"Clara, I'm telling you, Laura is not a good friend!" Lily's voice shook with anger, her patience thinning fast. How could her little sister be so blind? That girl made it her mission to belittle Clara every chance she got.
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Clara shot back, her own voice rising.
"You're just jealous because she hangs out with Henry!"
"Of course I am!" Lily snapped, throwing her hands up. "She knows I like him, yet she clings to him like she'll die if she's more than five inches away! And then claimshe doesn'tlike him."
Laura was always too close to Henry, always smiling, always pretending she didn't care.
"Isn't that enough proof she's not a good friend?" Lily demanded. "I can't keep pretending otherwise." She said walking out the door.
After Lily left, that's when everything started to fall apart for Clara.
Laura was everywhere.
At parties.
At work conferences.
Even on Clara's dates with Nathaniel.
Always there — smiling too much, standing too close, acting like she belonged.
It should've felt strange, even suffocating. But Clara didn't see it that way. She told herself Laura was just lonely, that she didn't want to hurt her friend's feelings.
So she let her stay close. Too close.
And as time went on, the condescending comments didn't stop — they only got worse.
Her friends began drifting away, one by one. Nathaniel, her husband, who got married to her because of convenience being childhood friends, started coming home less and less, his affection though not romantic fading into polite indifference.
Then came the worst day of her life.
The day Lily died.
Clara was out shopping with Laura — using her own money, as usual — when her phone rang.
"Hello, is this Clara?"The voice on the other end was unfamiliar, cautious.
"Yes?" Clara answered, her pulse quickening. It had been a year since she last spoke to Lily, not since their ugly argument.
"I'm sorry to inform you," the caller said softly, "but your sister, Lily… got into a car accident. She didn't make it."
The world went silent.
Clara's heart dropped, her grip on the phone trembling until it slipped from her hand.
That was the moment everything shattered.
And afterward, as she pieced together fragments of the past, she began to see what she had refused to before.
Lily had been right.
Laura only stayed close when she needed something — when there was a party with influential people, or when Nathaniel was around. She always played innocent, always smiling that coy smile that Clara once thought was harmless.
The signs had been there. All of them.
But she hadn't noticed. Not until it was too late.
Her sister was gone, her husband divorced her without ever truly loving her, and all she had left was her job — the one thing she'd built on her own, and the one thing Laura could never take, because she simply wasn't smart enough.
"Lily!" Clara woke up gasping, her chest rising and falling in quick, uneven bursts.
"I'm here," Lily said softly, reaching for her sister's trembling hand. "I'm here, so don't worry"
Clara's tense shoulders eased as she sank back against the hospital bed, her eyes never leaving her sister's face.
She couldn't make sense of it — Lily was alive.
This has to be a dream.
She'd pinched herself countless times already, but the world around her stubbornly refused to fade away.
"Clara…" Lily's voice was cautious now, fragile. "Can you tell me why you thought I died?"
Her heart squeezed as she asked it. She still didn't understand — why Clara would think she was dead when she was the one lying unconscious after the accident. She watched Clara carefully, worry etched deep in her face.
Clara didn't answer. Instead, she slowly turned to face the wall.
Her breath hitched. In the glossy reflection of the wall panel, a girl stared back at her — a girl with her face.
Only younger.
Five years younger.
A hollow laugh slipped from her lips. "Hah."
It sounded sharp, humorless.
First, she sees her dead sister… and now she looks five years younger. Of course. She must still be dreaming.
But no matter how much she willed it, she didn't wake up.
"Lily," Clara called softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "What… what year is it?"
Lily blinked, confused by the question. "Um… it's 2021-03-28, she said checking on her phone."
Clara froze.