The sky was gray.
Elara Vincent stood in front of the grave, unmoving, as a slow drizzle soaked through her black dress. The umbrella she'd been holding had long since slipped from her hands, lying forgotten in the mud. Rain streaked down her face, mingling with the tears she no longer bothered to wipe away. She didn't feel the cold anymore. Didn't feel much of anything at all.
Around her, the crowd had already thinned. Most of the guests had left after the service, colleagues, family, acquaintances offering their practiced condolences with gentle hands on her shoulder and murmured promises to call. Her publisher had spoken. Liam's business partners had taken their turns. Even the priest had quietly packed up.
But Elara stayed.
She couldn't move.
The simple tombstone in front of her blurred behind a sheen of tears:
Liam Reyes
Loving Husband. Devoted Brother. Beloved Man.
1985 – 2045
He was only sixty.
Still smiling. Still making her coffee before she even got out of bed. Still calling her my muse as she stood at her easel. He had just fixed the leaky sink last week. He had just teased her about turning gray before him. They were going to paint the house together this spring. They were going to travel. They had plans.
And now he was gone.
Her knees gave out slowly as she knelt in the mud, uncaring of the dirt soaking through her stockings. Her trembling fingers brushed the edge of the stone, as if by touching his name, she could tether him back to the world.
"You weren't supposed to go first," she whispered. "We promised. You said we had time."
Her voice cracked mid-sentence, and the wind carried it away like a fragile paper bird. No one remained to hear it but the trees swaying above and the memory of him echoing in her chest.
Memories rose like a tide, his steady voice telling her she needed to eat, the quiet way he placed a blanket over her shoulders when she worked too long, the pride in his eyes when he introduced her as his wife. The rest of the world called him a genius. A tech mogul. A legend of self-made success. The boy from nowhere who built an empire.
But to her, he had simply been Liam. The man who brought her soup when she had the flu and held her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. The one who told her that her art mattered when no one else believed in it.
In his final days, between coughing fits and labored breaths, he had told her a secret.
"I've known you longer than you think," he said, his voice rough with fatigue, eyes still warm.
She had blinked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I was a repeater," he said. "Two years behind. I went to the public school across from yours. You—" he coughed again "—you were at that fancy private school. I used to sit outside the fence during lunch and watch you laugh with your friends."
Elara remembered how she had stared at him then, stunned. "You knew me back then?"
He'd nodded faintly, a smile tugging at the edge of his lips.
"You never saw me. But I saw you. Every day."
And then he was gone.
A strangled sob slipped from her throat as she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the wet marble.
"I see you now," she whispered.
Then the world shifted.
Her vision swam. Her stomach lurched.
A wave of dizziness crashed over her, and suddenly the pain in her chest exploded into something vast and overwhelming. Her legs buckled completely, and she collapsed beside the grave. Rain soaked her hair, her skin, her soul.
The last thing she saw before darkness took her was his name etched in stone.
Warmth.
Sunlight pressed gently against her skin.
Elara's eyes flew open.
Gone was the cold, the cemetery, the weight in her limbs. The air smelled faintly of shampoo and dust. She blinked rapidly and sat up.
She wasn't outside.
She wasn't even old.
Her surroundings came into focus, pink walls, faded posters of 2000s boy bands, a corkboard cluttered with doodles and polaroids. A chunky alarm clock blinked red on a wooden nightstand beside a small stack of notebooks. The air was warm, too warm. A ceiling fan spun lazily overhead.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
No IV drip. No nurse. No hospital monitors.
She kicked off the comforter and stumbled toward the mirror. The girl who stared back at her made her breath catch in her throat.
It was her face, but not now. Not the woman who had just buried her husband. This reflection had no crow's feet, no laugh lines. Her skin was smooth, her cheeks full. No gray in sight. The girl in the mirror looked about eighteen.
"You have got to be kidding me," she whispered.
Panic clawed its way up her throat.
She turned to the desk and fumbled open the nearest notebook. Her name, Elara Vincent, was scrawled on the cover in bubbly teenage handwriting, accented with hearts. Inside, she found a school timetable.
September 2003.
Her breath hitched. She dropped the notebook like it had burned her.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Elara! You're going to be late for school!" her mother's voice called. "You better be up!"
Her mother. Alive. Just as sharp and overbearing as she remembered. That voice hadn't echoed through the halls of her mind in decades.
Her knees hit the carpet.
This wasn't a dream.
Somehow—somehow—she was back.
Back in her childhood bedroom. Back in her teenaged body. Back before the marriage that broke her. Before the publishing deals. Before the surgeries. Before the fame. Before the funeral.
Back before Liam.
Her chest tightened.
"Liam," she said aloud, as if speaking his name might anchor her. "Where are you?"
A thousand thoughts roared in her mind. How had this happened? Why? Could she change anything? Did she want to?
But above them all rose a singular, gut-wrenching realization:
He was somewhere out there.
Not as the man she knew, but as a boy. Watching her from across a schoolyard fence. Unseen. Unnoticed.
And this time?
This time, she'd find him.