Summer Swim Club

My daughter joined a summer swim club, only to have her head held underwater by a classmate, pressed firmly against the powerful drainage vent.

When I saw the water turning pink, I dove in, frantic, and pulled her out.

But the immense suction had disfigured her face beyond recognition. She coughed up a mouthful of bloody water, and then she was gone.

The girl who led the attack, Tiffany, just sneered, boasting that the law couldn't touch her.

"So what? I couldn't stand her anyway. Now that she's dead, no one can compete with me for first place."

Her mother tossed a credit card at my feet with contempt.

"There's fifty thousand dollars on that. That should be enough for your daughter's worthless life, right?"

Consumed by grief and rage, I demanded justice, but my own husband stopped me.

"She's just a child, Lydia. Your daughter is gone, but does that mean another girl has to lose her freedom?"

I fought until I was exhausted, but I couldn't get them punished.

In the end, my spirit broken, I stood before my daughter's grave and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back on the day I was supposed to drive my daughter to the pool.

I turned the car around and took her straight home. But this time, a girl still died at that pool.

In my rush to leave earlier, I had left my daughters bag in the locker room.

I told her to wait in the car while I ran back in to grab it and warn the pool staff about the dangerous drain.

The moment I stepped into the natatorium, I was met with the sound of cruel laughter.

"Look at her, she's like a dead fish! Move! Why aren't you moving? Hahahaha"

The sound of three girls' laughter was piercing. The tallest of them, Tiffany, had her foot planted on a splash of blue underwater.

The sight of the blue swimsuitthe same color as my daughter'sand the water faintly tinged with red made my heart seize. If I wasn't absolutely certain my Sophie was safe in the car, I wouldn't have been able to bear it.

In my past life, Tiffany had targeted my daughter because Sophie had beaten her in academics. She was determined to crush her in extracurriculars, too.

But who was this girl? Why was this happening?

I pushed the thoughts aside. Saving her was all that mattered.

"Stop it! What do you think you're doing?!" I screamed.

Tiffany saw me, raised an eyebrow, and slowly took a step back.

"Well, well, look what we have here. The mother hen has come to protect her little chick. Fun's over, girls."

The other two girls scattered like startled rabbits, avoiding my eyes.

Even after they moved, the girl in the water was still held fast by the powerful suction, her face glued to the vent, her limbs drifting limply.

This was exactly how it happened to my Sophie. I had jumped in, but the force of the drain was too strong. I couldn't pull her free. By the time the staff finally shut off the circulation pump, it was too late. My daughter died in my arms.

The blue swimsuit, the ponytail, the small frame

I kept telling myself, This isn't my Sophie. She's safe in the car. But my hands were shaking uncontrollably.

Learning from last time, I yelled at the lifeguard.

"What are you standing there for? Can't you see someone is trapped? Get someone to shut off the pump, now!"

The teenager finally snapped out of his stupor and fumbled for his radio.

A few minutes later, I lifted the girl's limp body from the water. Her face was swollen and distorted, her features unrecognizable. She wasn't breathing. There was no pulse.

Tiffany stood off to the side, arms crossed, a faint smirk playing on her lips.

"Lady, she said she could hold her breath for three minutes. We were just helping her."

"Helping her?"

My eyes were bloodshot. I slapped her hard across the face.

"You call holding her head against a drainage vent 'helping'?"

Tiffany clutched her cheek, glaring at me.

"We were just playing! How was I supposed to know she couldn't take a joke?"

"You hit me! Do you have any idea who my father is? I'll make sure your whole family regrets this!"

Oh, I knew exactly who he was. And that knowledge made me want to tear that indifferent look right off her face.

"Playing? You call this playing? This is murder, do you understand?!"

One of the other girls, a chubby one, finally seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation, her voice trembling.

"Tiffany, maybe we should"

"Should what?" Tiffany cut her off. "You were pushing down on her just as hard as I was!"

The third girl was already sobbing. "I I want to go home"

I had no time for them. I laid the girl on the deck and started CPR, shouting at the staff to call for an ambulance.

"Call 911! We might still be able to save her!"

As I tilted her chin back to give her a breath, I noticed a small, plum-blossom-shaped birthmark behind her ear. Something flickered in my memory.

Just then, the swim coach and Tiffanys mother, Victoria, sauntered in from a side door, the coach exhaling a final puff of smoke. They saw the scene by the pool and their faces paled.

"What What happened here?!"

Tiffany immediately adopted an innocent expression and ran to her mother.

"Mommy, we were just having a breath-holding contest! She said she could do three minutes, but I guess she couldn't"

"You foolish girl!" the coach stammered, his face ashen. "I've told you a hundred times, no one in the water without my supervision!"

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again. But that doesn't give this lady the right to hit me, does it?" Tiffany pouted, but over her mother's shoulder, she shot me a triumphant smirk.

Victoria saw the red handprint on her daughter's face and pointed a finger at me.

"How dare you lay a hand on my child?"

She glanced dismissively at me and the girl on the ground. "This girl clearly wasn't following the rules, and her parents weren't watching her. A tragedy, yes, but you can't blame others for it, can you?"

In my last life, the security footage showed Tiffany pushing my daughter into the pool from behind, then the three of them dragging her to the drain and holding her down. I imagined this girl's fate was no different from my Sophie's.

I knew the agony of losing a child. No matter who this girl was, she was an innocent victim. Saving her was the priority. I refused to waste my breath arguing. My hands never stopped their rhythm as I glanced at the coach.

"Coach Miller, you bear some responsibility for this. You need to notify her parents immediately."

The coach fumbled for his phone, his hands shaking. "Right, right I'll I'll call them right now"

After a few seconds, he looked at the girl's swollen face. "Her her face is so I don't know which student this is."

I looked up, exasperated. "Check your roster! See who was scheduled for today, who called in sick, and who's still here. The one left over is"

"No need to check," Tiffany interrupted. "I know who it is."

She crouched down beside me, staring at the girl's face. Her voice was quiet, but her words were like needles in my ears.

"Isn't that your Sophie? Ma'am, don't you even recognize your own daughter?"

"You were so frantic before, I thought you knew. Or maybe you just couldn't accept the truth?"

My eyes widened. So, she thought this was my Sophie. That's why she did it.

Tiffany seemed pleased with my shocked expression. Seeing that I hadn't stopped compressions, she continued.

"You can stop trying. Haven't you noticed she hasn't responded after twenty minutes of this?"

"From the time she went under to the time you pulled her out, more than ten minutes had passed. The golden window for rescue closed long ago."

Her words hit me like a physical blow. All the strength drained from my body, and I collapsed onto the tiles, trembling.

Was I too late again?

In my past life, I couldn't save my own daughter. Now, I had failed to save this girl, too.

I fixed my gaze on Tiffany. "Why would you do this? Aren't you afraid of the consequences?!"

"Ooh, I'm so scared," she said, mockingly patting her chest. "What consequences? The law?"

"I'm only eleven. And anyone under fourteen can't be held criminally responsible, you know."

She was so close I could smell the strawberry shampoo in her hair. That sentence, that scent, had haunted my nightmares in my previous life.

Looking at her face, a grotesque mixture of childish innocence and pure malice, I could no longer contain the rage that had been building for two lifetimes. I grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her toward the pool.

"You vicious little monster, today I'm going to let you taste"

Victoria slammed her purse into the side of my head. The metal charm on it sliced a long, bloody gash across my forehead.

As I let go, she pulled Tiffany behind her.

"Are you insane?!"

"What's done is done! Why are you taking it out on a child? My daughter is just a little girl, what does she know about consequences? It was an accident!"

"An accident?"

I felt the blood rush to my head. "Go check the security footage yourself! Three girls holding a child's head against a drain, and you call that an accident?!"

Victoria glanced at her guilty-looking daughter, then calmly pulled a card from her wallet.

"What do you want, then? Justice? Let me tell you something. In this world, justice depends on who you are and what you can pay."

She stepped forward, the card almost touching my nose.

"Do you know who my daughter is? She's the heiress to the Wagner Corporation!"

"And your daughter? The child of a working-class family. She's dead. So what? You expect the Wagner heiress to pay with her life?"

She flicked the card at my face. "There's fifty thousand on here. Pin is six eights. Take the money, shut your mouth, and give your daughter a nice funeral."

"But if you say one word of this to anyone, if you dare call the police I guarantee you and your husband won't even find work sweeping streets in this city."

Tiffany peeked out from behind her mother and made a face at me. There was no fear in her expression, only smug satisfaction.

The coach, not wanting any more trouble, tried to mediate. "Mrs. Miller, look, this was clearly an accident. Since they're offering to settle, maybe everyone can just compromise?"

Compromise?

I looked down at the bank card on the floor, then at the cold, lifeless body of the girl. It was laughable. They were treating a human life like a business transaction, and speaking of it so casually.

My eyes fell on the girl's birthmark again, and I suddenly remembered who she was.

If the life of my ordinary daughter wasn't worth Tiffany's freedom, let's see how many lives they would need to pay for this girl's.

Tiffany was still chattering. "Come on, lady, lighten up. Money is what's real. Your daughter is dead, just have another one"

I slowly raised my head, my gaze settling on her ignorant, arrogant face.

"I have a feeling your mother's money won't be much good this time."

She jutted her chin out. "Say whatever you want. It doesn't matter. Nothing will happen to me. My mom told me, the juvenile protection laws are my get-out-of-jail-free card!"

I gently wiped the blood from the dead girl's face, my fingers tracing the plum blossom birthmark. I took off my jacket and covered her, a final gesture of dignity.

"A get-out-of-jail-free card?"

A bitter smile touched my lips. "Then you'd better pray that everyone in this world believes in the law."

Victoria frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I ignored her, took out my phone, and sent a single text message. Then I leaned down and whispered in the dead girl's ear.

"Don't be afraid. Your father will be here soon."

Then, I dialed 911.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Victoria shrieked, sensing something was wrong. "I'm telling you, this ends here, today! If you dare"