, her voice airy. "Happy birthday."

A harsh, bitter laugh almost tore out of my throat. What gave this bitch the right to screw Knox all night, then waltz into my apartment and play the gracious guest?

The hypocrisy felt like swallowing shattered glass. I pushed my chair back, the wood scraping loudly against the floor. "I feel sick. I'm going to bed."

Knox glanced at the untouched spread of food, his jaw tightening. "I'll walk you to the room."

Which meant he was coming right back out to her.

"Don't touch me," I snapped, dodging his outstretched hand. "I can walk."

The heavy door clicked shut, severing the last sliver of light from the hallway. I pressed my spine flat against the wood, sucking in a ragged breath as five years of memories flashed like a glitching reel.

Him sprinting through a torrential downpour just to get me Midol. Him shoving me onto the only life ring when our car skidded into the river, screaming at me not to look back. Him carrying my burning, feverish body through three different ERs, refusing to sleep for forty-eight hours straight

I couldn't stomach the thought of him obsessing over someone else. Just like back then, I couldn't comprehend how a man could risk his own pulse to keep mine beating. It took me three years to brainwash myself into thinking I was the luckiest girl alive. And it took exactly two years to rip that delusion right out of my own skull.

I slid down the door frame. The cheap walls didn't block a damn thing.

Brooke's voice was a hushed, venomous whisper. "You need to seriously consider our next move for the plan."

Dead silence stretched from Knox. Then, a low grunt. "Yeah. I know."

"Getting cold feet?" Brooke let out a soft, mocking laugh. "It's just this once. Everything will be perfect after this."

The front door opened and slammed shut. Brooke was gone.

The living room was drowned in the dim, yellow glow of the pendant light. Knox sat slumped in his chair, his broad back facing my door. Half his face was submerged in the icy moonlight spilling through the blinds, making him look like a total stranger.

I pushed the bedroom door open. Crushing the ultrasound paper into a tight ball in my fist, I marched straight up to him. He looked utterly drained. His eyes flicked up to me, blinking away the exhaustion. "You barely ate anything tonight."

I pulled out the chair directly across from him and sat down. "I want noodles."

"Alright. I'll make some." Knox stood up, methodically clearing the cold, dead plates.

Right in the middle of the mess sat that untouched, pristine little cake. He scraped the table clean, leaving only the cake, and slid it right in front of me. "Hazel. Haven't wished you a happy birthday yet."

He leaned over the table, his rough fingers brushing the hair off my neck, and pressed his lips against my skin. It was his signature move. The exact same trick he pulled every single time he screwed up. I saw the raw, unmistakable flash in his dark eyes.

Remorse. Seeing him play the guilty martyr felt worse than taking a bullet to the chest.

I tilted my head back, my voice scraping out like sandpaper. "What did you mess up this time, Knox?"

He flinched, breaking eye contact to hyper-focus on lighting the damn candles. "Stop overthinking, Hazel. Let's just celebrate your birthday."

"My birthday was yesterday." My fingernails dug so hard into my palms they almost drew blood. The ultrasound printout I had planned to slam on the table was now a shredded wad of trash in my fist. "Where were you last night?"

Knox's sharp brows pulled together. His hands froze. The warmth in his eyes drained to ice. "I was at the office."

I stared dead into his eyes through the flickering candle flames. I spat the words out, syllable by bloody syllable.

"43 Mercer Street. That's your office, right? A rundown, shady apartment complex. Complete with a gorgeous female employee."

Chapter 6

Knoxs face darkened. He slammed the cake down onto the table with a sickening thud. "Enough."

He stood up. His dark eyes were absolute ice. "Hazel, do not pull this again."

My lungs stopped working. In five years, Knox had never raised his voice at me. "So I'm the one at fault here?"

The hot tears I had been choking back spilled over, burning my cold cheeks. My lips trembled. I grabbed the cake and hurled it off the table. It smashed into the wall, a mess of ruined frosting and sponge.

"Do I need to apologize for catching you locking lips with someone else?!"

The signature pink velvet ribbon from the cake box lay limp on the floor. That high-end bakery only tied that specific ribbon for customers who pre-ordered the engagement tier cakes. It was the first time I had ever screamed at Knox like a complete lunatic.

"You couldn't even buy my damn cake yourself! You had to make her do it!" My body shook so hard my teeth clattered. The words tore out of my throat, raw and jagged. "What the hell am I to you? Just some breeding sow kept in the dark by you and your real partner? Or am I just the pathetic idiot running in circles for your amusement?"

Knox's face drained of color. He leaned forward, bracing his weight on the table. His knuckles turned a stark, bone-white. A thick blue vein pulsed wildly at his temple.

I braced for the explosion. But then, he shut his eyes tight and sucked in a harsh breath.

"Hazel, it is not what you think it is. Let's not do this right now, okay?"

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the crumpled ultrasound printout, and threw it right at his boots. "Fine. Explain."

Dead silence suffocated the room. He slowly bent down and picked up the paper. The blurry black and white shadows reflected in his dark pupils. His fingertips had a microscopic tremor.

Joy? Or sheer terror?

I couldn't read a damn thing in his eyes. A long, suffocating minute passed before he finally forced my name out. "Hazel."

Honestly, I already knew the answer. I watched Knox slowly smooth out the wrinkled paper and set it flat on the table.

"I can't marry you."

That single sentence snapped my spine in half. Not just for this timeline. But for my past life, too. Knox had never, not for a single second, planned on marrying me.

What the hell was I still hoping for? Did he have some tragic, unspoken reason for pushing me to this? What kind of excuse justifies stealing five years of a woman's youth and bleeding her dry?

We were done.

I turned around in dead silence, grabbed my coat, and picked up my small duffel bag. I stood by the door, entirely hollowed out. "Knox, I've had enough karma for one lifetime. We're done."

Cleo pulled up in her Honda Civic. She practically shoved me into the passenger seat, then whipped around to shoot absolute daggers at Knox. The wind was howling, but I could read her lips cursing him to hell and back before she slammed the driver's door shut.

As the engine roared to life, I looked out the window. Knox stood frozen by the entrance. The harsh glare of the porch light stretched his shadow out across the pavement.

"Total trash! What a piece of work!" Cleo spat, stomping on the gas pedal.

In the side mirror, Knox's figure shrank until the pitch-black night swallowed him.

"You need to get the abortion done early. The longer you wait, the worse the physical toll on your body," Cleo advised, her eyes locked on the road.

I knew that better than anyone. But when you build your entire oxygen supply around one person's presence, getting abruptly cut off feels like your lungs are being ripped out through your chest.

My brain felt like a glitching mess. I rested my forehead against the freezing glass and slipped into a dead, heavy sleep.

In my dream, I was thrown back into the past. Knox was driving us down the Pacific Coast Highway. The sun was blinding. I was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, leaning out the window to catch the salty ocean breeze.

Knox shot me a sideways grin. "Hold on tight. I'm not fishing you out if you fall."

A massive semi-truck lost control. It T-boned us, launching the car off the cliff and plunging us straight into the raging ocean.

Freezing saltwater flooded my mouth and nose. I couldn't swim. I thrashed wildly in the suffocating darkness. Right as my lungs gave out, Knoxs arms clamped around my waist. With a massive, desperate heave, he thrust my body upward, breaking the surface of the water.

Chapter 7

The ocean current was vicious. I couldn't swim a stroke, thrashing helplessly in the freezing water. A fishing boat in the distance hurled a life ring into the waves.

Knox shoved my weight toward it. "Hazel, step on my shoulder. Push forward. Yes. Grab the ring and put it on."

"What about you?" I tried to grab his arm, but he physically pried my fingers off.

"The current's too strong. We're too slow together, we won't make it. Don't look back."

A massive wave crashed down. Knox vanished.

"Knox!" I jolted awake, gasping for air. I was still slumped in the passenger seat of Cleo's car. We had just rolled through an intersection.

Cleo tapped the steering wheel, her voice deadpan. "You just dumped him, remember?"

Cold rain lashed against the windshield. It had started pouring while I was asleep. The deep autumn air was dropping closer to freezing every single day.

My mind dragged me back to that day. The fishermen eventually found Knox clinging to the boarding ladder on the side of the hull, half-submerged and practically dead from exhaustion. The second they hauled him up, he collapsed flat onto the wooden deck. The blinding sunlight washed over his ghostly pale face.

I had dropped to my knees beside him, hyperventilating until my vision went black.

Knox hooked his heavy arm around the back of my neck, dragged my face down, and kissed me like the world was ending. He panted against my lips. "Hazel. I will love you forever."

Screech! A blaring car horn ripped me out of my headspace.

Knox was gone. There was nothing in front of me but glaring red brake lights and the relentless, freezing rain.

"Hazel, it'll all pass," Cleo murmured.

"Yeah." It would all pass. I curled tighter into my jacket. "Next week. Let's schedule the abortion."

The life I had carried and protected for four whole monthsit was time to cut the cord.

Two weeks later, I ran into Brooke again. Cleo was walking me out of the clinic after my procedure when we caught her stepping out of the OB-GYN examination room. Her face was absolutely glowing. She was practically vibrating with joy as she thanked the doctor inside.

The doctor's voice drifted into the hallway. "In the first trimester, avoid any strenuous activity. And tell your husband to be gentle during intimacy."

The words sounded like they were coming from underwater. Ah. So they were having a baby.

How perfectly poetic. I had just scraped mine out of my body.

Brooke didn't even notice me. She spun around and practically floated down the stairs.

Cleo nudged my elbow. "Hazel, your body's still wrecked. Don't stand out here in the cold. Let's go home."

I kept my parents completely in the dark. They were strictly old-school and conservative. In my past life, getting knocked up out of wedlock earned me months of brutal lectures and pure shame. I wasn't about to willingly let them break my spine again over this.

Cleo had parked her Civic in the lot behind the clinic. As we walked down the open-air breezeway, I saw Knox.

He stood directly in the path of the biting wind, bundled up in a heavy black North Face jacket. The exact jacket I bought him last winter. His broad shoulders leaned against the brick exterior. His eyes were cast downward, looking exactly like an anxious husband waiting for his wife to finish her prenatal checkup.

I immediately pivoted to leave, but his head snapped up. He caught sight of me and bolted upright.

The harsh wind violently whipped the medical discharge papers in my hand. Dead, suffocating silence stretched between us.

Cleo clicked her tongue. "Just ignore the bastard."

"The baby" Knox choked on the words. His dark eyes locked onto mine. His face was the color of dirty snow.

I walked straight up to him and shoved the crinkled hospital paperwork deep into his coat pocket. I forced my bloodshot eyes to meet his. "I aborted it."

I wanted it to sound like a knife twisting in his gut, but a pathetic, jagged sob fractured my voice.

Knox froze. Slowly, with agonizing hesitation, his fingers pulled the paperwork from his pocket. He stared down at the bold, black ink.

Post-Surgical Abortion Discharge

Drip. A single droplet splashed against the back of his rigid hand.

Knox didn't make a sound for a long, agonizing minute. What an absolute joke. Was he actually trying to act like it hurt?

Chapter 8

The wind bit violently at my skin. I pulled my coat tighter around myself and walked past him, our shoulders inches apart.

His voice came from behind me, stiff and entirely flat. "Hazel, don't don't contact me again."

I didn't break my stride. Hot, stinging tears spilled over my eyelashes and hit the freezing pavement.

"Knox, what are you doing out here? It's freezing. Where's the car?" Brooke appeared out of nowhere, chattering away before her voice abruptly cut off. She must have caught sight of my retreating back.

"Let's go," Knox said.

I sped up my pace and practically dove into Cleo's car.

Cleo slammed her hand against the steering wheel. "That filthy bastard! You said Knox graduated from NYU Stern, right? My cousin is a TA there. I swear to God, I'm blasting this all over their department's Facebook group! I'll make sure everyone sees exactly what kind of trash he is!"

I glanced out the window toward the end of the breezeway. The shadows were empty.

After scraping the pregnancy out, my appetite was dead. I choked down a few spoonfuls of hot oatmeal for dinner just to keep my stomach from cramping.

Cleo spent the entire afternoon pacing the balcony, glued to her phone with her cousin. When she finally walked back inside, her face was dead serious. "Are you absolutely positive Knox graduated from NYU?"

I slowly swallowed the last mouthful of food. "Yes."

"My cousin said he checked the alumni directory for his graduating class. There's no Knox." Cleo muttered, her brow furrowing. "You got played, Hazel."

A sickening, metallic taste flooded the back of my throat. Cleo managed to pull up the digital yearbook files. Hundreds of faces. I stared at the screen, scanning every single one until my vision blurred. Knox wasn't in there. He had fabricated his existence.

"Call the cops," Cleo said, her eyes turning red. "This is straight-up fraud."

That night, I called my mom. "Did Dad ever have an ex-wife?"

Dead silence stretched over the line. When she finally spoke, her voice was absolute ice. "Hazel, if you give a damn about this family, drop it."

I sat alone in the pitch-black living room, the darkness suffocating me. Proving Knox lied about his degree didn't even change anything at this point. I just I couldn't stomach the feeling of being completely blind.

The abortion wrecked my body. It took a full month of dead rest inside the apartment before I could finally stand without my knees buckling. By the time my physical strength returned, winter had hit. The cold here was a vicious, wet freeze that sank straight into the bone marrow.

I wrapped a thick woolen scarf around my neck and sat at a desk by the window. The professor's dry erase marker squeaked violently against the whiteboard. I was prepping for grad school. Cleo told me if I couldn't claw my way out of the depression, I needed to bury myself in textbooks.

In November, the sun dropped early. I stared at my own hollow reflection in the freezing windowpane. Three whole days had passed without Knox infiltrating my brain. Not even in my sleep.

The beginning had been pure hell. Every single night, my subconscious dragged me back to him. The first time he took me snowboarding. The first time we went scuba diving. The moment he shoved that life ring into my chest and ordered me to survive.

Over five years, he had ruthlessly drilled the concept of survival into my skull. He told me a thousand timesif shit ever hit the fan, I had to run and never look back.

One night, Cleo had grabbed my phone, ready to permanently delete all our text threads. A split second before her thumb hit the trash icon, my chest caved in. A raw, guttural sob ripped out of my throat. "Cleo, I can't breathe without him."

Cleo always said every betrayal leaves a trail of breadcrumbs. But the Knox in my memorieshe loved me to the absolute bone. I couldn't wrap my head around the contradiction. Neither could she.

Thank God, confusion wasn't a lethal condition. The coursework was a meat grinder. I burned the midnight oil, downing black coffee until my hands shook. I needed to get the hell out of this city. I needed to put a thousand miles between me and the ghost of Knox.

Chapter 9

Late November, around 2 AM. My phone vibrated violently against the nightstand, flashing an unknown number. My chest tightened. I picked it up.

Dead silence on the other end.

I gripped my pen until my knuckles turned white. "Knox?"

The only sound was the brutal howling of the wind before the line went dead.

I knew it was him. I stared at the black screen until my eyes burned. Cleo was sprawled out on the mattress behind me, muttering nonsense as she rolled over.

I hit redial. Straight to voicemail.

The digital clock on my desk clicked over to November 29th. Our original wedding date.

Time was a ruthless thing. It had been three months since the breakup. Ripping myself away from that five-year habit felt like pulling teeth, but things were finally crawling back to normal. I was actually trying to survive.

The next day was Saturday. Cleo dragged me to the Botanical Pavilion. She was tying the knot next month and needed to scout the venue.

The Botanical Pavilion. I hadn't let my brain touch that memory in a long time. In my past life, this was the exact spot Knox had abandoned me. Four months pregnant, standing like an absolute joke under the scorching stares of the crowd, with nowhere to hide.

I had to admit, the Pavilion was a magnet for young couples. Open-air, classic American aesthetic. Bursting with hydrangeas in the summer, and packed with imported greenhouse blooms in the winter. Very chic. Very romantic.

Cleo was aggressively pointing a finger at the empty lawn, arguing with the venue manager about booking dates.

The manager shook her head. "No can do. We're booked solid, ma'am. There's zero chance we can move you up."

"Looks pretty damn empty today," Cleo snapped. "Don't try to play me just to hike up the deposit!"

The manager shifted awkwardly. "Today is actually booked, too."

"Bullshit. It's ten in the morning. Where's the wedding party?"

"I don't know"

I sat on a wrought-iron bench under the floral arch, burying my chin in my puffer jacket, staring blankly at the grass.

In my past life, to lock down this exact date, Knox and I had sniped the spot right out from under another couple the day we found out I was pregnant. Back then, the wedding planner swore the layout was custom-designed just for my tastes. Looking at it now, it was probably just a cheap commercial template. The setup in front of me was a carbon copy of my past-life wedding.

Pure corporate laziness. I exhaled a cloud of white fog and rubbed my freezing hands together.

A passing assistant was whispering furiously to the manager. "Knox made it clear. There's no bride today. He's coming alone."

My hands stopped moving entirely. My eyes snapped to the assistant.

Knox?

"Let's go, Hazel. We're finding another spot!" Cleo grabbed my arm, her face twisting in pure annoyance over the failed negotiation.

The manager was still hissing at her assistant. "Absolute freak. Why waste the deposit if there's no bride? What, is he marrying himself?"

I stood up, my brain completely static. Cleo pulled me a few steps before I dug my heels into the grass. "I want to sit here for a bit. Just head back without me."

"Are you feeling sick?" Cleo's annoyance instantly morphed into panic. "I'm taking you home."

"I'm fine." I forced a tight smile. "I just saw someone I know over there. Gonna say hi."

Cleo nodded slowly. "Text me later."

The manager stomped off, still muttering curses. I slumped back into a dead corner behind the hedges, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. I stared at the open-air pavilion without blinking, like some paranoid stalker.

Half an hour later, Knox walked in. He had lost weight. The hollows of his cheeks were sharper, and his dark eyes were pitch-black voids.

He was in a pristine, tailored tuxedo. A groom's bowtie sat perfectly at his collar.

A bomb went off inside my skull.

I slowly pushed myself up from the bench, my feet dragging me a few steps forward on autopilot. He was wearing the exact suit I had custom-designed for him in my past life. Down to the exact same cufflinks.

Chapter 10

He stood at the far end of the breezeway, staring dead ahead at the altar. Like a groom who was agonizingly late.

A hallucination flashed before my eyesmy past self, standing right where his gaze landed, frantically clutching a phone and screaming his name.

The two timelines violently collided. Knox pulled out a velvet box, flipped it open, and held up a diamond ring.

"Hazel, will you marry me?"

The wind completely died.

A sharp, physical spike of pain drove straight through my ribs, twisting deeper and deeper until I couldn't drag oxygen into my lungs. I stood hidden behind the hedges, watching him whisper to the empty air. He didn't notice me at all. He just kept holding the ring out, his face a mask of absolute desolation.

What was he waiting for? Me?

Knox kept his arm suspended for a long, torturous minute. Finally, his hand dropped. His head bowed, and a ragged sigh tore out of his chest.

"I wanted to put this on your finger myself. Never got to do it before I died. Carrying a four-month-old baby on your own it must have been pure hell."

My fingers clamped onto the decorative vines. My body broke out into uncontrollable tremors.

Knox

Had he reincarnated too? Or did he actually die in that timeline?

Freezing air flooded my windpipe. It felt like I had been shoved into a meat freezer as his voice cracked. "I'm sorry, Hazel. I"

He broke. He aggressively scrubbed his face, wiping away the moisture.

I dragged my boots forward, my jaw unhinging to say something, but a sharp ringtone pierced the air. It was coming from Knox's suit pocket. He answered it, running a rough hand over his face. His voice turned completely rigid. "Copy that. I'm returning to the unit."

It