His Second Chance, Her Regret

I woke up in a hotel suite, still in my tuxedo, on my wedding day, October 12th, 2014. My fiancée, Sarah Jenkins, stood before me, her face pale, telling me to get out.

The jarring part was that in my memory, Sarah was dead. She had died ten years later, throwing herself in front of me during a car crash, her last words a plea for me to "live well." This was our wedding day, ten years in the past, a second chance.

I knew why I was here. I had spent a decade consumed by regret, forcing Sarah into a loveless marriage for a business deal. I later discovered her diary, filled with her true love for Mark Johnson, something she never had for me. After her death, I yearned to undo my mistakes. A locket, sold to me by a strange old man, promised a way to fix a great regret. Now, I was back.

The voice from the locket echoed in my mind, "Her death is a fixed point. Unless her three great regrets are undone, the end will remain the same." I knew those regrets: not fighting for Mark, giving up her music, and Mark's car accident, which had happened a year into our miserable marriage.

To start, I crossed my name off the marriage certificate and wrote Mark Johnson's in its place. Sarah's call came shortly after: Mark was in an accident. My blood ran cold, she accused me, "This is your fault! You did this!"

She demanded I fix it because his rare blood type matched mine. Bleeding myself dry for her, I watched Sarah's rage turn to tearful accusation, "You did this, Ethan! So you're going to fix it!" I thought she understood my sacrifice for her and Mark's happiness. But as I collapsed from donating double the amount of blood, she screamed, "Cutting his brake lines... Ethan, that was monstrous!" She believed I was the one who sabotaged Mark's car.

I had tried to save her, but instead, I became the villain. I chose to disappear from her life. The locket's work was done; I had erased her regrets. Now, only my own new life remained.

"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.

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.