Ethan Reid had lived through seventeen years exactly twelve times.

At least, that’s what his memories told him.

Most people woke up on the first day of school thinking about schedules, uniforms, who they’d sit with at lunch, and whether they’d survive math class without crying.

Ethan woke up thinking about the girl who died in his arms in five different centuries.

Talk about starting the morning with trauma.

He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly as the images of past lives flickered like a broken film reel — dusty streets of an ancient village, city lights from the 1920s, a snow-covered field in a world that no longer existed. In every timeline, he was someone different. A merchant’s son. A traveler. A soldier. A writer. A nameless boy with nothing but hope.

But every time…

He met her.

And every time…

He lost her.

It didn’t matter how much he tried. How closely he watched her. How desperately he begged whatever power was playing with their lives like a twisted game of fate. The ending was always the same.

Yet this morning, something felt different — a strange, sharp awareness, like the universe was leaning forward, watching.

Maybe… maybe this was the one.

He sat up, grabbed his uniform shirt, and stared at himself in the mirror. His reflection looked perfectly normal for a seventeen-year-old boy: messy black hair, half-dead eyes (from trauma, not lack of sleep… well, maybe both), and a very average height he still wasn’t emotionally ready to accept.

But behind that normal appearance was someone who remembered drowning, burning, falling, losing, running — countless times.

“Yeah,” he muttered to the mirror, “looking great for someone who’s died emotionally twelve times.”

He tried to smile.

It looked more like a grimace.

Shrugging it off, he grabbed his bag and headed out.

Crestwood High was buzzing with students as usual — a haze of morning chatter, squeaky sneakers, and overly enthusiastic teachers trying to look like they enjoyed waking up at 6 AM.

Ethan stepped through the school gates, and instantly — instantly — his chest tightened.

He felt it.

The pull.

Like a thread tugging him forward, nudging him toward something inevitable.

He knew this feeling too well.

He followed it through the courtyard, weaving through groups of students, until he stopped so suddenly that someone behind him bumped into him.

“Bro, move!” the annoyed student complained.

Ethan didn’t move.

Because there she was.

Standing under the shade of a tall eucalyptus tree, sunlight filtering through the leaves, her hair glowing softly in the morning sun.

Lia Carter.

Alive.

Seventeen.

Completely unaware that she had died more times than he could count.

She laughed at something her friend said, lightly hitting the girl’s shoulder with a playful “Oh my God, stop!” Her laughter was bright — brighter than he remembered in most lives. Softer here, more innocent. High school tended to do that.

Ethan’s heart reacted before his mind could stop it. It leaped, warm and aching all at once.

He had loved her in a dozen different worlds.

Sometimes she loved him back.

Sometimes she didn’t.

But she always died first.

Not this time.

He stepped forward automatically — fate pulling, memories rising — but stopped again when someone called his name from behind.

“Ethan!”

He turned.

Lucas Kim, his seatmate in middle school and the only person who thought Ethan’s “weird vibe” made him interesting rather than concerning, jogged over.

“Dude!” Lucas grinned. “I thought you ghosted me forever.”

“No…” Ethan blinked. “I wouldn’t ghost you.”

Lucas raised a brow. “Bro. You disappear at least once a year without telling anyone. If that’s not ghosting, then—”

“It’s not ghosting,” Ethan said quickly.

It was usually emotional burnout from reliving seventeen traumatic lifetimes in dreams, but he couldn’t exactly say that.

Lucas sighed. “Anyway. You ready for junior year?”

Ethan’s eyes drifted toward Lia again.

She still didn’t see him.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I think… I think I might be.”

Homeroom was noisy, desks scraping across the floor, students shouting greetings, someone chewing at a volume that was definitely illegal. Ethan walked in, scanning the room casually.

Then he froze for the third time in fifteen minutes.

She was there.

Sitting by the window.

Light on her desk.

Head rested on her palm as she doodled absentmindedly.

He remembered that pose.

She had done it in another life too — in a world lit by lanterns instead of fluorescent lights.

Just like this.

Fate had no creativity sometimes.

He took a seat two rows away, trying to calm the pounding in his chest. But the second he sat down, Lucas leaned forward from behind him.

“Dude, why do you look like you saw a ghost?”

Ethan gave him a deadpan look.

If only you knew.

Before he could answer, their teacher walked in.

“All right, everyone, settle down! We’re assigning partners for the semester project. Once you’re paired, you’ll be stuck together until winter break.”

Groans erupted because students always acted like having a partner meant the end of life as they knew it.

Ethan wasn’t worried about partners.

He was worried about fate.

And fate had a sick sense of humor.

“Ethan Reid,” the teacher announced.

He sat up straighter.

“Your partner is—”

Please not someone annoying. Please not someone chaotic. Please—

“Lia Carter.”

Ethan almost choked on his own oxygen.

Someone behind him whispered “Lucky dude,” and someone else said “She’s so pretty,” but Ethan didn’t hear any of it. The world narrowed down to a single breath.

Lia.

His Lia.

In every life.

Slowly, she turned toward him.

And for the first time in twelve lifetimes, when their eyes met…

She paused.

Her brows knit together lightly, her lips parting as if something tugged at her memories — something soft and distant.

Ethan held his breath.

Did she… recognize him?

Even a little?

The moment stretched, quiet and strange.

Then she blinked and smiled politely.

“Hi. I guess we’re partners.”

Her voice was so familiar it hurt.

Ethan nodded, somehow managing a normal human expression. “Yeah. Um… I’m Ethan.”

“I know,” she laughed. “The teacher just said your name.”

Right. Brain. Function.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s okay.” She tilted her head slightly. “You look like you were about to pass out. Are you nervous about projects or something?”

Nervous?

He had watched her die twelve times.

“Oh… yeah. Something like that,” he whispered.

She smiled again — a bright, innocent smile that held none of the shadows he carried.

For the first time in centuries, Ethan felt something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time:

Hope.

Maybe this was the lifetime that would break the cycle.

Maybe this time… he could save her.

Maybe this time… they both survived.

Ethan had faced terrifying things across twelve lifetimes.

Wars. Storms. Assassins.

A runaway cart in the 1800s that really shouldn’t have been that fast.

Yet nothing — nothing — had ever scared him as much as sitting next to Lia Carter in the school library, pretending he wasn’t having a full internal meltdown.

“Okay,” Lia said, flipping open her notebook, “so for this project, we need to choose a theme. Something like—science fiction, or history, or social issues.”

Ethan nodded.

Then kept nodding.

And continued nodding until she gave him a suspicious look.

“Um… you good?”

“Me?” He straightened so fast his pencil fell off the table. “Yeah. Totally fine. Perfectly fine. Very fine.”

She blinked. “That’s… a lot of fine.”

He coughed, cheeks warming. “Sorry. Just… thinking.”

The truth was he wasn’t thinking.

He was remembering.

Remembering her voice from a lifetime where she said his name by candle flame.

Remembering her laugh from a world where she wore a crown of flowers.

Remembering the way she used to poke his forehead whenever he overthought something.

And now here she was — the same soul in a new body — teasing him with the exact same expression she’d had centuries ago.

He couldn’t handle it.

“So…” Lia said, dragging her pencil across the page, “if you could choose anything — literally anything — for this project, what would you want to do?”

Ethan stared at her.

In his memories, she had asked him the same thing once.

But that time, it was about choosing a future together.

A future they never got.

His chest tightened.

“Ethan?”

“Anything except being partners with someone annoying.”

It slipped out before he could stop it.

Lia burst into a laugh — bright, soft, and completely unguarded. “Well, lucky you. I’m only annoying on weekends.”

He stared.

Then — for the first time in this lifetime — he laughed.

Really laughed.

It felt strange.

Warm.

Alive.

She smiled at him, a bit surprised. “You should laugh more often. You look less… uh… dead inside.”

His smile faltered. “Oh. Thanks?”

“No, no, I mean— it’s a compliment! I swear!” Lia flailed her hands. “It’s just — you have this whole mysterious, quiet aura. Like one of those tragic boys in books who’s hiding something deep and emotional.”

Ethan froze.

Lia noticed and panicked a little. “I didn’t mean you’re tragic! I mean — maybe you are — but like, in a cool way? Not like trauma-trauma! But like—”

He held up a hand. “It’s fine. Really.”

Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank God.”

He watched her scribble notes for a moment, the sunlight hitting her hair in the exact way he remembered from a past life — the one where she had lived the longest.

Just before fate took her anyway.

He forced his eyes down at his textbook.

Focus.

This lifetime would be different.

He would make sure of it.

“Okay,” Lia said happily, “I vote we do something mysterious for our project.”

Ethan snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just… seem like the type.”

Lia gasped dramatically. “The type? The type?! Wow, Ethan, you barely know me and already I have ‘a type’?”

He smirked. “You literally said you’re annoying on weekends.”

“That was a joke!”

He raised a brow.

“Okay, it was half a joke,” she admitted.

He shook his head, smiling. She was different in every life, but something always stayed the same — the spark, the energy, the softness.

“So what kind of mysterious?” Ethan asked.

“Like past lives. Reincarnation. Fate. Stuff like that.”

Ethan’s heart tripped.

Of course she chose that. Fate was cruel — but it was also comedic, apparently.

He swallowed. “Why that topic?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “I just always found it… interesting. Like, what if you meet someone and feel like you’ve known them forever? Or what if you’re living something you’ve already lived but don’t remember? Kinda cool, right?”

Ethan’s throat tightened.

He wanted to tell her.

Everything.

Every life.

Every attempt.

Every ending.

Every failure.

But in every lifetime, when he told her, things went wrong.

So this time…

He wouldn’t.

Not yet.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Kinda cool.”

Lia leaned forward, studying him carefully. She wasn’t supposed to be this observant. Not this early. Not in this life.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked softly. “You keep spacing out.”

“Just tired.”

“You look tired.” She tilted her head. “Do you sleep at all?”

“Sometimes,” he muttered.

“Well, you should sleep more.” She poked his forehead — the exact same gesture she had done in another life. “Your brain is fried.”

Ethan froze.

That touch — that exact motion — hit him like a storm.

A memory surged forward:

Her giggling as she poked his forehead in a world lit by paper lanterns.

“I know you’re worried,” she’d said.

“But you don’t have to carry everything alone.”

He blinked hard, the memory dissolving painfully.

Lia didn’t notice his reaction. She was too busy rambling about project ideas.

“We could make it fun,” she said brightly. “Like interview students about déjà vu or dreams or mysterious feelings. I think it would be cool! And not too boring either!”

Ethan stared at her, wonder and fear tangled inside him.

She had no memory.

No past lives.

No tragic endings.

No pain.

And yet somehow, her instincts still aligned with the echoes of what they once were.

Maybe fate wasn’t trying to punish them this time.

Maybe it was nudging them closer.

He felt his chest loosen, just a little.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s do that.”

She looked thrilled. “Really?! You’re okay with it?”

“Yeah. It suits us.”

“Us?” She wiggled her brows. “Look at you sounding like a team player.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Ooh, mysterious boy with emotional walls. My favorite.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Please stop.”

“Nope,” she grinned.

He tried not to laugh. Failed miserably. Lia’s grin grew wider.

They worked for the next hour — well, she worked while he tried not to accidentally trigger five centuries’ worth of grief by staring at her too long.

But for the first time in any life, he didn’t feel dread creeping in.

He felt something lighter.

Hope.

When the bell rang, they packed up their things. Lia stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“Hey,” she said softly, “this was fun.”

Fun?

They were doing homework.

But when she said it, he believed her.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was.”

She smiled — soft, almost shy. “See you tomorrow, partner.”

He watched her walk away, sunlight chasing her steps.

As she disappeared down the hallway, Ethan whispered under his breath:

“This time… I won’t lose you.”

And for the first time in twelve lifetimes…

He believed it might be possible.

Ethan liked school hallways about as much as he liked fire, lly prepared for.

Which explained why Ethan nearly had cliffs, and dangerous 18th-century diseases.

Mostly because hallways were unpredictable.

Someone could bump into you, a teacher could yell, and worst of all—

People could talk to you.

Especially people you weren’t emotiona a full heart attack when he turned a corner and came face-to-face with Lia Carter.

“Ethan!” she said, bright and breathless. “Perfect timing! I was literally just about to text you.”

He blinked. “You… have my number?”

“No,” she said proudly, “but I was going to ask for it.”

“Oh.”

His brain short-circuited for a millisecond.

She held her phone out expectantly. “Come on, partner. We’re interviewing people tomorrow for the project, so we need to coordinate.”

“Right.” He typed it in slowly, like the phone might explode if he hit the wrong number.

When he handed it back, she glanced at the screen and began giggling.

Ethan froze. “What?”

“Your contact name,” she said, showing him her phone. “I put ‘Mystery Boy 🕵️‍♂️✨’.”

His eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because you’re mysterious!”

“I’m not mysterious.”

“You absolutely are,” she insisted. “You look like you know everyone’s secrets.”

I do, Ethan thought darkly.

I know yours from twelve different lifetimes.

But he didn’t say that.

She kept walking beside him, swinging her bag lightly. “So! I had this weird dream last night.”

Ethan stiffened. “Dream?”

“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose. “It was super random, but kinda… emotional? I don’t usually have dreams like that.”

“What was it about?”

She shrugged. “I was standing on this old hill — super windy — and I could hear someone calling my name. But I couldn’t see them. I was looking everywhere, and it felt so… important.”

Ethan stopped walking.

His heartbeat slammed into his ribs.

He knew that hill.

He knew that wind.

He knew that moment.

It was the life where they were shepherd kids in a tiny mountain village — young, innocent, always running ahead of him.

He remembered calling her name over and over as the storm rolled in.

Lia kept going, not noticing he’d frozen. “It was just a dream, but I woke up feeling… I dunno. Sad? Like something was missing.”

Ethan swallowed hard. “Do you… dream like that often?”

“Nope!” she chirped. “If I dream at all, it’s usually about losing my homework or falling into a hole. But this one felt different.”

Different.

Different always meant dangerous.

He forced a calm expression. “Dreams can be weird. Don’t think too much about it.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” she laughed. “Though you’re acting like it’s top-secret classified information.”

He looked away. “It’s just a dream.”

“Uh-huh,” she said sassily, poking his arm. “You say that, but you look like you’re about to fight the dream personally.”

He almost smiled. “Maybe I am.”

They parted ways after their second class, and Ethan tried — genuinely tried — to focus on his day like a normal student.

But his mind wouldn’t stop replaying her dream.

She wasn’t supposed to remember anything.

Not a single moment.

Not from any lifetime.

Their cycle depended on that.

If she remembered too much…

If her past-life consciousness started bleeding into this one…

Bad things followed.

He had learned that painfully well across twelve worlds.

But this is the life we succeed, he reminded himself.

I just need to stay calm.

Deep breath.

Relax shoulders.

Don’t panic.

He panicked.

At lunch, he sat across from Lucas, who was halfway through a plate of fries like a man who had never tasted food before.

“Dude,” Lucas said with his mouth full, “you look like someone told you you’re adopted by aliens.”

Ethan sighed. “Do I look that stressed?”

“You look like you’re planning a heist.”

He wasn’t planning a heist.

He was planning to survive fate.

But he wasn’t ready to explain that to someone whose biggest concern was whether fries were crispy enough.

“Hey,” Lucas said suddenly, pointing a fry at him, “are you sure you’re okay partnering with Lia? Everyone saw you freeze in homeroom. It was like someone pressed pause on you.”

“I didn’t freeze.”

“You did,” Lucas insisted. “Like, full frozen yogurt.”

Ethan groaned and dropped his head onto the table.

Lucas blinked. “Whoa. Okay. You like her?”

He jerked up. “No.”

“You totally like her!”

“Lucas—”

“It’s written all over your face.”

“It’s not—”

“You fell for her.”

Ethan rubbed his temples. “I’ve known her for one day.”

Lucas grinned. “Love at first sight.”

If only he knew it was love at first life.

Ethan sighed again. “Just… drop it.”

“Fine,” Lucas said, though the mischief in his eyes made it very clear he was absolutely not dropping it. “But just saying — if you start writing poetry in your notebook, I’m telling the whole class.”

After lunch, Ethan headed toward the courtyard, hoping the fresh air would calm him down. Instead, he ran into Lia again — literally.

She rounded a corner, collided with him, and dropped her folder. Papers scattered everywhere like academic confetti.

“Ah!” she yelped, kneeling. “Sorry! Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” he said, kneeling too.

They reached for the same paper and froze, hands brushing.

A shock ran through him — not painful, but familiar.

Warm.

Old.

Like touching a memory.

Lia blinked at him, eyes wide. “Weird… I just felt—”

“Static?” he blurted quickly.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Like déjà vu but stronger.”

He forced a laugh. “You probably rubbed your feet on the carpet or something.”

“We’re outside,” she deadpanned.

“…Right.”

He grabbed the last paper and handed it to her. She smiled gratefully, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Thanks, Ethan. You always show up at the weirdest times.”

Don’t say it.

Don’t say it.

Don’t say—

“I’ve always been good at catching you.”

She froze.

He froze.

The world froze.

Her voice softened. “…What do you mean by ‘always’?”

Ethan’s heart dropped.

He scrambled for an excuse. “Uh— like earlier. In the library. And now.”

Smooth.

Very smooth.

He was emotionally collapsing but smooth.

Lia squinted suspiciously. Then she shook her head. “You’re weird.”

He exhaled. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Anyway,” she said, brightening, “are you free after school?”

“Why?”

“We should brainstorm interview questions for the project. And maybe test a few on each other?”

He hesitated.

Rule number one of every past life:

The closer they got, the worse the tragedy hit.

But rule number two was louder now:

This is the life we succeed.

Ethan nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m free.”

She beamed.

“Great! Meet me in the music room after class. It’s quiet there.”

He blinked. “…You play music?”

“Nope,” she grinned. “But the room has good vibes.”

He stared. “Good vibes?”

“Yes, Mr. Serious.” She patted his shoulder. “Try it sometime.”

He didn’t understand how she could be so effortlessly light, so full of sunshine, when he carried storms from centuries.

But he knew this:

He’d follow her anywhere.

Even if fate was watching.

After school, he walked to the music room with a strange heaviness in his chest. A mix of fear, hope, anxiety, affection — all tangled and pulling him in different directions.

He opened the door quietly.

And froze.

Lia was sitting at the piano, gently touching the keys, even though she clearly didn’t know how to play. Soft afternoon sunlight poured in, casting her in gold.

Her presence felt like déjà vu wrapped in destiny.

She turned and smiled at him — soft, warm, familiar.

“You came,” she said gently.

Ethan nodded, stepping inside.

“Yes,” he whispered.

In every lifetime… I always come back to you.