The Villainess Stole Her Life

I was the villain of the story.

After being forced to play my part in a script I didnt write, I reached my scheduled departure. I died.

But then, I opened my eyes and found myself eighteen again.

With tears blurring my vision, I fumbled for my phone and dialed the one person I had spent my entire life trying to outdo. My rival. My shadow.

"Wyatt, I can't find my house. Please, come get me."

Silencedead, heavy silenceechoed from the other end.

I felt a spark of the old me, the girl who refused to be ignored. "Wyatt! If you don't come right now, Im telling your parents! I'll tell them youre being a prick to me again!"

A heavy, ragged breath hitched on the line. Then, a voice that sounded like it had been dragged through gravel and glass whispered back.

"Wait for me."

Just three words. They sounded like they were traveling across a vast, impossible distance.

On the other side of town, in a bathroom slick with red, Wyatt crawled slowly, painfully, out of a crimson bathtub.

One second, I was in my dining room at home, enjoying a lobster dinner. The next, I was standing on a street corner I didn't recognize.

I followed the map in my head, navigating a world that felt both hauntingly familiar and entirely alien, until I reached the gates of my neighborhood. But the security guard wouldn't let me in. He looked at me like I was a ghost and told me my house had been sold two years ago.

I didn't believe him. I made him call the owner.

When a strangers voice answered the line, my brain felt like it had been hit by a live wire. How could I go from my dining table to the sidewalk only to find my entire life had been erased?

The panic started to set in. I checked my pocketsnothing but a few crumpled bills.

I managed to borrow a phone from a passerby. The device looked sleek, more advanced than anything Id ever seen, but I didn't have time to wonder why. I dialed my parents number, my heart hammering against my ribs, only to hear the cold, mechanical recording of a disconnected line.

Desperate, I dialed Wyatt.

Wyatt was my "boy next door" nightmare. Wed been at each other's throats since kindergarten. Hed steal my erasers; Id shred his homework. Hed put spiders in my locker; Id glue his chair. In middle school, when he ranked first in the state, I studied until my eyes bled just to take the second spot. By high school, if he ran for Class President, I ran for VP just to veto his every move.

We had spent over a decade making each other miserable. We hated each other, but we were the only constants in each others lives.

Right then, he was the only person left in my world.

I expected him to laugh. I expected that punchable, arrogant smirk and a sarcastic comment about how the "Princess of the Heights" had finally fallen.

But I had no other choice. In this strange, distorted reality, my enemy was my only lifeline.

Then came the silence.

I checked the screenthe call had connected.

"Wyatt, I can't find my house. Please, come get me."

Nothing.

The panic flared into anger. "Wyatt! If you don't come right now, Im telling your parents! I'll tell them youre being a prick to me!"

It was our old routine. No matter how bad our fights got, his parents always sided with me, and hed eventually have to cave.

"Wait for me," he finally rasped.

The voice was Wyatts, but it wasn't the voice of the eighteen-year-old boy I knew. It was deeper, weathered, and dangerously fragile.

I didn't understand how the world could shift so much in a heartbeat.

Half an hour later, a black sedan pulled up to the curb.

The door opened, and a man stepped out. I froze.

It was Wyatt, but it wasn't. He looked like he was in his thirties. He was wearing a tailored black shirt and trousers that screamed success, his frame taller and broader than I remembered. His features were the samethe sharp jaw, the piercing eyesbut they were carved with the weight of years.

But it was his eyes that truly broke me. They were hollowed out, like a fire that had burned down to cold ash. Looking at him, I felt a physical ache in my chest. What could have happened to him to make him look so dead?

The pain in his gaze was a tidal wave, even if his face remained a mask of stone.

But the moment his eyes landed on me, a spark flickered back to life.

"Wyatt?" I whispered, my voice trembling.

His Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "Get in the car," he said, his voice a ghost of a sound.

I hesitated. This man looked like Wyatt, but he moved with a crushing sense of exhaustion.

"Is it... is it really you?"

A bitter, fleeting smile touched his lips. "Its me. Get in. Its cold out here."

I bit my lip and climbed into the back seat. The interior was silent, save for the low hum of the engine. I watched him from the shadows, noticing how pale he was. His lips were bloodless, and as he gripped the steering wheel, I caught the metallic scent of copper.

My eyes darted to his sleeves. There was blood soaking into the cuff of his shirt.

Instinct took over. I reached forward, grabbing his arm and shoving the sleeve up.

Even though hed tried to bandage it, the white gauze was already blooming a deep, violent red. The cuts were fresh. They were deliberate.

"Wyatt, what the hell are you doing to yourself?" I shouted, my voice cracking.

We were rivals, sure. But we weren't enemies. Not like this. What could possibly be worth ending it all?

A suffocating silence filled the car. He didn't deny it, and he didn't explain. He just kept his eyes locked on me in the rearview mirror, his expression a mix of profound grief and a terrifying fear that I might vanish if he blinked.

"Drive to the hospital! Now!" I screamed at the driver.

The driver glanced nervously at the mirror, waiting for a command.

Wyatt just looked at me. "Do what she says."

At the hospital, I was a wreck. When the doctors peeled back the soaked bandages, I saw the jagged, angry lines across his wrists.

I burst into tears, sobbing as if the wounds were on my own skin.

Wyatt looked lost. He reached out with his good hand, trying to comfort me. "Don't cry. It doesn't even hurt, I promise."

"You're lying!" I sobbed. "How can that not hurt?"

There was so much blood. He was so white. He looked like he was fading away right in front of me.

Yet, he seemed completely detached from the pain, his only focus being the soft words he used to try and calm me down. Even the doctor looked confused by his stoicism.

They rushed him into surgery to repair the tendons. I sat on the plastic bench in the hallway, my hands slick with cold sweat.

He had really meant it. This wasn't a cry for help; it was a mission. Wyatt, the boy who was too arrogant to ever lose, had decided to give up.

What had I missed?

A nurse walked out. "Family for Mr. Beaumont?

"Im here," I said, standing up instantly.

"Hes lost a lot of blood. Were low on his type in the bank right now..."

"Take mine," I said without thinking. "Were the same type."

She paused, looking at me. "And your relationship to the patient?"

I hesitated for only a second. "I'm his girlfriend."

She nodded and led me away to the donor chair.

An hour later, the surgeon emerged. "He's stable. But his mental state is extremely fragile. He needs to see a specialist immediately."

"A specialist?"

"Yes. Given the depth and placement of the wounds, this was a very determined attempt. If you hadn't called when you did..."

I didn't wait for him to finish. I ran into the room.

Wyatt was lying there, his left arm a mountain of white gauze. He was staring at the ceiling, his eyes so empty it made my stomach flip.

"Wyatt," I choked out.

He turned his head. Slowly, his eyes focused on me, and he smiled. "You're still the same. Still such a crybaby."

"You almost died, you idiot! Of course I'm crying!"

He just kept smiling, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Im just happy."

"Happy? I thought I lost you! I thought..." I couldn't even say the words.

"Why? Just tell me why!"

He didn't answer. He just watched me with a gaze that felt like a thousand scars being reopened, yet somehow filled with a desperate, new hope. He didn't even want to blink.

He reached up with his right hand and wiped a tear from my cheek. His hand was freezing, but as he felt the warmth of my skin, his smile widened.

"Its really you."

I slapped his hand away, frustrated. "Of course its me! Now tell me whats going on!"

"There are things," he said softly, "that you wouldn't understand."

"Then explain them! Im not stupid, Wyatt!"

But all I got was that same heavy, drowning silence. And that lookthat devastatingly sad look that made my heart feel like lead.

Wyatt refused to stay in the hospital. Against medical advice, he checked himself out.

On the drive back, I couldn't stop staring at his bandaged wrist.

"Wyatt."

"Yeah?"

"Don't ever do that again. I don't care how bad things get. Do you hear me?"

He looked at me, a soft, tired smile on his face. "Okay."

As we drove, the world outside the window felt like a sci-fi movie. I couldn't stop asking questions.

"What is that building? Since when did they build a glass tower there? Everything looks so futuristic."

I felt like a country girl seeing the city for the first time.

The car eventually pulled up to a massive, modern villa.

"This is where you live?" I asked, stunned.

"Yeah," he said, opening the door. "Come inside."

The interior was minimalist but screamed wealth. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a perfectly manicured garden. It felt surreal. In my memory, Wyatts family was well-off, but this was billionaire territory.

"Don't just stand there," he said. "Come in."

The house was spotless, but it felt cold. It felt like a showroom, not a home. There were no photos, no clutter, no signs of life.

"Wyatt, where are my parents? I tried calling, but the number is dead."

His back stiffened. "They moved abroad. They changed their numbers a long time ago."

"Oh. But why wouldn't they tell me? Im their only daughter. Thats so messed up."

I didn't really believe him, but in this world where everything felt "off," Wyatt was the only thing I could grab onto.

"Yeah," he murmured.

I looked at him, the confusion boiling over. "Wyatt, what is happening? Everything is familiar but wrong. And you you look"

Older.

"Nothing happened," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "Ive just had a few rough years."

He had clearly made a fortune, yet he said hed had a rough time. He was hiding something huge.

It hit me then. This wasn't my time. I was still eighteen, but he was thirty. I had somehow skipped twelve years.

Looking at him, my heart twisted. Whatever had happened in those twelve years had broken him so badly hed tried to end it all.

The next morning, I got up early to make breakfast. I didn't know the truth yet, but I knew I had to take care of him until he was whole again.

I was just finishing some noodles when he came downstairs.

"Wyatt! I made that spicy brisket chili you used to love. Come eat."

He froze at the base of the stairs. "You remembered."

"Duh. We lived next door for eighteen years. I know what you like. And don't worry, I didn't 'accidentally' drop a whole bottle of hot sauce in it this time."

He sat down and took a bite. Then, he started eating like a man who hadn't seen food in a week, swallowing huge mouthfuls.

"Whoa, slow down," I laughed. "Its not going anywhere. We have time."

He slowed down instantly at my words.

"Thats better," I said, satisfied. "Ill make it for you every day until youre sick of it."

Wyatt kept his head down, shoveling the food into his mouth. But I saw ita single tear splashed right into the bowl.

He was a thirty-year-old man, a titan of industry by the looks of it, and he was crying over a bowl of chili.

I hadn't even started teasing him yet.