I Took a Time Machine Back, Stopping My Granddaughter's Bar Trip

In her past life, my granddaughter went to a bar to keep her heartbroken best friend company, and got stabbed twenty-five times.

The damage to her organs was severe. She hung on for a month in the ICU, and for the rest of her life she'd have to wear a colostomy bag.

My son and his wife demanded answers, furious, and the best friend just rolled her eyes.

"She wanted to come with me. Nobody forced her. You people aren't trying to shake me down for money, are you?"

Even the man who did the stabbing refused to admit any wrong.

"That little bitch turned my wife against me, dragged her to a place like that, ordered male dancers too. She had a few knives coming."

It turned out the best friend was pregnant out of wedlock, and her future mother-in-law had been squeezing her over the bride price, which was why the couple had fought and started talking about a breakup.

To win a fight with her mouth, she'd deliberately provoked the man, told him my granddaughter had talked her into breaking up and promised to set her up with someone better.

That was what sent him to the bar for revenge.

My granddaughter never even got a chance to explain before she was stabbed into hemorrhagic shock, her whole life destroyed.

The story caught fire online, and strangers called my granddaughter the friend who lured a girl to her death.

Even the acceptance letter she'd just gotten from an elite East Coast university was sent back.

My son and his wife got dragged into the online mob and went gray overnight.

I tried to get justice for my granddaughter, and they knocked me out and threw me into an incinerator, burned me alive.

Before I lost consciousness, I prayed with everything I had.

Give me one chance to do it over. I'll stop at nothing to save her.

When I opened my eyes again, the best friend was on the phone with her, crying.

"Star, I got dumped. Can you come to the bar and be with me for a while?"

My granddaughter was about to say yes when I snatched the phone away, my voice shaking.

"You're a young girl calling my granddaughter in the middle of the night to drag her to a place like that. What exactly are you after?"

"..."

Then I hung up.

My granddaughter stood in front of me, stunned.

"Grandma, what are you doing? Patsy Lambert just got her heart broken. I'm only going to sit with her for a bit"

"You're not going."

"Grandma!"

"I said no, so it's no."

The phone buzzed. A text from Patsy.

"Star, now that you got into a top school, I bet you can't be bothered with a community-college friend like me anymore?"

Of course that was the thing my granddaughter couldn't take. She rushed over to grab the phone. "She's definitely gotten the wrong idea! I have to explain!"

My temple was pounding. I gripped the phone tight. "She's doing this on purpose, to rile you up!"

"But she's my friend!" The tears spilled over. "Grandma, you used to say Patsy was so mature, that I should learn from her"

I closed my eyes for a moment.

I really had thought she was mature, once.

Sweet-mouthed, quick to please, always sending well-wishes on every holiday.

Later I understood. That was just cheap upkeep on a sucker.

The phone lit up again.

Patsy had sent a screenshot of an old chat between her and Star.

"You said I was your best friend. Now you won't even come sit with me? Forget it. I guess I'm not worth it"

Seeing that message, Star's whole body flinched.

"How can she say that... I never said I wouldn't..." She wiped her eyes and looked at me. "Grandma, you saw it, didn't you? She must be so upset right now. If I don't go, she'll never speak to me again."

I held the phone, knuckles white.

This girl knew exactly how to work Star.

If I kept blocking her, Star would think I was destroying her friendship.

But if I let her go...

The image flashed in front of me, my granddaughter in the ICU last life, tubes running out of her everywhere.

She was only eighteen. All she'd done was be kind to a friend.

She hadn't done a single thing wrong, and she'd been made the scapegoat.

"Grandma already told you, a place like that isn't safe." I tried to steady my voice. "You're a girl, going out in the dead of night. If something happens to you"

"What could happen?" She was getting frantic. "Patsy's waiting for me right at the door!"

"Still no!" I hid the phone behind my back. "Your parents said you could relax after your exams, but not the bar."

"Then just don't tell them!" It came right out of her.

Last life, I'd thought a kid who'd finished her exams deserved a little fun, so I'd nodded.

I even covered for her.

I never dreamed it would ruin her whole life.

This life, even if it cost me this old life of mine, I wouldn't give an inch.

Seeing me stay quiet, she thought she had a chance, and came over to tug at my sleeve.

"Grandma, I'll be back before ten, I promise. Just tell one little lie for me, say I'm downstairs going for a run"

The blood shot straight to my head.

"Lie?"

She shrank back from the shout, her eyes going red.

"Grandma, what's gotten into you today? Last month when you fell and broke a bone, Patsy made a special trip with fruit to see you. Did you forget?"

I hadn't forgotten.

But that fruit, my granddaughter paid for it.

Patsy stayed ten minutes and took three photos together to post on social media.

Star was so touched she called her the best friend in the whole world.

To say thank you, she even treated her to a big dinner out at a popular hot-pot chain.

That one meal cost her half a month's living money.

This child was too foolish. Sold out, and still counting the money for the people who sold her.

"You're not going, and that's final." I stepped back three paces, clutching her phone. "You try to walk out that door, and I'll call your father right now and see if he lets you go!"

That did it. She was furious.

"Then call! Call him now! Tell them I'm a grown adult and my grandma still confiscates my phone, won't even let me have friends!"

She slammed the bedroom door behind her.

From the bedroom came the sound of things being thrown, and my granddaughter crying, low and swallowed.

I leaned against the door outside it, forehead pressed to the cold wood panel, shaking all over.

The moment I shut my eyes, I saw her again: covered in blood, lying in the back of the ambulance.

She didn't know that in the last second inside the incinerator, what I thought about wasn't my own pain. It was what would become of her, for the rest of her life.

I couldn't tell her I'd been reborn.

She'd only think my mind had broken.

I clutched the phone like the last straw between her and drowning.

As long as it stayed with me, she couldn't call a ride, couldn't find the way, couldn't get out that door.

The screen lit up.

Patsy had sent another message:

"Star, forget it, don't put yourself in a hard spot."

"I know your grandmother means well."

"I just feel so awful inside I was scared that if I got drunk there'd be no one to take me home. Forget it I'll just sit here by myself for a while."

I sneered.

Drunk? A pregnant woman? How could she possibly be drinking?

Patsy's pregnancy was something that only came out in my last life, when the police investigated.

Unmarried and pregnant, she'd been squeezed by the man's family over the bride price, ground down from eighty thousand to twenty. They wanted her to sign a prenup, and the wedding wouldn't happen until the baby was born and passed a paternity test.

Furious, she'd gone to a bar, drunk juice, taken photos, and posted them online to spite her boyfriend.

Then she pinned it all on Star.

"Star said a three-legged toad is hard to find, but two-legged men are everywhere."

"She said she'd set me up with some rich heir!"

The man had a violent temper to begin with. Hearing that, he simply lost it.

When he went to the bar and started stabbing, Patsy was sitting right there in the next booth, filming.

She watched Star go down, all innocence on her face. "Are you crazy? I was only talking!"

Then she put the video online.

Caption: "My best friend dragged me to a bar to order male hosts, my ex took revenge, and she made me drink while I was pregnant."

Strangers online said Star had it coming.

With a tube down her throat, Star couldn't say a single word in her own defense.

The phone buzzed again. A notice that the messaging account had been logged in on a computer.

I whipped my head around.

The bedroom door had opened a crack, and my granddaughter came out with red-rimmed eyes, a fifty and a few loose bills clutched in her hand.

Her voice was badly hoarse.

"Patsy says she's out there crying all alone."

"Her parents are in another state, her boyfriend just dumped her, she doesn't even have anywhere to go. I'll just see her home and come right back."

"She's lying to you." It came out before I could stop it.

My granddaughter froze.

"She wasn't dumped at all. She's preg"

I slammed to a halt.

I couldn't say it.

If I said Patsy was hiding a pregnancy, she'd only take it as some excuse I'd invented to keep her from going out.

But watching her already lace up those canvas shoes, my heart felt like a fist had closed hard around it.

In the last life she'd walked out the door in those same shoes.

When the ER nurse cut the laces open, they were soaked through with blood.

"Do you hate Patsy that much?" The tears struck down her face. "Grandma, do you think that too? That because she didn't get into a good school she's not fit to be my friend? When did you turn this snobbish?"

I opened my mouth, and my throat felt filled with lead.

Let her misunderstand, then. In this life, all I want is for my granddaughter to live, and to live well.

"If you dare walk out that door tonight," I said, my voice calm, "I'll jump from the fifth floor."

Her pupils shrank all at once.

I walked back to the living room window and pushed it open.

The wind on the fifth floor poured in, blowing my white hair wild around my head.

"Grandma!" she screamed.

She rushed over and threw her arms around my waist, sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

"I won't go, all right? I won't go!"

My granddaughter dragged me back from the window, snapped the lock shut, and clung to me, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

I stroked her hair. My fingertips were slick with cold sweat.

I'm sorry.

This was the only way Grandma could force you to stay.

Slowly she calmed, sniffling as she asked me, "You said Patsy lied to me lied to me about what?"

I wiped my face, my mind racing.

"Call her." I handed over my phone. "Tell her you ran into her yesterday afternoon outside the women's and children's clinic. See what she says."

My granddaughter frowned.

"The clinic? What would she be doing there?"

"Just call."

She hesitated, then tapped the voice call and put it on speaker.

Three rings, and Patsy picked up, her voice still thick with tears.

"Star did your grandma let you come out?"

"Patsy," my granddaughter said, gripping the phone tight, "did you go to the clinic yesterday afternoon? I think I saw you there."

Two seconds of silence on the other end.

"Huh?" Patsy's voice hitched, just for an instant. "I I went with my cousin. She had a prenatal checkup."

My granddaughter glanced at me, then pressed on.

"Isn't your cousin in Los Angeles?"

The line went quiet.

Then Patsy sniffed. "Star, why are you asking me all this? I feel awful right now. Can't you just come over and keep me company"

"Answer me first."

"I it's just" Patsy suddenly broke into sobs. "Star, I'm pregnant. I don't dare tell my parents. My boyfriend's family is squeezing me over the bride price, and they won't marry me unless I sign a paternity test agreement first. What am I supposed to do"

My granddaughter went rigid.

"You're pregnant, and you still wanted to go drinking at a bar?"

"What's wrong with a bar!" Patsy's voice shot up. "I was just going to sit for a while! If you don't want to come, then say so! Don't interrogate me!"

She hung up.

My granddaughter slowly lowered the phone, turned, and looked at me, her eyes rimmed red.

"Grandma she really was lying to me."

I walked over and pulled her into my arms.

"It's over now."

She buried her face against my shoulder. "She never meant to tell me the truth, not once"

"If she hadn't said anything, I'd have gone tonight. And if something had happened with the drinking"

I closed my eyes and rubbed her back.

"You're not going anywhere. You're staying home."

She cried in my arms for a long time.

She was eighteen, just into college, and she still believed everyone was good.

She didn't know that in that phone call just now, her best friend had been setting a trap for her with every word.

But tonight she was safe.

My phone rang.

It was my son, saying he had to work late and telling me and Star to go to sleep first.

I said all right and hung up.

Ten thirty.

Half an hour more, and it would be the exact hour when, in the last life, my granddaughter came to harm at that bar.

I looked toward the bedroom.

She was already asleep, curled up under the blanket.

This time she hadn't gone.

She was safe.

I sank into the couch and finally let out a breath.

Then, at eleven on the dot, frantic pounding erupted at the door.

"Open up! Roberta Barnes! I know you're in there!"

The pounding shook the whole building.

I bolted up and rushed to the door, pressing my eye to the peephole.

It was Patsy's boyfriend.

Bleach-blond hair, a thick brutal face, still in his coveralls from the auto repair shop.

How had he found this place?

My granddaughter woke up and ran out of the bedroom in her pajamas.

"Who is it?"

"Don't make a sound." I shoved her behind me.

"Roberta Barnes! Where the hell are you hiding my woman? Open this door right now!"

Julius Finch started kicking the door again.

Her eyes went wide.

"Patsy isn't here with me..."

I dropped my voice. "He's got the wrong place. Get inside, call your dad, tell him to call the police."

"But..."

"Get in there!"

I pushed her into the bedroom and pulled the door shut behind her.

"Grandma!"

"Don't come out! Lock it!"

Another crash outside.

The security door in this old building was half rusted through, the hinges already loose, the whole frame shaking with every blow.

"You old hag! Open up or I'll deal with you too!" Julius snarled. "Patsy told me everything. Your granddaughter's the one who broke us up! Wanted to set her up with some rich heir! Shameless!"

I went cold all over.

I never thought it. This time around, my granddaughter never went near that bar, and the blame still landed on her.

"You shut your mouth!" I yelled back through the door. "My granddaughter hasn't left the house all day! Wherever your woman is, go find her yourself!"

"Bullshit!" Julius kicked again, the frame rattling.

"My woman's phone location says she's in this building! Your granddaughter won't open up because she's guilty? What, you got some other man hiding in there?"

He started slamming the door. The steel panel dented inward.

I took half a step back until my spine hit the entryway cabinet.

"I already called the police!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "They'll be here in five minutes! You hit that door one more time!"

Julius paused.

"Who do you think you're scaring? A dump like this, the cops take twenty minutes minimum." He sneered. "You old thing, your granddaughter didn't think about the consequences when she was stirring up trouble, did she? Fine. Open the door and we talk it out. Don't open it and I tear your place apart!"

I thought the security door would at least hold for a while.

But through the peephole, I saw him dig a thin, long iron hook out of his pocket.

My mind went blank, then detonated.

Blurred memories from my last life rushed back.

Patsy's boyfriend, it seemed, was a locksmith.

That night at the bar in my last life, he was the one who'd pried the back door open and slipped inside.

Now he was going to pry open my door with that thing.

The iron hook pushed in through the peephole, feeling its way inward.

The scrape of metal set my scalp crawling.

I flinched back on instinct, watching the hook stretch longer and longer, then jerk sharply. The whole peephole cover popped off.

Then a face pressed up against the hole.

Julius's eyes stared straight at me through it.

He grinned. "All by yourself, granny? Where's your granddaughter? Where's she hiding?"

My legs buckled and I almost dropped to my knees.

Thank god the door had a latch bolt. A hook like that couldn't work it open.

The bedroom door suddenly opened.

My granddaughter ran to the kitchen and came out holding a kitchen knife, her voice shaking.

"You try prying that one more time! My dad's on his way back! The police are almost here too!"

Julius froze for a beat, then laughed louder.

"One lousy kitchen knife, and you think you'll scare me?"

He stepped back half a pace, hunched his shoulders, and rammed the door hard.

A clang. A hinge snapped.

The door hung crooked.

Julius turned sideways and forced himself into the gap, his face mashed flat with the effort.

His tattoo-covered arm shoved through, just reaching the latch bolt.

The next second, a burst of quick footsteps came pounding up the stairwell.