My Rebel Seatmate Is My Daughter

The year I was thrown back to my eighteenth birthday, I found myself sitting at a high school desk, assigned to be the burnouts lab partner all over again.

She still hated school.

She slept through lectures, ditched class to smoke behind the bleachers, and spent every free second huddled in the dark neon glow of the local arcade.

But this time, I didn't chase after her. I didn't lecture her or try to manage every second of her life like I had in my past life.

Until one afternoon, my eyes caught the parent signature scrawled across the top of her failed history exam.

Two sharp, aggressive words

Roxanne Blake.

I froze, the air knocked from my lungs.

So... the daughter Roxanne and I had... shes already this old?

Staring at that signature, a cold numbness spread through my veins.

The defiant, leather-jacket-wearing girl sitting next to me wasn't Roxanne.

It was Roxannes daughter.

I finally understood what The System meant when it told me I had to "go back and correct the timeline."

Years ago, I was pulled into this world with one mission: to drag a delinquent out of the gutter and push her to the pinnacle of success.

That delinquent was Roxanne.

After I left, I heard she lived a brilliant life. She built an empire, achieving massive wealth and fame at a shockingly young age.

I thought my mission was a perfect success. I went back to my original world in peace.

Who could have guessed that nearly two decades later, her daughter would inherit her teenage rebellion, taking up the mantle of the local burnout?

In fact, shed surpassed her mother. She was the undisputed queen of the bad crowd.

I let out a slow, heavy breath.

Now, I had to straighten out this wild sapling.

Keep her from growing crooked. Keep her from tearing her own world apart.

When I left this timeline back then, it was sudden. Tragic.

The System never told me the baby had survived.

Time moves differently in my reality. By my count, I had only been gone for three years.

But here, my child was almost grown.

Before the weight of it could fully crush me, a flash of fire-engine red burst through the classroom door.

Silhouetted against the hallway light, she was slender but stood with a rigid, defensive posture. Her jawline was sharp, her skin porcelain-pale. Her glaringly bright red hair was pulled into a high, messy ponytail, and a heavy black stud pierced her upper cartilage.

She wore her signature scowl like armor.

She marched toward me, her voice dropping to a freezing register. "Move."

I looked up, colliding with her dark, heavy eyes.

I lost my breath for a second.

She looked exactly like Roxanne.

But taller.

Colder.

And far more untamable.

I stood up quietly and let her into the seat.

Ruby slid her long legs under the desk, crossed her arms, and immediately buried her face to sleep.

I just sat there, studying her profile.

This was the first time Id seen her since I had been dropped back into this world.

For two weeks, she hadn't shown her face at school. Id heard rumors she was either haunting the arcade or running with a bad crowd downtown.

But Roxanne had too much money. A massive donation to the school board ensured her daughters name stayed on the roster.

I sighed inwardly.

A stubborn mother. A hardheaded daughter.

This was going to be a nightmare.

Ruby slept through the entirety of AP Calculus.

When the bell rang, she suddenly sat up, clutching her stomach. All the color drained from her face.

I frowned, leaning in instinctively, my voice dropping low. "Whats wrong? Are you sick?"

The girl cut her eyes at me, her voice dripping with venom. "Back off."

So rude.

How the hell had her mother raised her?

My hand moved faster than my brain.

Before I realized what I was doing, my palm landed squarely on her upper back in a firm, disciplinary pat.

Smack.

The entire classroom went dead silent.

Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto us.

My hand hovered in mid-air. I couldn't pull it back, but I couldn't leave it there either.

I forced myself to lie through my teeth. "Your hair, Ruby. Its too bright. It's distracting me from my notes."

Rubys knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the desk. Her jaw clenched so tight I thought it might shatter, and her eyes burned with absolute fury.

She was half a second away from exploding, but the warning bell for the next period rang.

The homeroom teacher walked in, catching the tail end of the tension. "Ruby? Are you trying to get me to call your mother in for another chat?"

That stopped her.

She swallowed the rage, her shoulders tense, and dropped her head back down onto her arms, simmering in silence.

The kid behind me tapped my shoulder, his glasses reflecting the fluorescent lights with sheer awe. "Dude, you've got a death wish. Nobody makes Ruby back down."

I offered a dry, tight smile.

Ruby wasn't the type to just take a hit.

Before she had lowered her head, she muttered a vicious promise under her breath: "After school. You're dead."

Fine. Ill wait.

But when the final bell rang, Ruby bolted.

She left in such a rush she didn't even grab her denim jacket.

I waited. And waited. The classroom emptied out, the hallways fell silent, and the janitors started their rounds.

I finally slung my backpack over my shoulder to leave.

Just as I turned, her jacket on the desk began to vibrate.

Shed left her phone.

This reckless kid. What was she in such a hurry for?

I pulled the phone from the pocket.

The screen lit up with a caller ID that made my heart stop.

Roxanne.

I didn't want to answer it.

But the phone rang. And rang. Relentlessly.

In the final seconds before it went to voicemail, I swiped the screen.

"Where are you?"

The womans voice was crisp, authoritative, carrying a heavy chill through the receiver.

"Ma'am..."

I cleared my throat. I couldn't bring myself to say her name.

After a long, suffocating pause, my face flushed hot, and I gathered my courage. "Hello, ma'am. I'm a classmate of Ruby's"

She cut me off before I could finish.

"Right. Tell her to come home."

Click.

The line went dead.

I stood in the empty classroom, gripping the phone.

Roxanne.

Do you really have so little patience left for her?

As I stood there wondering how to return the phone, a flurry of text messages popped up on the lock screen.

"Ruby, got the cake. Come pay for it."

"Rubes, where are you?"

An address followed.

I stared at the lock screen.

I tried her birthday.

Incorrect.

I tried her mother's birthday.

Incorrect.

I tried the birthday of the cat we used to have.

Incorrect.

Finally, guided by some ghost of a memory, I typed in my birthday.

The phone unlocked.

My chest seized.

A wave of thick, suffocating sorrow clawed its way up my throat.

After eighteen years of being gone...

Someone in this world still remembered me.

I rubbed my eyes hard, memorized the address, and headed out into the fading afternoon light.

When I arrived at the bakery, Ruby and a group of her friends were being physically shoved out the door by the owner.

The man was red in the face, waving a pair of tongs. "Fucking freeloaders! Get out of my shop!"

"Kids these days, lying through your teeth!"

"If you don't have the cash, just say it! Don't give me this 'I forgot my phone' crap!"

Seeing their leader get humiliated, a few of the girlssporting heavily dyed hair and torn jeansgrabbed the metal patio chairs, ready to start a riot.

I sprinted forward and grabbed Rubys arm, pulling her back. "No fighting."

"I brought your phone."

Ruby looked at me.

Her eyes were a storm of complicated emotions.

But she snatched the phone, tapped her digital wallet, and paid the man.

The owners demeanor flipped instantly. He muttered apologies and rushed to box up the cake.

I stood on the sidewalk, waiting.

I could hear the whispers from her friends behind me.

"Is that the new boyfriend?"

"No way. She was just with that college guy last week."

"Probably dumped him. Ruby never keeps a guy around for more than seven days."

I frowned.

Who taught her to treat people so recklessly?

I looked through the bakery window.

Ruby was sitting at a small table, her posture perfectly straight, writing on a small card with absolute focus.

I thought she was writing a note for some boy.

I stepped closer.

When I saw the words, my feet rooted to the floor.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

She had written it, crossed it out.

Written it again. Crossed it out again.

The ink was bleeding into the heavy paper.

She didn't know what to say to her.

Finally, she settled on a single, distant line:

Wishing CEO Blake continued success.

My heart ached with a bitter, acidic sting.

This kid.

She wasn't nearly as rebellious as she pretended to be.

She remembered her mothers birthday.

She remembered that Roxanne hated sweetsthe cake had zero fondant, and she had specifically ordered the lowest sugar option.

She was so much more thoughtful, so much more fragile than I could have imagined.

Before I left, I looked at her. My voice was very soft. "Your mom is waiting at home for you to have dinner."

That woman... she always hated being alone.

Especially on her birthday.

Go home. Keep her company.

Ruby didn't answer.

She picked up the box and turned toward the door.

But right before she walked out, she glanced back at me.

Her voice was barely a whisper, light as dust.

"Thank you."

Watching her walk away into the dusk, I couldn't help but think of Roxanne.

It was a lifetime ago.

When Roxanne was a delinquent, she was far more feral than her daughter.

Wild, reckless, a total firecracker.

She would sleep through tutoring sessions, and the second her friends called, shed bolt.

Nine times out of ten, Id catch her in the alley behind the local dive bar.

And when I caught her, Id drag her back by the collar.

We lived across the hall from each other back then.

Once I started tutoring her, her mother essentially handed over total custody of her life to me.

Her mom had given me this heavy, old wooden yardstick.

She used to hit Roxanne with it, but it never did any good.

By the time it was passed to me, the numbers had worn completely off the wood.

But somehow, that stupid piece of wood worked.

Whenever Roxanne saw me holding it, shed shrink back and quietly follow me to the library.

During our senior year, she finally settled down.

And miraculously, she got into a top university.

The day the acceptance letters came in, both she and her mother cried.

Roxanne had thrown her arms around my neck, burying her face in my chest, her tears soaking right through my shirt.

Her "thank you" carried a weight that shattered me.

She looked up at me and said, "Ill listen to you from now on. Always."

During the first few years we were together, she was addicted to online gaming; I would literally pull the ethernet cord out of the wall.

When she tried to skip lectures to hang out at the campus bar, I would physically march her back to the lecture hall.

Once, she secretly got a massive, intimidating sleeve tattoo. I grabbed her by the ear, threatening to drag her to a laser removal clinic.

She panicked and furiously scrubbed at her arm with a wet napkin. "Its a temporary decal! Its fake! God, Kieran, youre psycho."

I managed her life like that, every single step of the way.

For four years.

By the time we graduated college, Roxanne had collected every academic award and recommendation letter a professor could write.

Everyone on campus knew Roxanne had a terrifyingly strict boyfriend.

But I didn't care.

Dragging someone from the bottom to the absolute top is never a gentle process.

After graduation, she started her own tech firm.

Once the company started taking off, her new way of relieving stress was alcohol.

The pressure was crushing, and she would disappear into high-end lounges, drinking until she was numb.

Her medical reports were full of red flags.

Severely damaged stomach lining. Chronic bleeding ulcers.

One night, I dragged her out of a VIP booth.

Before I could even open my mouth to lecture her, she violently wrenched her arm out of my grip.

Her eyes were ice-cold. She looked at me, enunciating every single word. "Kieran. You control way too much."

"Aren't you exhausted?"

I just stared at her.

The silence stretched, suffocating and heavy.

Finally, she let out a long, ragged sigh. "Im tired, Kieran."

"Being managed by you all these years... Im just so goddamn tired."

My throat tightened, the words turning to ash.

But Roxanne didn't have the patience to coddle my feelings anymore.

She didn't say another word. She just turned around and walked away.

I stood frozen on the pavement.

My fists clenched at my sides.

I thought about it for a very, very long time that night.

The truth was, managing her all those years...

It wasn't just exhausting for her.

It exhausted me, too.

I knew people whispered behind my back. They called me controlling, suffocating, a tyrant.

I heard it all.

And I also knew that sometimes, when she was with her wealthy new friends, she would softly agree with them. "Yeah, its a lot. I really should have found someone a bit softer."

Once she hit the pinnacle of her success, different kinds of people started orbiting her.

Things happened. Things I didn't want to know about.

But the whispers always found their way to me.

I never asked.

And she never explained.

I just grew quieter, shrinking myself down to take up less and less space in her life.

I pulled myself out of the memory.

I finished the last bite of a cheap muffin I'd bought and stepped out of the bakery.

Outside, Rubys friends were still lingering.

When they saw me, they swarmed. "Hey, school boy. Its late. Ruby said we should walk you to the bus stop."

I glanced up at the flickering streetlights.

I didn't decline.

Along the walk, through their scattered gossip, I began to piece together what Rubys life had been like all these years.

"Honestly, I feel bad for Ruby. Her dad died a long time ago."

"Her mom is literally always working. Its like she lives in a hotel. Nobody is ever home."

"They have this massive, gorgeous house, but when Ruby got super sick last winter, she was practically dying in bed and there wasn't even anyone to get her a glass of water."

My fingers curled into fists, my nails biting into my palms.

Roxanne.

Is this how you take care of my daughter?

"But Ruby is fiercely loyal."

"Her mom acts like she doesn't exist, but Ruby still buys her a custom birthday cake every single year."

"She acts all tough, but my mom says Ruby is way more mature than the rest of us."

I thought about how she acted in the classroom.

The second the teacher threatened to call her mother, all the fight drained out of her.

It wasn't because she was scared.

It was because she knew her mom was busy.

She didn't want to be a burden. She didn't want her mom to have to come clean up her messes.

The dyed hair, the fake piercings, the manufactured rebellion...

It was all just a desperate plea for her mother to look at her.

My chest physically ached.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Watch," one of the girls scoffed. "She's taking that cake home, but her mom won't even touch it."

"It happens every year. Tomorrow, Ruby will bring the whole thing to school for us to eat."

"A whole custom cake, and her mom won't take a single bite."

"I don't know how someone can be that cold."

My heart twisted into a violent knot.

So this was it.

This was what my child had endured for the last eighteen years.

That night, I lay in my cramped, freezing apartment, tossing and turning.

My mind was consumed by the image of Ruby's lonely, defensive posture.

I couldn't sleep.

"System," I whispered to the dark ceiling.

"I want to use one of my lifelines to see what Ruby is doing right now."

When I was sent back, The System granted me three "lifelines"three chances to bend the rules of reality.

Once I used all three, I would be permanently ripped from this world.

But the anxiety gnawing at my bones was too much. I had to know she was okay.

A holographic projection shimmered into existence in my dark room.

In the projection, Ruby had just walked through the front door of a sprawling, immaculate mansion.

She was holding the cake box by the string, staring at a figure sitting on the living room sofa.

A woman in a sharply tailored designer suit sat there, bathed in the blue light of an iPad.

She was buried in her emails.

She didn't even look up to acknowledge her daughter walking in.

A long, suffocating silence stretched across the room.

Rubys knuckles turned white around the bakery string. She looked at the back of the sofa and called out softly, "Mom"

"I'm home."

She said it twice.

Nothing but silence.

Ruby lowered her eyes.

She just stood there in the foyer, looking utterly defeated.

Watching from my bed, I felt a violent surge of anger.

I wanted to shatter the projection, grab Roxanne by the collar, and shake her.

It took a painfully long time before Roxanne finally set the iPad face down on the glass table and turned her head.

Gold-rimmed glasses made her gaze look incredibly sharp.

Her eyes were dead. Devoid of any warmth.

Looking at her own flesh and blood, her face betrayed absolutely zero emotion.

"Let's eat."

There were several dishes set out on the long dining table.

It was obvious she had been waiting for a while.

Ruby set the cake box on the table and reached out to untie the ribbon.

Roxannes icy voice cut through the air before she could open it. "Don't bother."

"You know I don't eat sweets."

That was the cake my daughter spent an hour agonizing over for you.

No fondant. Low sugar.

Rubys hand froze mid-air.

She stared at her mothers stone-cold profile. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed back every explanation, every defense.

She quietly sat down and began to eat.

The massive dining room was dead silent, save for the hollow clinking of silverware against porcelain.

"How are your classes?" Roxanne asked without looking up.

Better than yours ever were, I thought bitterly. Even when my daughter skips class, she still aces the exams.

"Fine," Ruby muttered.

"Your homeroom teacher called. Said you haven't been in class for two weeks." Roxanne finally looked up, her gaze pinning Ruby down. "What exactly are you doing with your time?"

Ruby fell silent.

When the silence dragged on too long, Roxannes tone dropped to a dangerous octave. "You're out roaming the streets with those degenerates, aren't you?"

Ruby clenched her hands in her lap, her voice barely audible. "Yeah."

"Do I give you an allowance so you can play pretend with a bunch of street trash?"

"Look at yourself. What are you turning into?"

Roxannes eyes locked onto the glaring red hair.

Her brow furrowed in deep, visible disgust.

The air in the room was suffocating.

Suddenly, Ruby stood up, her chair screeching violently against the hardwood. Her hands balled into fists. "All you do is throw money at me! Why the hell do you care who I hang out with?"

"You think I don't care? You want me to just sit back and watch you rot in the gutter with them?"

Roxanne slowly raised her eyes.

The light caught the edge of her glasses, glinting like a blade.

That kind of look... aimed at a teenage girl...

It was far too heavy a burden.

"I'd rather rot in the gutter than end up completely alone like you!" Ruby screamed, her voice cracking.

"You're pathetic, Mom. You're more pathetic than me."

"In this entire world, besides my dad, has anyone ever actually loved you?"

Ruby didn't wait for an answer.

She snatched her jacket off the chair and bolted out the front door.

The massive, cavernous house fell dead silent.

Leaving Roxanne entirely alone.

She just sat there at the head of the table.

Her hands folded tightly in her lap.

Her back looked impossibly rigid, but the loneliness radiating from her was deafening.

I watched her for a few more seconds.

Then, I willed the projection to follow Ruby.

Once she left the property, the visual feed glitched out.

All I knew was that she had gotten into a cab.

My face hardened.

I called out to the void in my room.

"System. Transport me to Ruby's location."

Oakwood Cemetery.

Ruby was sitting cross-legged on the frozen grass in front of my headstone.

Her arms were wrapped tightly around her knees, holding herself together.

I stood a few yards away, watching her trembling shoulders.

A sharp, physical pain tore through my chest.

She sat there for a long time.

Finally, she lifted her head. Her eyes were red and swollen.

Her voice was broken, scattering into the winter wind. "Dad."

"Mom... she hates me."

The raw, choked sob in her voice made my eyes burn.

So Roxanne didn't just resent me.

She couldn't even bring herself to love our daughter.

"Dad, can I just come find you...?"

The wind swallowed the rest of her words.

Leaving only a devastating, overwhelming grief.

I clenched my fists.

My chest felt like it was caving in.

Unable to bear it a second longer, I stepped out from the shadows and spoke, my voice thick.

"Ruby."

She whipped around.

She stared at me.

Her dark eyes were swimming in tears, wide and terrified.

Like a puppy that had been kicked out into the rain.

I crouched down beside her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

My heart was breaking. "Sweetheart."

"Did that stubborn old woman make you cry again?"

She instinctively tried to flinch away from my touch.

But when she heard the words, she froze entirely.

She looked at me, her eyes darting across my face, full of desperate suspicion.

I let out a soft sigh. "When you were born, we had a cat at home."

"Three years old. He had a black patch shaped like a thumbprint right beneath his left ear."

"Do you remember?"

"Your mom and I found him when we were in college."

"We named him Marble."

"Did he ever... have kittens?"

Tears rapidly welled up in Ruby's eyes, spilling over her lashes.

She wiped her face aggressively with the back of her sleeve and choked out, "No."

She still couldn't let herself believe it. "How can you prove you're my dad? You look like you're my age."

I looked at her facea face that mirrored Roxannes so perfectly.

A thousand words clawed at my throat, but none of them could explain the impossible.