I had barely made it back from the clinic, my body still numb from the anesthesia, when I found the manila envelope sitting on my welcome mat. Inside, there was only a single medical report. On the back, written in a hand that looked frighteningly identical to my own, was a jagged note: "Do not keep this baby. He will be born with a severe heart defect. He will tear you and Wright apart until there is nothing left but hatred." The next morning, my hand trembling, I signed the consent form to terminate the pregnancy. When Wright finally stormed into the hospital lobby, the nurse was handing me my discharge papers. He snatched the sheet from my hand, his knuckles turning white, his eyes wild as he demanded to know if I had lost my mind. I didn't say a word. I didn't explain. Three days later, at the afterparty celebrating Lacey’s opening night, I stood in the shadows of the restaurant restroom and heard her laugh. "She actually fell for it," she boasted to one of her friends. "I told you, Naomi looks smart, but she's the easiest person in the world to fool." "Aren't you afraid she'll trace it back to you?" her friend whispered. Lacey’s voice dropped, thick with a smugness she couldn't hide. "Why would I be? I hired someone to forge her handwriting, and the medical lab report was aged to look real. Even if Wright finds out, he'll just think of it as one of my silly little pranks." Then Wright's deep voice drifted in from the hallway outside. "Don't let there be a next time." He wasn't angry. He was scolding her the way one might scold a petulant child. Lacey immediately squealed with delight. "See? I told you Wright would never actually stay mad at me." Standing inside the bathroom stall, I stared down at the small square of surgical tape on the inside of my wrist and let out a quiet, hollow laugh. Of course I knew the envelope was a setup. And I knew my baby was perfectly healthy. I signed those papers because I was a ghost. I had died, and by some cruel miracle, I had just woken up ten years in the past. … In the private dining room, Lacey was perched on the arm of Wright’s chair, spearing a strawberry from her cake and holding it to his lips. Around the table, their friends laughed and egged them on. Wright looked up, his eyes catching mine as I walked in. His glass froze halfway to his mouth. "Naomi? I told you to stay home and rest." Someone muted the overhead music. Lacey stood up, breezing past the awkward silence to catch my arm like a concerned sister. "Oh my god, Naomi, you look so pale. You just had surgery—you shouldn't be on your feet. Here, take my seat." I didn't take the seat. I raised my hand and slapped her across the face. The sharp, echoing crack instantly killed whatever warmth was left in the room. Lacey clutched her cheek, tears welling in her eyes with practiced ease. "Naomi... what did I do wrong this time?" Wright moved instantly, pulling her behind him, his voice low and vibrating with fury. "Apologize, Naomi. Now." I threw the manila envelope onto the center of the table. "She forged a lab report to trick me into getting an abortion. Wright, she killed our baby." Lacey shook her head violently, sobbing. "I didn't mean it like that! It was just a joke... a stupid prank. I didn't think you'd actually go through with it." At the far end of the table, someone murmured under their breath, "Who the hell pranks someone about a pregnancy?" Wright shot a warning glare across the room, and the table fell dead silent again. When he turned back to me, there wasn't a trace of sympathy in his eyes. "Lacey was acting childish, yes. But you're an adult, Naomi. You mean to tell me you didn't think to get a second opinion before signing those papers?" I looked at him, my voice flat. "So it's my fault?" Wright looked away, his jaw tight. "I'm hurting too. We lost a child. But you can't just dump all the blame on Lacey." I reached down, picked up a glass of cranberry juice from the table, and poured it directly over the front of Lacey’s white silk dress. "Then let me take responsibility for this first," I said. Lacey shrieked, backing away as the red liquid seeped into the fabric like blood. My gaze locked onto the silver magnolia brooch pinned to her collar, and the last traces of my smile faded. Wright had given me that brooch for my eighteenth birthday. He had whispered in my ear that the magnolia was a symbol meant only for me. But in my previous life, during the ten years that followed, Lacey wore it in every family photo we ever took. Wright’s hand struck my face before I could react. My cheek went numb, and within seconds, the copper taste of blood filled my mouth. He gathered Lacey into his arms, shielding her. "You're a disappointment, Naomi. You've lost your mind." I bent down, picked up the scattered pieces of the fake lab report, and folded them neatly, one by one. "Wright," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "From this moment on, we are even. I owe you nothing." He frowned, a flicker of unease crossing his face. "What is that supposed to mean?" I didn't give him an answer. I left the venue and drove straight to the studio of the Evergreen Dance Company. Lacey was scheduled to headline their national showcase next month as a rising star. Her official bio was painted in glowing, tragic strokes: "The daughter of a fallen firefighter, raised with Gill and resilience by her late father’s close friends, the Carter family." I took out a folder of printouts. There was a photo of her sitting intimately on Wright's lap, a screenshot of the texts she sent to get the forged lab report, and the original receipt for the silver magnolia brooch. I pinned them all directly onto the dance company's central bulletin board. Lacey came rushing out of the rehearsal room, her ballet flats slapping against the hardwood floor. "Naomi! Are you trying to destroy my life?" I pressed the final pin into the corner of Wright's receipt, smoothing the paper down. "You weren't afraid of destroying an unborn child. Why are you so terrified of a piece of paper?" Other dancers began to gather around, whispering as they read the papers. Lacey fell to her knees, gasping for air between her sobs. "I'm not a homewrecker! Wright and I... it's not what you think!" One of the male leads crossed his arms, frowning at the photo. "Then why are you sitting on her husband's lap, Lacey?" Lacey bit her lip so hard it nearly bled. When she saw Wright push through the studio doors, she threw herself into his arms. "Wright! She's trying to ruin me!" Wright immediately pulled her behind his back, his face hard as he pulled out his phone to call the police. "This is public defamation, Naomi. She is the daughter of a fallen hero, and you are spreading malicious, fabricated lies. You used to work for the District Attorney's office—you of all people should know the legal consequences of this." I nodded slowly. "I do." I spent that night in an interrogation room at the local precinct. By the next morning, both of our families had arrived. My mother threw a folded document onto the table in front of me—a formal notice of my termination from the law firm where I had been working. "They let you go, Naomi," she said, her voice shaking with shame. "Are you happy now?" My father slammed his hand on the table. "Lacey is our daughter too! She grew up without her biological parents, and you choose to rip open her old wounds like this? What is wrong with you?" Wright sat across from me, his cuffs still smudged with Lacey's foundation. "If you issue a public apology," he said quietly, "I won't press charges." I looked at the three of them. "And what about my baby?" No one spoke. My mother waved her hand dismissively. "You can have other children, Naomi. But Lacey only gets one shot at this showcase." I picked up my termination letter, folded it carefully, and slid it into my purse. "Then let's hope she doesn't slip on stage." My father pointed toward the exit. "Go home and think about what you've done. Don't bother coming back until you're ready to get on your knees and beg Lacey for forgiveness." As I walked to the door, I heard Lacey’s soft whimpers behind me. "Dad, Mom, please don't be mad at Naomi. I've already lost my real parents... I don't want to lose my sister too." Wright rubbed her shoulder, his voice soothing. "She'll regret this, Lacey." I opened the door and walked out into the cold morning air. I "had" regretted it—in that other life. I had regretted keeping quiet to protect the family name. I had regretted letting Wright hold his old sacrifices over my head. I had regretted cleaning up Lacey’s messes, year after year, until there was nothing left of me. In that life, I had ended up as a detective in a bleak border town. On a freezing, rainy night, I had responded to a security call at a luxury resort, only to find Wright, Lacey, and their three beautiful children vacationing there. Lacey had looked at my silver police badge and laughed. "Still playing cop, Naomi?" she had said, loud enough for the hotel staff to hear. "Sounds exhausting. If I were you, I'd have settled down a long time ago." Later that same night, I managed to rescue a kidnapped young girl from an abandoned warehouse. But I got trapped inside when the place was set ablaze. As the smoke filled my lungs and the fire closed in, I stared at the last text message on my phone. It was from Wright. "Lacey says she wants to see you. Can we just put the past behind us?" We couldn't. Some debts could never be settled with a text. If the universe had dragged me back to this moment, it wasn't so I could suffer in silence all over again. When Wright returned to our apartment that evening, Lacey was right behind him, dragging a pastel-pink suitcase. She stood at the threshold, looking up at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Naomi... the company asked me to take a temporary leave. I didn't have anywhere else to go, and Wright said I could stay here for a few days." I didn't answer. I was busy packing away the things I had bought for the nursery—the tiny onesies, the little socks, and the wooden rattle Wright had picked out himself. I tossed the rattle into a black garbage bag. Wright reached out, stopping my hand. "What are you doing?" "Throwing it out." "I bought that for our baby." I looked up at him, my eyes cold. "Oh. You remember?" His grip loosened, and his hand fell away. Lacey stood by his side, her voice barely a whisper. "Naomi, please don't be angry with Wright. He hasn't slept in days." I pulled the drawstring tight on the trash bag. "As long as you're sleeping fine, Lacey, that's all that matters." Her face went pale. Wright scowled. "Naomi, is it really necessary to be this hostile?" I pointed toward the guest bedroom. "She can stay there. But the lock has been changed, and there is nothing of hers left in that room." Lacey blinked, startled. "What do you mean? Where are my old trophies? My high school yearbooks?" "Donated." Refusing to believe me, she pushed past me and threw open the guest room closet. It was completely empty. Nothing remained but a bare mattress on the bed frame. Wright’s face darkened. "Those were her childhood memories, Naomi." I tossed a set of keys onto the coffee table. "Why should her childhood memories occupy space in my marital home?" Lacey leaned against the doorframe, tears spilling onto the hardwood floor. "I know you hate me, Naomi. You can yell at me, you can hit me, but how could you throw away the photos of my parents?" I looked at her, unblinking. "I didn't throw away the photos of your biological parents." She froze. "I threw away the fake scrapbook my parents made to help you play house," I continued. "Naomi!" Wright snapped. I unlocked my phone and held the screen up to his face. "Here is the number for the local recycling center. If you want them back, you can go dig through the bins yourself." Lacey screamed, lunging forward to grab my phone. I stepped aside. She lost her footing, crashing hard onto the floor, her knees hitting the wood with a sickening thud. Wright dropped to his knees to pull her up. "Naomi! What the hell is wrong with you?" I squatted down to retie the garbage bag. "I learned from the best." The doorbell rang. The building manager was standing in the hallway, flanked by two security guards. "Excuse me, Mrs. Carter, but we received a noise complaint from the neighbors downstairs. They reported shouting and glass breaking." Lacey scrambled toward them like they were her savior. "Oh, thank God. Please, you have to help us. My sister is having a nervous breakdown. She just had major surgery, and she’s not in her right mind." The manager glanced at me, then turned to Wright. "Mr. Carter, do we need to call an ambulance? Or perhaps her doctor?" Wright stayed silent, letting the implication hang in the air. That was always his favorite weapon. He loved painting my anger as hysteria, and my retaliation as sickness. I walked over to the coffee table and picked up my medical records. "We don't need a hospital. But you might want to call the police." The building manager blinked. "Excuse me?" I handed him the folder. "I was coerced into a medical procedure using forged documents. Mr. Carter and Miss Carter here just admitted to their involvement inside my apartment. I believe you heard them." One of the younger guards looked up, his eyes widening. Wright’s face went pale. "I didn't admit to anything!" Lacey cried out, her voice cracking. "I didn't say a word!" I pointed to the small, blinking light of a newly installed security camera in the corner of the ceiling. "The camera records audio." Lacey spun around to look at Wright, panic rising in her eyes. Wright stared at me as if he were looking at a stranger. "You put cameras in our home to spy on us?" I dragged the heavy black trash bag to the front door. "To catch thieves." Lacey sobbed hysterically. "Wright, I can't stay here. Let's go." Wright helped her up, guiding her past the security guards. Before he walked out, he turned back to me, his voice dripping with venom. "You're going to beg her to come back, Naomi." I slammed the door in his face. The second the latch clicked, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was an unknown number. "Ms. Carter, the files for the cold case have been secured. Are we starting tonight?" I deleted the message. Not yet. It wasn't time. The next afternoon, my mother brought Lacey back to my parents' house. The living room was packed with relatives when I walked in. Before I could even take off my coat, my aunt slammed her teacup onto the saucer. "Naomi, look at your sister! She’s practically skin and bones, and you're still carrying on with this ridiculous feud?" Lacey was wearing a high-collared knit sweater. The slap mark on her cheek had faded, but a fresh piece of sterile gauze was taped to her neck. She tilted her head, making sure everyone saw the bandage. "I'm fine, Auntie. Really." My mother clutched Lacey’s hand, tears spilling instantly. "Lacey was so distraught last night she almost did something reckless. Naomi, are you trying to drive her to the edge?" My father slid a printed document across the coffee table toward me. "Sign this. We're going to post it online. It says you suffered a temporary emotional breakdown due to the miscarriage and misconstrued the situation between Lacey and Wright." I scanned the page. It was beautifully drafted. It painted Lacey as an innocent victim of a grieving sister's paranoia, and Wright as a devoted, long-suffering husband standing by his troubled wife. "Who wrote this?" I asked. Lacey looked up, her eyes wide and pleading. "Wright had his legal team draft it. Naomi, if you just post this, the dance company will let me back into the showcase." "Your sister's entire career shouldn't be ruined because of your temper," my father grunted. I picked up the pen. A collective sigh of relief swept through the room. But instead of signing, I wrote three words across the signature line in thick, black ink: "Go to hell." My aunt threw her hands up. "What is wrong with this girl? Why are you so stubborn?" I ignored her, locking eyes with my father. "Dad, when you adopted Lacey, you told everyone it was because her father saved your life. Right?" My father’s face hardened. "Why are you bringing up the past now?" "I want to hear her say it," I replied, turning to Lacey. Lacey lowered her head, sniffing. "My father died in the line of duty to save Uncle Thomas." I nodded slowly. "And you claim he was a firefighter?" My mother stood up abruptly. "Naomi! That is enough. Shut your mouth." Lacey clutched a crumpled tissue in her fist. "Are you really going to insult my dead father now, Naomi?" I didn't push it further. In my previous life, I had spent years digging into her background. Her "heroic" father was never a firefighter. He was a low-level smuggler, a middleman in a child-trafficking ring who had died fleeing from the police. The Carter family had adopted Lacey because my mother was soft-hearted, and because my father needed to cover up a critical, career-ending mistake he had made during that investigation. But if I exposed them now without hard evidence, they would only use it to lock me away in a psych ward. I tore the apology letter in half. "If you want me to apologize, fine. Have Wright hand over his phone records from the day of my surgery. And have Lacey bring the man who forged my medical report to this house." The color drained from Lacey’s face. My father roared, "You're going to cross-examine your own family now?" I stood up, brushing off my coat. "Real family doesn't murder my baby." The front door opened, and Wright stepped in. He was holding a printed sheet of paper—an appointment confirmation for a psychiatric evaluation. "Naomi, you need to go get tested," he said, his voice flat. I stared at the paper. In my previous life, he had used this exact same tactic. He used a forced psychiatric evaluation to prove I was suffering from postpartum psychosis, rendering all my accusations legally useless. Even after I was reassigned to the department in Charleston, that red flag had followed me in my files. Every promotion, every transfer, there was always someone asking: "Is it true you were mentally unstable back then?" I took the paper from his hand and ripped it to shreds right in front of them. "I'm not getting evaluated, Wright." Wright’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Don't force my hand, Naomi." Lacey reached out to grab his arm. "Wright, stop. She's just grieving. She's in so much pain." I picked up a cup of cold tea from the table and poured it directly over Wright’s expensive leather shoes. "Stop pretending to care," I spat. He grabbed my wrist, his grip like iron. Ignoring the pain, I turned my gaze to Lacey. "You love to cry, don't you? Let's hear it. Cry louder for everyone." Lacey shrank back under my stare, and the room erupted into angry shouts from my aunts and uncles. Wright dragged me toward the front door. "You are moving out of our apartment. Tonight." I let out a sharp laugh. "I bought that apartment before we even got engaged, Wright." He froze. I pulled a copy of the deed from my purse and slapped it against the wall by the door. "From today on, if anyone catches Lacey inside my apartment, I'm filing breaking-and-entering charges." My father raised his hand to slap me, but before he could swing, there was a sharp knock at the door. A middle-aged woman wearing a worn gray trench coat stood on the porch. She looked past me into the living room, her eyes locking onto Lacey. She paused. "Are you Lacey Carter?" Lacey stepped back, instantly on guard. "Who are you?" The woman reached into her canvas bag and pulled out a faded photograph. "Your father owes my family a life. I've been looking for you for seventeen years." Every eye in the room turned to Lacey. The crumpled tissue slipped from her hand and fell to the floor.
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