Alexander Hayes despises me for ten years after his beloved Eleanor dies.
I desperately try to win his love, but he only sneers. "Want to make me happy? Then disappear forever."
When flames engulf our apartment building, Alex rushes back to save me. He pulls me to safety but gets trapped himself, dying in the inferno.
His final words haunt me: "My biggest mistake... was ever knowing you."
At his funeral, his parents blame me through their tears. "We should have let Alex marry Eleanor instead. You destroyed our son's life."
Everyone wishes I had died instead of him, myself included. They throw me out of his funeral.
A few years later, someone invents a time device, and I travel back in time.
This time, I'll rewrite history and set us all free.
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1
The blinding light faded, and the hum of the time machine died with it. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn’t block out the sound of Alexander “Alex” Hayes’s mocking voice.
“My family all but put a gun to my head to get me to marry you, Yve Martinez. You must be feeling pretty smug right now, aren't you?”
“But what do you really get out of this? Do you honestly think we’ll be happy?”
My eyes flew open. There he was—Alex.
He stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets with a lazy slouch, but the scorn in his eyes was as sharp as ever.
The Alex from the future was a man of quiet dignity, but the boy in front of me was still something wild and untamed. It felt like I was looking at a ghost from another life.
A familiar sting pricked my nose.
The time machine worked. I had really come back.
But there was a tiny glitch—I hadn't returned to our first meeting. I was back on the day we were supposed to register our marriage at City Hall, ten years ago.
Well, at least I was in time to change everything.
I forced back a sob, my eyes greedily drinking him in, trying to carve this version of him into my memory.
“Alex,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady. “The reason you don’t want to marry me is because you’re in love with Eleanor Sterling. Right?”
That seemed to hit a nerve. He stiffened, his gaze turning icy. “So what if I am? We’re standing at the entrance to City Hall. You think you can back out now?”
I nodded honestly. “Yes.”
Alex let out a cold laugh. “I don’t have time for your games. Let’s just sign the papers and get this over with. I’ll wait for you outside.”
Watching his retreating back, my heart felt like it was being pricked by a thousand needles.
I had loved Alex for two lifetimes.
He had saved me from danger twice, and I had naively believed that meant he felt something for me, too.
Even his parents used to tell me, “Alex just has a sharp tongue, but his heart is soft. Why else would he risk his life for you twice if he didn't love you?”
I believed them. And I married him, my heart full of hope.
It wasn’t until the love of his life passed away that I finally understood. He had never loved me.
His dying words—"I wish I’d never met you"—shattered me completely.
My decade of love had been a decade of torture for him.
Before activating the time machine, I was warned that I had to resolve Alex’s three greatest regrets to sever our twisted fate.
If I succeeded, he wouldn’t die for my sake at the age of 32. We could both have our own, peaceful lives.
I lowered my head and, when the clerk wasn't looking, I quickly changed the bride's name on the marriage application to Eleanor Sterling.
I knew them by heart, the three regrets he’d scribbled down in a diary he never knew I’d found.
Regret marrying Yve.
Regret not fighting his family.
Regret not saving Eleanor.
Today, I could at least make the first one right.
I walked out holding the “marriage certificate.” Alex was waiting by the door.
He instinctively reached for the document, about to flip it open. But I was faster, grabbing his hand to stop him.
