Introduction

The first thing I felt was the slow, steady beep of a machine.

I opened my eyes to a sterile white ceiling, definitely not my bedroom.

A nurse rushed in, dropping her clipboard, whispering, "She' s awake!"

Then a doctor: "Mrs. Hayes? Ava? Can you tell me your name?"

"Ava Reed... Ava Hayes."

"And the year?"

"2023. It' s October."

Their pitying looks made my skin crawl. "Ava," the doctor said gently, "It' s not 2023."

He pointed to a digital screen: July 12, 2038.

Fifteen years. Gone. Just like that.

The car crash that felt like yesterday had apparently happened a decade and a half ago.

My Lily, my four-year-old daughter, would be nineteen.

My husband, Ethan...

I called him, desperate, finding his contact on a sleek, alien device.

A voice answered, but it wasn' t his. It was cold, hollow.

"Who is this?"

"Ethan? It' s me. It' s Ava."

Then, a harsh, bitter laugh. "My wife is dead. She died fifteen years ago. Don' t you dare use her name again."

He was about to hang up.

"The scar!" I screamed, "Under your left rib, from Miller' s Peak! And Lily... she called her bear 'Sir Reginald Fluffen-Bottom' !"

Silence on the line. Then a whisper: "How... how do you know that?"

Who was this stranger on the phone? What had happened to my life, my family?

I was Ava Reed, a woman robbed of fifteen years.

"Because I am your wife, you idiot. Oceanville General, Room 304. Ten minutes."

I hung up, a cold, hard knot forming in my stomach.

Ethan never showed. Instead, a slick lawyer offered me a hotel, a car, a credit card.

I took the car.

My daughter. Lily.