Chapter 1

"Get out."

The voice was cold and filled with a familiar dislike.

I opened my eyes, my head throbbing. I was in a hotel suite, the kind reserved for weddings. I was still wearing a tuxedo.

Across from me stood Sarah Jenkins, her face pale under the makeup, her wedding dress looking like a cage she was trapped in.

"Did you hear me, Ethan? I said get out."

Her words hit me, but my mind was spinning. This wasn't right. Sarah was dead.

I scrambled for my phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up.

October 12th, 2014.

My breath caught in my throat. This was our wedding day. Ten years in the past.

The memory of the crash came back in a rush. The screech of tires on wet pavement, the blinding headlights of the truck, the violent impact.

Sarah had thrown herself in front of me. I remembered holding her, the warmth of her blood seeping through my shirt. Her last words whispered against my ear.

"Ethan... live well."

Her parents had never forgiven me. At her funeral, her mother had slapped me, her voice shaking with grief. "You ruined her life, and then you got her killed! Why wasn' t it you?"

I didn' t have an answer. For ten years, I lived with the weight of that question. I had forced her into a loveless marriage because of a business deal between our families. I gave her a decade of misery.

After her death, I found her diary. It was filled with entries about her childhood sweetheart, Mark Johnson. Page after page, year after year, it was always him. She never loved me. Not for a single day. The last entry, written the morning of the crash, was about him.

My life became a hollow echo of regret. I poured everything into my architecture career, trying to build something that mattered, but it was all meaningless. Then I found the antique shop, the strange old man, and the locket he sold me. He' d said it could offer a second chance, a way to fix a great regret.

I' d clutched it as I fell asleep, wishing with every part of my soul to go back, not to marry her, to set her free.

And now I was here.

"Sarah," I said, my voice hoarse. "Let' s... let' s call this off."

She stared at me, her eyes widening in disbelief. "What are you talking about? Are you insane?"

"I' m serious. We don' t have to do this. We can tell our parents the wedding is off."

"It' s too late!" she hissed, her voice trembling. "The guests are downstairs. My parents would kill me. They' d kill you. This is what they want."

Of course. This was never about us. It was a merger, sealed with a marriage certificate.

She turned away from me, her shoulders shaking. She pulled out her own phone, her thumb swiping across the screen. The lock screen lit up, showing a picture of her and Mark, smiling under a cherry blossom tree.

A familiar pain tightened in my chest. It was a pain I had lived with for ten years in my past life, a pain I thought I' d never feel again.

The officiant was supposed to come up soon for the marriage certificate. It was sitting on the small desk by the window.

I stood up, my legs unsteady. I walked over to the desk. Sarah didn' t even look at me, her attention fixed on the picture of the man she truly loved.

I picked up the certificate. Ethan Miller and Sarah Jenkins.

My hand trembled as I picked up the pen next to it. I looked at Sarah' s back, at the way her shoulders slumped in defeat. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be with him.

With a deep breath, I drew a thick line through my name.

In the empty space, I wrote a new one: Mark Johnson.