When the plane went down, everyone was crying and sending final messages to the people they loved most. I opened my arch-nemesis’s chat and furiously typed out my final words: "Are those two holes in your head just for decoration? Are you fucking blind? Could you really not tell that I like you? "Last time I pretended to be drunk so you’d make a move, you didn't do shit. Serves you right, it's too late to regret it now. "I’m hitting reset on my life, asshole—" 1 My body was in a freefall. Hypoxia was blurring my consciousness, and every ounce of strength was draining from my body. After a violent bout of turbulence, my phone slipped from my hand. I instinctively reached out to grab it, but my fingers closed around something soft and warm instead. Strange... is there anything on a plane that feels like this? In the dead silence of the cabin, a voice suddenly echoed. "Hey, how long are you going to hold on?" How was someone still talking? Everyone else had already passed out. "Deaf? Oh... you just don't want to let go?" There it was again. Closer this time. Clearer. And painfully familiar. My sluggish brain finally processed it. Ah, it was his voice. Just seconds ago, I was furiously typing out my aggressive confession to him, but now, all my bravado was gone. At the very end, I had to admit my nonchalance was entirely faked. Deep down, I was so full of regrets that I was actually having auditory hallucinations. But this voice... why did it sound so distant? It carried a hint of that nostalgic, youthful arrogance. I strained my fading consciousness to think, when suddenly, my arm was yanked. Like a drowning man being pulled from the water, I gasped for air and snapped my eyes open, finally seeing the person in front of me. A raised brow, a recklessly arrogant smile, and a face that was aggressively handsome. Ethan Bennett. In a flash, all my lost senses flooded back into my body. The deafening chirp of summer cicadas filled the air, the hardwood floor gave off a rich scent under the baking sun, and a bead of sweat slowly rolled down my forehead. And I was tightly gripping Ethan’s hand. Was this... an illusion? "Carter Hayes, don't tell me you're about to confess your love to me too." It wasn't an illusion. I blankly pulled my hand back and opened my palm. Beneath the skin, there was a healthy pink hue, my pulse beating strong and steady. I clenched my fist, opened it, clenched it, opened it. I could control my body. "Did you actually go dumb? Tch, I told you studying too much would turn you into a total nerd." I looked up and saw the blue trim of Ethan's high school uniform. It was the summer of 2016. This year, I was a high school junior, and Ethan was a senior. 2 We had never gotten along. I hated how he always acted like a cynical, careless slacker. He hated how I was too rigid, boring, and lifeless. But as fate would have it, his younger brother, Liam Bennett, was my best friend. I always came over to their house after school to do homework. Just like today. "Fucking disgusting." Ethan leaned lazily against the window, letting out a scoff. I followed his gaze. Down in the small garden below, someone was confessing their feelings to Liam. It was another boy. Out of the three Bennett brothers, Liam, the youngest, had that pretty-boy charm and naturally attracted a lot of suitors. "Fucking queer, doing that shit in someone else's house. Disgusting, right?" Ethan turned his head, looking straight at me, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. I didn't know if it was just my imagination, but while his expression was teasing, his eyes were dead serious. He was earnestly waiting for my answer. If I were the seventeen-year-old Carter, even though I couldn't stand Ethan, I would have agreed with him on this just to avoid a fight. But the soul currently inhabiting this body was twenty-five years old. Over the next eight years, we went through a lot together. My feelings for him morphed from annoyance to love—so much love that, right before I died, he was the only person on my mind. I didn't want to lie to myself. So I shook my head. "I don't see the problem." Ethan froze, his expression inexplicably darkening. "Tch, nerds are so boring." He turned his back to me, clearly pissed off. I stood rooted to the spot, watching him walk away, feeling a bit lost. I couldn't tell if this was time travel or reincarnation. But either way, it meant the twenty-five-year-old me was definitely dead. When Ethan heard the news of my death, how would he feel? Would he feel guilty? After all, the only reason I was on that doomed flight was to make it to his engagement party. 3 Eighteen-year-old Ethan hadn't stepped into the halls of marriage yet. Right now, he was just furious that I couldn't return his serve. "You're the top student in our grade but you can't hit a ball like this?! I practically fed it right to your racket! Are those two eyes of yours just for show?" He yelled so loud my eardrums ached. For some reason, the lingering sensation of impending death still clung to me. I felt like I was still on that plane, my brain suffering from intermittent bouts of vertigo. I lowered my tennis racket. "I'm done playing." Liam jogged over to smooth things over. "Don't mind my brother. You know he's had a trash mouth for years, it's not targeted at you." I knew that. Ethan was an equal-opportunity asshole who verbally attacked everyone. But he was especially harsh with me. As I sat on the bench zoning out, a water bottle was suddenly tossed onto my lap. I didn't catch it, and it rolled onto the ground. "Tch." Ethan bent over, picked it up, and handed it back. "Drink some. You're so pale I thought you were gonna drop dead." When I didn't move, he muttered a string of curses, took the bottle back, unscrewed the cap, and shoved it forcefully into my hands. "What, your majesty, you waiting for me to feed it to you?" With him taking it that far, I had no choice but to obediently lift the bottle and take a sip. Grapefruit flavor. Sweet. His expression softened, giving off a 'that's more like it' vibe. Then he moved my racket aside and sat down next to me, lazily watching the other two guys rallying on the court. "Did you go to bed past midnight again? Doing those stupid practice tests?" My house and the Bennetts' house were right next door to each other. Our bedroom windows were only separated by a narrow garden path—close enough that if he was changing his shirt by the window, I could see it the moment I looked up. "Would it kill you to do one less test and sleep earlier? Is your valedictorian spot hanging by a thread on that one single worksheet?" He really had a terrible way of talking. I wasn't exactly a submissive person, and I had never been polite to Ethan either. Do you want to see me fail that badly? Normally, that's how I would have fired back. But when I opened my mouth, the words caught in my throat. What came out instead was: "Are you worrying about me?" The moment the words left my lips, Ethan's pupils shrank, and he shot up to his feet. "Bullshit!" He threw that single word at me and hurried back onto the court. Like a man whose soul had left his body, he completely completely missed every single one of Liam's serves. I slowly screwed the cap back onto the water bottle, my heart racing uncontrollably. By bringing me back to the past, did God want me to fix my regrets? Or rather, did He want me to see the things I had previously ignored? Take that conversation just now. When I was younger, I only felt targeted and mocked. I never would have considered that Ethan was just being a prickly tsundere, refusing to admit he cared. I pressed a hand to my chest, taking a deep breath to suppress the overwhelming surge of joy. Ethan ran back over, his voice tight. "Fuck, are you feeling sick?" "No." I shook my head. The sunlight was blindingly bright. If I could live my life over again, Ethan and I... 4 I went to sleep harboring infinite hopes for my second life. Yet, when I woke up, I saw the familiar ceiling of my college dorm room. I thought I was seeing things. I closed my eyes and opened them again. Still in the dorm. I lay there, unmoving. A dreadful realization crept up my spine like cold, damp moss. My ears rang, and my blood ran ice cold. This wasn't reincarnation, and it wasn't time travel. It was my life flashing before my eyes right before I died. Fate hadn't given me a second chance. No miracle had descended. I was still hurtling toward my inevitable death. I couldn't change a single thing. Liam knocked on my bed frame. "Come straight to my house after class today." I stiffly turned on my phone. The calendar reminder read: Liam's Birthday. I would remember this day for the rest of my life. Halfway through Liam's party, a massive blackout hit the entire neighborhood, and the power company was taking forever to fix it. I navigated the pitch-black streets to walk back to my own house. Ethan followed right behind to walk me home. "You heard them too, right?" It was the exact same dialogue from my memory. "They were sneaking a kiss." I opened my front door, crouching in the dark entryway, fumbling to take off my shoes. "It's normal. They're dating." Liam had started dating his roommate freshman year, and their relationship was very stable. I was long used to their occasional PDA. Ethan made no move to leave. He leaned against the doorframe. I couldn't read his expression in the dark. "Carter, if I remember correctly, you still haven't had your first kiss, right?" This was playing out exactly like my memory. Next, I was supposed to snap back defensively, "So what? Mind your own business." Then he would magnanimously say, "How pitiful. Why don't you beg me? I might be willing to do you a favor and help you out." His version of "help" was pinning me against the wall and kissing me until the power came back on and the lights flooded the room. Afterward, he had explained that it was too dark that night, his senses were heightened, and hearing the wet sounds of Liam and his boyfriend had riled him up. It was just an impulse, and he hoped I wouldn't overthink it. My heart, which had been beating wildly, plummeted into a silent abyss at those words. To hide my crushing disappointment, I had forced a casual laugh and agreed: Yeah, totally. Two guys kissing is no big deal, basically the same as kissing a slab of pork. Snapping back to the present, Ethan noticed my silence and chuckled. "What, too embarrassed to admit it?" "No," I denied. "It's already gone." Ethan froze, utterly shocked. "With who? Are you seeing someone?" Before I could answer, he started muttering to himself. "Impossible. Liam said you've been single this whole time. Oh—are you talking about kindergarten? That little girl with the pigtails? "Carter, that doesn't count as a fucking first kiss. A kiss is supposed to be with someone you actually like—" He abruptly cut himself off. Ethan was right about one thing: the darkness really did amplify your senses. For instance, right now, I clearly felt his breathing hitch and stumble for a split second. "Hmm?" Curious about what he was going to say next, I feigned realization. "Oh, is that how it works? Then I guess I do still have it. Is there a problem?" Ethan went silent. After a long time, he stuttered out, "Then... do you... need me to..." "Need you to what?" He paused again, taking a deep breath. "Hearing those two going at it... didn't you feel an urge to... to kiss someone too?" I stared intently into the dark where he stood, and heard myself say, "No." Actually, I wanted it desperately. But I also knew that no matter what choice I made in this illusion, it wouldn't change the ultimate outcome. So what if it was meaningless? I just wanted to confirm that all these years, my unrequited love hadn't been entirely one-sided. Ethan had lost his excuse. We fell into a stalemate. I finally relented. "Okay, maybe I want to a little. But you just said it yourself, it only counts if it's with someone you like." Am I someone you like? "You can just pretend I'm the person you like," Ethan said, stepping closer to me, his scalding breath washing over my face. "Like that underclassman in your club. You're into her, right? Heard you asked her out to dinner a few times but still haven't sealed the deal?" Underclassman? It had been so many years since college, I had almost forgotten she even existed. Thinking back, we had teamed up for an academic competition, but there was never anything else between us. "Did I guess right?" Ethan reached out and gripped my chin. For some reason, his grip was unexpectedly tight. "No..." A soft click sounded from above, and the next second, the room flooded with light. I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut. "The power is back." Ethan stared at me fixedly, his gaze dark and unreadable. He raised his hand and covered my eyes. "No, it's not." Warm, soft lips pressed against mine, slowly and deeply grinding against them. I wanted to ask him if the old, emotionally stunted me had missed too many signs. When did you start liking me? Why couldn't either of us just be a little braver? It was all too late now. I couldn't bear to push him away. I'll ask him when this is over. When this kiss ends, I'm going to finally confirm his feelings properly. That way, even if we couldn't be together in life, I wouldn't die with regrets. But when I opened my eyes, I was no longer in my entryway. A coworker was supporting my weight as we walked toward a hotel room door, and Ethan's voice rang out from behind us. "Why did he drink so much?"
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