Chapter 1

The monitor beside my bed beeped a slow, tired rhythm.

Each breath felt like dragging stones up a hill.

Forty years. Forty years married to Sophia.

I turned my head, the movement a huge effort.

She sat there, perfect as always, even now.

"Sophia," my voice was a dry rasp.

"Did you... ever love me?"

Her eyes, those cool blue eyes, met mine.

A flicker of something, then hesitation.

"Liam, I..."

The beep flattened into a long, piercing tone.

My last thought: If I could do it all again, I'd never love her. Never.

Then, blackness.

A gasp.

I shot up, my heart hammering.

Sunlight, bright, streamed through a window. My window.

My old room.

Posters of bands I hadn't thought about in decades were on the wall.

I looked at my hands.

Smooth, young. Not the liver-spotted claws of a man near seventy.

Panic clawed at my throat.

I scrambled out of bed, my legs surprisingly strong, and rushed to the bathroom mirror.

A seventeen-year-old kid stared back.

Liam Walker, before everything went wrong.

Before Sophia. Before the hardware store chain I never really wanted. Before forty years of a quiet, empty house.

It was summer. Three months before senior year.

A second chance.

My God, a second chance.

The regret, the weight of that loveless life, it was still fresh, a raw wound.

But now, there was something else.

A fierce, burning determination.

This time, things would be different.

No Sophia. No arranged marriage. No quiet desperation.

I would study. I would get into a good college.

Maybe tech, or finance. Something to make Dad's business, Walker's Hardware, truly thrive, but on my terms.

Not just scrape by. Not just exist.

This time, I would live.

And Sophia Hayes?

She could have her life. I wanted no part of it.

This time, I wouldn't even look her way.