CHAPTER 4 — The First Thread Breaks

Ethan didn’t sleep that night.

He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to his fan spin in slow circles as if it were trying to hypnotize him into calmness. But no amount of slow spinning could calm someone who had lived dozens of lifetimes and watched the same girl die in every one of them.

His past flooded him in flashes—her hand slipping from his in one life, her voice faint in another, her last breath warm against his cheek in a third. Every memory felt stitched into his heartbeat.

And then there was this one.

This Lia.

The one sitting in a bright classroom, laughing at dumb jokes, eating strawberry milk bars at lunch, and calling him “mysterious guy” because she didn’t know him yet.

Because she didn’t remember.

She never remembers.

By morning, Ethan’s eyes were red from lack of sleep, but his resolve was stronger than ever. This time—this lifetime—Lia would not die. He would make sure of it.

The Study Session That Wasn’t a Study Session

The sun was still bright when Ethan reached school, even though he arrived earlier than usual. He stood near the courtyard, pretending to scroll through his phone while really just waiting.

Waiting for her.

At 7:48 AM she walked in, wearing the same navy backpack she always wore, her hair tied in a messy ponytail with a scrunchie that looked like it had fought a war and lost.

And she was… eating.

“Is that—” he squinted “—pizza?”

She looked up at him, cheeks full like a hamster. “Breakfast,” she declared proudly, waving the slice. “Leftovers are life.”

Ethan couldn’t help it—he laughed. Out loud. The sound startled even him.

Lia blinked at him, then smiled so big it made something warm flare in his ribs.

“Oh my God, you laugh! I thought you only did mysterious stares and tragic brooding.”

“I do not brood,” he said, offended.

“Ethan, your whole face is the definition of brooding.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but she shoved the pizza slice toward him.

“Want some?”

He stared at it for a moment.

In two lifetimes, she had offered him food, and he had declined both times.

In one of those lifetimes, she had died later that day.

He took the pizza slice.

Her eyes widened. “You… actually said yes?”

“Maybe I’m changing,” he said softly.

“Good! Because if you were as dramatic as yesterday your whole life, we’d need to stage an intervention.”

“You don’t know my life,” he muttered.

“Yet,” she said with a wink.

His heart stuttered. That wink. She used to do that in their third life together—when they were couriers delivering letters between villages. She’d wink at him every time she tricked him into carrying both satchels.

How could she be so familiar and yet so unaware?

Chaos in Literature Class (Feat: Ethan’s Suffering)

By second period, everyone in Literature was vibrating because today was group project day. And group project day at Crestwood High meant exactly two things:

Drama

Emotional distress

Lia slid into the seat beside Ethan and whispered, “Please, I beg you, don’t leave me alone with the chaotic people.”

“You’re calling me company?” he teased.

“You’re the safest option. You don’t talk much. You don’t have opinions. You don’t bite.”

“I have opinions,” he protested.

“Name one.”

“I—”

He paused.

“…I like pizza.”

She stared at him.

“…That does not count.”

But she laughed anyway.

When the teacher divided the groups, fate—or perhaps fate mocking Ethan—placed him and Lia together. Along with two other hyperactive students who immediately decided their project theme should be:

“Love Through The Ages: All The Ways It Ends.”

Ethan nearly choked.

Lia leaned in and whispered, “They’re weird.”

“You have no idea,” he muttered.

The other two began arguing about whether to include “death by tragic misunderstanding” as a category.

Lia scribbled in her notebook and slid it toward Ethan.

Are they okay???

He wrote back:

Absolutely not.

She snorted so loudly she got three stares. Ethan almost smiled.

Then the girl in their group turned to Ethan and declared, “You should be the one who narrates the tragic story. You look like someone with emotional depth.”

Ethan blinked. “…Thanks?”

“No problem. It’s actually a compliment. You look like you’ve seen things.”

Lia choked on air.

Ethan almost said “You have no idea”, but he bit his tongue.

If only they knew he had literally seen centuries.

The First Warning

After school, Lia waved him over excitedly. “Okay, so I need your help.”

“With what?”

“Math.” She sighed dramatically. “Math wants me dead.”

He stiffened. Wrong choice of words. Very wrong.

She noticed. “Hey… I’m joking. Don’t look like someone stole your soul.”

“Math does that,” he managed.

She grinned and dragged him to the courtyard bench. They spread her worksheets out while the afternoon wind made everything flap like wild wings.

Her handwriting was… chaotic. Numbers crossed out, circled, boxed, sometimes decorated with doodles of angry cats.

“That’s—” Ethan pointed at a line “—not even a number.”

“It’s a seven!”

“It looks like a fish.”

Lia gasped. “You did not just insult my seven!”

“It insulted itself by existing.”

Her laughter echoed across the courtyard, light and unforced. Each time she laughed, Ethan felt the threads of another lifetime loosen—just a little.

He had never heard her laugh like this before. Not once. Not in any life.

But the moment didn’t last.

A chill swept over him.

He didn’t know what triggered it—maybe the angle of the sunset, maybe the sound of a distant bell—but for a split second, the air shifted. He felt it.

The same cold he sensed before she died in previous lives.

The same pressure in his chest.

The same warning.

His vision blurred. The courtyard melted. Suddenly—

—there she was, coughing blood in his arms in their sixth life.

—there she was falling backward into a river in their ninth.

—there she was lying still under falling snow in their twelfth.

The world snapped back.

“Ethan?” Lia’s voice was soft. Concerned. “You… spaced out.”

He swallowed. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

No.

Not even a little.

“Yes.”

She frowned. “You don’t look fine.”

“I’m just tired.”

She studied him carefully. “Want to take a break?”

He shook his head. “No—I’m okay.”

But the truth pulsed beneath his skin like a bruise:

Something was coming.

He could feel it.

And just like before, it was aimed at her.

The Tiny Accident That Wasn’t Tiny

Lia eventually closed her notebook, stretching with a groan. “Okay, that’s enough math for today. My brain is melting.”

“Brains don’t melt.”

“Mine does.”

He rolled his eyes.

They walked out of the courtyard together. Lia was scrolling on her phone while walking—never a good combination—and Ethan stayed close beside her just in case.

Which turned out to be the right decision.

Because as they approached the street, someone on a bike zoomed past too fast, swerving straight toward her.

“Lia—!”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back just as the bike missed her by inches. The rider yelled an apology without stopping.

Lia stared at the empty space where the bike had been.

“I… wow. That was close.”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “Thanks.”

Ethan didn’t answer.

Because his heart was pounding so hard it hurt. His palms were sweating. His breath trembled.

In another life, she had died like that—hit by a runaway carriage.

This could have been it.

Another ending.

Another failure.

But he caught her.

He saved her.

For the first time in centuries, he caught her.

Lia noticed his trembling hands and gently placed hers over them. “Hey… it’s okay. I’m fine. You saved me. Really. I’m okay.”

Her voice was steady and warm, grounding him.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah. Just… be careful.”

She smiled softly. “You’re shaking more than I am. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He wasn’t.

He was terrified.

Terrified because fate had just taken its first shot.

And he knew from experience:

When the first thread breaks, more will follow.

The Walk Home

They walked slowly. Ethan stayed close, eyes scanning everything—the cars, the sidewalks, the people. Every small noise made him tense.

Lia nudged him gently. “You look like a bodyguard.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Oh? Am I in danger?” she teased lightly.

He didn’t smile.

Lia’s own smile faded. She stepped in front of him and looked straight into his eyes. “Ethan.”

His breath caught. Her gaze was warm, but serious.

“Whatever you’re carrying,” she said softly, “you don’t have to carry it alone.”

His heart ached. You told me this once before, he wanted to say. In a life you can’t remember.

But instead he whispered, “I can’t let anything happen to you.”

Her eyes widened at the intensity of his voice.

“Ethan… nothing’s going to happen to me.”

He wished he could believe that.

But the day had already shown him the truth.

Fate had found them.

Again.

And this time—this one, single, fragile lifetime—

He would fight it.

Even if it broke him.

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