---- Chapter 20 The world warped into a nightmarish echo of a past he'd fought desperately to erase. The frantic drive to the hospital, the sterile smell, the hushed, pitying voices of the doctors. It was all the same. And it was all wrong. Ericka lay in the hospital bed, pale and still, a web of tubes and wires connecting her to the beeping machines that were keeping her alive. Caleb sat by her side, holding her hand, his own life suspended in the rhythmic pulse of the monitor. He didn't eat. He didn't sleep. He just watched her, his mind a maelstrom of guilt and terror. He had been given a second chance, a miracle, and he had failed. The universe was cruel, its patterns inescapable. The police had arrested Hailie at the scene, her mad, triumphant laughter a chilling counterpoint to the sirens. She was in prison, where she belonged. My parents' company collapsed completely, their fortune turned to dust. They were ruined, left with nothing but their guilt. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was the still, silent woman in the bed. "Please, Ericka," he whispered, his voice raw from days of unshed tears. "Please wake up. Don't leave me. Not again." ---- Days turned into a week. The doctors were grim. Her injuries were too severe. There was nothing more they could do. They advised him to say his goodbyes. He refused to listen. He refused to give up. He talked to her for hours, telling her about their future, the house he would build for them, the children they would have. He read to her from her favorite books. He played her favorite music. He willed her to come back to him. One evening, as he was holding her hand, he felt it. A flicker of movement. A faint squeeze. His head snapped up. "Ericka?" Her eyelids fluttered. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Tears of pure, unadulterated joy streamed down Caleb's face. He shouted for the doctor, his voice choked with relief. "She's back! She's back!" She was weak, but she was awake. The miracle he had prayed for had happened. Again. But as she recovered, a strange quietness settled over her. She was distant, her eyes holding a sadness that he couldn't reach. He told himself it was just the trauma of the accident. He smothered her with love and attention, sure that he could heal this, too. One day, she asked him to go out and buy her a specific kind of paint from an art store across town. She smiled at him, a ---- faint, sad smile, and he was so happy to see it that he didn't question it. He didn't see the finality in her eyes. He was gone for hours. When he returned to the hospital, his heart was light for the first time in weeks. But her room was empty. The panic, cold and familiar, seized him. He saw her phone on the nightstand. Next to it was a letter. Addressed to him. With trembling hands, he opened it. The handwriting was weak, but it was hers. "My dearest Caleb," it began. "If you are reading this, it means | have left. Please, do not try to find me." "When | woke up from the car accident, | remembered everything. Not just from this life, but from the one before. | remember the coma, and Hailie, and the three years of hell. | remember kneeling on the gravel. | remember being locked in the sauna. | remember the fall from the rooftop. | remember you choosing her over me in the water. | remember the bridge." "| know you remember it, too. | saw it in your eyes the day you came to my hospital room. You were given a second chance, and you used it to try and save me. You tried to build a perfect life for us, to erase the past. And | love you for that. | love you so much it hurts." "But Caleb, some things can't be erased. The love we have ---- now is real, but it's built on a foundation of unimaginable pain. Every time you hold me, | feel the ghost of your hands as they punished me. Every time you kiss me, | taste the ashes of the life you helped destroy." "| cannot live like this. The memories are a poison, and they will kill anything good we try to build. | have to go. | have to find a place where | can be something other than a victim or a survivor." "Live your life, Caleb. Be happy. Find peace. But my future can no longer include you." "Goodbye, my love. Ericka." The letter slipped from his fingers. The room spun. She remembered. She remembered it all. His perfect world, the one he had so carefully reconstructed, shattered into a million pieces. He had not saved her. He had only trapped her in a gilded cage of memory. The pain, the grief, the absolute loss... it was too much. A sharp, searing pain exploded in his chest. The world went black. The steady beep of a heart monitor. The smell of antiseptic. He was in a hospital bed. His body was on fire. He looked ---- down and saw burns on his arms. He was back in the burning funeral parlor. The second chance... the perfect life with Ericka... it had all been a dream. A dying man's last, desperate fantasy. Ericka was gone. She had died on the bridge. She had chosen to leave him. And he had been left to burn in the hell of his own making. "Ericka," he whispered, as the flames closed in. "I'm coming." The heart monitor beside his real body in the real hospital let out a long, flat tone. His life, just like his dream, was over.