The best choice.

Before college entrance exams, I snuck and took the love letter the prom queen, Sarah, wrote to my childhood friend, Josh. They never got together. He hated me for it, forever. After he found out I had a crush on him, he called me jealous, manipulative, and toxic, swearing he’d never feel the same. Then we both died in a car crash. His dying words were that if he could do it over, he’d beg me not to ruin things with Sarah again.

His wish came true. I got a second chance. I didn’t take the letter. Then, so he and Sarah could go to the same college, Josh… skipped the multiple-choice section on his science exam. Totally bombed it.

When the results came out, Josh and Sarah were officially a couple. At our graduation party, his “romantic gesture” of sacrificing his academic future for love was legendary. He became known as the “King of Romance.” I sat in a dimly lit corner, nursing a glass of juice, watching the two of them surrounded by our classmates.

My best friend, Chloe, sat beside me, completely bewildered. "Is he insane? He threw away his future? For this? For some uncertain future with Sarah?”

Yep. This time around, he chose Sarah over his future.

In the last life, I'd taken the letter, thinking I was helping him choose his future. All I earned was a lifetime of his resentment. When he discovered I had feelings for him, he’d looked at me with disgust. "Ashley," he'd spat, "I'm not interested in someone as jealous and manipulative as you. Your feelings are sickening."

Actually, I hadn't kept the letter. I'd returned it to him the night after the exams. But when he went to Sarah with it, she'd rejected him.

"Josh," she’d said, "Our scores are way too different. We won’t even be at the same college. How is this supposed to work? Four years of long distance? I need a boyfriend who's actually there, you know?"

A devastated Josh came back and glared at me. The next day, his parents frantically showed up at my door, saying he wanted to change his college applications and begging me to talk him out of it.

I wasn't surprised.

But when I found Josh, before I could even speak, he sneered, "What, stealing the letter once wasn’t enough, Ashley? You have to ruin it again?"

Standing in the stairwell, a breeze rustling through, it felt strangely cold despite the bright sunshine. I looked down at him,颓废烦躁 – he looked like a wreck. I just said, "Josh, you’ve been working towards this for twelve years."

Finally, with his parents practically threatening to disown him, he backed down. He didn't change his application. And he didn't get together with Sarah. From that day on, I became the villain who kept them apart, the target of his resentment every time he thought about what could have been.

Right up until the end. Trapped in the twisted metal of the car, the air thick with the smell of blood, he rasped, "If I could do it over, Ashley, please, don’t interfere. Just leave us alone.”

So, reborn, I granted his wish. I left the letter alone. Josh read i...