Chapter Two: A Stranger in Her Own Life
The sun poured through the gauzy curtains, casting soft golden lines across the white bedspread. Isabelle blinked against the light, for a moment disoriented. The room smelled faintly of lavender and warm cotton—so familiar, and yet completely foreign.
She sat up slowly. Her fingers instinctively brushed the fabric of the duvet. This wasn't the rough old quilt from her childhood home. It was smooth, expensive, like something out of a hotel catalog.
Where am I?
Then it hit her again.
Rebirth.
She was no longer the woman in her thirties who had failed in love, lost her parents, and struggled alone in a world that moved too fast. She was… what? Seventeen? Eighteen?
Isabelle stood and caught her reflection in the full-length mirror near the closet. A girl stared back at her—flawless skin, round eyes still cloudy with sleep, long black hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders.
It was surreal. She didn't recognize her own face.
From the hallway came a voice.
"Belle! Are you up? Breakfast is ready!"
Isabelle stiffened. The voice was cheerful, warm. A woman's voice—her mother?
Her feet moved before her thoughts could catch up. She opened the door and stepped into the hallway, where photos lined the walls—snapshots of birthdays, holidays, vacations. And there she was in all of them: smiling, laughing, alive.
Tears burned in her eyes.
Downstairs, the kitchen smelled like pancakes and coffee. A woman with kind eyes and shoulder-length hair turned from the stove. She was wearing a navy apron and humming to herself.
"There's my sleepyhead," she said with a smile. "Did you stay up late studying again?"
Isabelle stared at her, her heart thundering. "Mom?"
The woman chuckled, crossing the kitchen to set a plate in front of her. "Well, who else would it be, silly?"
Mom. A word that had turned to ash in her previous life, now brought back to life in the form of a woman she barely knew but instinctively longed to hold.
She didn't know the rules of this world, or how long this miracle would last.
But she knew this: she wouldn't waste it.