Chapter 2

As I wrote the name, the locket around my neck grew warm. A voice echoed in my mind, the voice of the old antique dealer.

A glitch in the tapestry of time, my boy. You asked to go back to the beginning, but fate has a stubborn weave. You' ve landed on the day of the knot, not the day the thread was first spun.

The voice was calm, ancient.

Her fate is tied to three great regrets. Unless they are undone, the end will remain the same. Her death is a fixed point.

I clutched the locket, my knuckles white. Three regrets.

I knew what they were. I had read them over and over in her diary until the pages were worn thin.

First, her biggest regret was not fighting for Mark. Her parents had disapproved of him, a struggling musician from a modest family. They had pushed her toward me, the "stable" choice, the architect from a well-off family.

Second, she had been forced to give up her own passion. Sarah was a brilliant cellist. She had a scholarship to Juilliard. But her parents made her turn it down to get a business degree, to one day help run the family company. She wrote about her cello gathering dust in the attic, calling it the tombstone of her dreams.

Third, and the one that haunted her the most, was Mark' s accident. About a year into our miserable marriage, Mark was in a terrible car crash. He survived but was left with a permanent limp and nerve damage in his hand that ended his music career. The diary entry from that day was tear-stained and frantic. She blamed herself, believing if she had been with him, she could have somehow prevented it.

That accident had broken something in her. She became even more withdrawn, a ghost in our house.

Now, her death felt like a heavy stone in my stomach. It wasn't just a possibility; it was a certainty unless I could change these three things.

The first step was already taken. The name on the certificate was Mark Johnson.

The door to the suite opened, and the wedding officiant, a kind-looking man in his sixties, walked in. "Ready with the certificate, folks?"

Sarah looked up, startled.

I quickly folded the paper and put it in my jacket pocket. "It' s not... quite ready," I said, forcing a calm I didn' t feel. "A small correction needed."

The officiant smiled patiently. "No problem. I' ll be back in ten."

He left, and the room was silent again. Sarah was staring at me, her expression a mixture of confusion and her usual annoyance.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"Just a typo," I lied.

She sighed, a sound I knew all too well. It was the sound of her enduring me. She picked up her phone again, her face softening as she looked at the screen.

I looked away, the sight too painful. I could hear the faint sounds of music and laughter from the reception hall downstairs. People were celebrating our union, a union that had led to nothing but misery. I thought about the next ten years of my previous life. The silent dinners, the separate bedrooms, the way we moved around each other like strangers.

And then, a surprise.

"There' s a meteor shower tonight," Sarah said, not looking at me. "The Perseids."

I froze. I remembered this. Weeks before the wedding, I had mentioned it, trying to find some common ground. I had asked her if she wanted to go watch it with me, a desperate attempt at a real date. She had just shrugged and walked away.

"I know," I said quietly.

"Do you... still want to go?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "After all this is over."

I looked at her, truly looked at her. For a split second, I saw a flicker of something that wasn't hate. It was a tiny crack in the wall she had built around herself.

But I knew what I had to do. My happiness didn't matter. Only hers did.

And her happiness was with Mark.