She pushed the bouquet into my hands, then took a deep breath as if gathering her courage.
“Sictra.”
“Hmm?”
“I just feel like you know something I don’t. Ever since that day Linda transferred to our school, something’s been different… I can’t really put it into words. If this makes no sense, just forget I said anything.”
She avoided the bouquet, hesitantly stepped closer, and hugged me gently.
“Come back soon. When you’re back, I still want to be your friend.”
The night before I left, I sat with my mom on the balcony, the evening breeze brushing past us.
She looked at me, hesitating to speak.
I held her hand and gazed into her eyes. “Mom, don’t worry about me.”
In my previous life, my mother died in a car accident.
As long as she was alive, no matter how biased my dad was, Shawn never dared to truly harm me.
The thought sent a sudden chill through me.
In my past life, toward the end, Shawn’s obsession with Linda pushed him to the brink of madness.
Could my mother’s sudden car accident have been more than just an accident?
The idea gripped me, and I unconsciously tightened my hold on her hand.
“Please be careful and take care of yourself,” I urged, pausing for a moment before adding, “…and watch out for Shawn.”
“Sierra, you seem different from before.”
My mother stared at me in surprise, a hint of confusion in her eyes. Then she sighed.
“That’s where I failed as a mother. You used to be so naive, believing whatever anyone told you. I warned you about Alec, but you wouldn’t listen. You insisted, ‘He’s not like that.”
“And on your birthday, when I tried to get your dad to give you shares in the company, you completely undercut me, saying, ‘Jewelry and dresses are flue. It drove the crazy
“Back then, I just wanted you to be a little smarter, a little rewder. But if this version of you came at some terrible cost, I’d rather you stayed the way you were silly and naive.”
In this world, there was no mother who wouldn’t understand her child.
In my past life, I was just a fool–always seeing the best people, always assuming the kindest intentions.
That was why Linda fooled me over and over again, and yet never struck back.
That was why, in the end, I died at my own engagement party.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I said, pressing a hand to the corner of my reddened eye as a faint smile curved my lips.
“In this world where only the strong survive, naive fools are nothing but prey.”
It was just a shame that I had to die once to finally understand that lesson.
The year I left the country, dragging my suitcase behind me I was only eighteen.
Everything around me the environment, the people, the culture–was entirely unfamiliar.
And yet, I felt no fear.
Because I knew too much about what was going to happen.
Even if the details were hazy, the key turning points and pivotal moments were clear enough for me to plan and
act.
The most critical one was two years later.
In my previous life, when I was twenty, Shawn received news through certain channels and flew to Golden Miles to strike a deal with a man named Harold Cross.
That man held the cutting–edge core technology everyone was after.
