"Back to 17: I Don't Want the Cheating Scum

My husband cheated on me. On the way to file for divorce, we got into a car accident.

Before he died, he was still yelling at me, You were the desperate one, practically climbing into my bed when you were seventeen!

When I opened my eyes again, I was seventeen, back in the basement apartment where we'd eloped.

This time, I took one look at him and turned to run.

But to my surprise, he'd been reborn too. And he grabbed me, refusing to let me go.

At twenty-nine, my seven-year marriage to Jake Miller had finally become a sick joke.

On the way to the divorce lawyer, I was crying hysterically in the car, pointing my finger at him. "Jake Miller, are you even human? I suffered with you since I was seventeen, and now that things are good, you just turn around and find some fresh-out-of-college intern? Did a dog eat your conscience?"

Jake gripped the steering wheel, that sickening smirk plastered on his face. "My conscience? Ava Reed, we're two sides of the same coin. You were the one who wanted to elope with me. You practically jumped into my bed at seventeen. Now you're playing the innocent victim?"

I was trembling with rage, just about to lunge and scratch his face when a blinding white flash erupted directly ahead.

The out-of-control truck speeding toward us slammed into our car like a rampaging beast.

Excruciating pain, darkness, then an absolute void.

When I next regained consciousness, it was the smell of damp mold that choked me awake.

I groggily opened my eyes and saw sunlight filtering through a tiny, palm-sized window, dust motes dancing wildly in the golden beams.

The walls were plastered with old newspapers, so cramped it was suffocating. The tiny full-sized bed beneath me was covered in a faded, pilled pink piglet sheet that looked like it belonged in a thrift store.

I stared for a long moment, then lifted a hand to touch my face.

My skin was taut, free of fine lines, full of youthful collagen.

I was seventeen again.

Back then, I thought this place was paradise, a love nest where love alone was enough.

Now, it barely looked better than a dog kennel.

I still can't believe how incredibly stupid I was back then, leaving a sprawling villa for this dump.

Jake was an orphan, raised on the wrong side of the tracks, a wild card with a reputation for a quick temper and even quicker fists. He was notorious in our area, a real hell-raiser.

My family, on the other hand, was well-off. My parents were both high-level professionals, always had my life mapped out, treating me like their little princess. By all accounts, Jake and I were like two parallel lines, never meant to intersect.

The trouble started that snowy day.

I was walking home from school, passing through a dead-end alley, when I saw Jake being beaten by a group of guys.

After they scattered, I saw him lying in the snow, wearing only a thin black hoodie, a chilling red stain spreading beneath him.

I was young then, and too soft-hearted. I should have run, but my feet felt rooted to the spot.

On a strange impulse, I dialed 911, and even took off my down jacket to cover him.

"Hey... are you okay?"

He struggled to lift his eyelids, his eyes startlingly dark. "Aren't you scared of me?"

I stammered, "We go to the same school. Fighting is bad. You shouldn't fight anymore."

He scoffed, ignored me, and closed his eyes, pretending to be unconscious.

I foolishly squatted there, shielding him from the wind and snow until the ambulance arrived. I even used half a year's worth of my allowance to cover his medical bills.

I thought that would be the end of it.

But a few days later, Jake swaggered into our classroom.

Amidst a chorus of gasps, he slapped a wad of crumpled bills onto my desk, a dangerously handsome smirk on his face. "Here's the money from the other day. Thanks, good girl."

He walked out, and just like that, I became the notorious bad boy's rumored girlfriend.

My friend tugged at my sleeve, shrieking, "Ava, are you crazy? That's Jake Miller! I heard he's involved with gangs, maybe even killed someone! Stay away from him!"

Some girls who loved drama crowded around. "Hey, you actually know Jake? Can you get me his SnapChat? He looks so hot on his motorcycle!"

I was completely bewildered.

On the way home from school, a motorcycle roared and cut me off.

Jake took off his helmet, revealing those signature dark, narrow eyes, and whistled at me. "Get on. I'll take you for a ride."

His gang of friends behind him started jeering.

"Jake, this chick looks too plain. Boring."

"Yeah, the 'It Girl' from the tech school is where it's at. Short skirts, big boobs, long legs C now THAT'S hot!"

My face turned white with fear. Like a startled rabbit, I lowered my head, scurried around his bike, and ran.

The sound of their raucous laughter followed me.

Back then, I truly hated him. I thought he was a lowlife, from a completely different world than mine.

But Jake was thick-skinned. He blocked me every day, and I couldn't shake him.

Until one day, I stayed late for detention and encountered a drunk harassing me in the alley.

Just as I was despairing, Jake suddenly appeared, like some kind of guardian angel, kicking the drunk a good six feet away.

He took off his jacket, still warm from his body, and wrapped it around me, his voice unusually gentle. "Don't worry, I've got you."

That night, he followed me all the way home, watching until I was safely inside.

That night, a tiny crack formed in my seventeen-year-old heart's defenses.

Young love, it came on like a hurricane, fast and fierce.

Jake and I started dating, and, predictably, we were caught by a teacher, and our parents were called.

My parents were furious. They locked me in the house, forced me to break up with him, saying I had no self-respect, that I was ruining my life.

But back then, my mind was only on Jake.

For the first seventeen years, I'd lived like a puppet on a string, docile and obedient.

Jake was like a hammer, shattering the glass bubble of my life, dragging me headfirst into a raw, dangerous, yet strangely captivating new world.

He took me skipping class to bars, snuck me out to a hilltop to watch the stars at midnight, and awkwardly tried to feed me medicine when I caught a cold.

For the sake of "love," I jumped out of my second-story window and eloped with Jake.

At the train station, he held me tight, his heart hammering like a drum against my chest.

He asked, "Ava, are you scared of suffering with me?"

I looked up, my eyes full of light. "I'm not scared!"

"Good! I, Jake Miller, swear that if I ever betray you in this life, I'll die a miserable death!"

Those vows sounded so sincere back then.

The days that followed were indeed hard.

We lived in a cramped basement apartment, ate instant noodles, and huddled together for warmth in the winter.

He'd pick out the only fried egg for me and warm my icy feet with his stomach.

We were desperate to make something of ourselves.

Jake was sharp and ambitious. He caught onto several hot trends early, and his business took off like a rocket.

I, too, transformed from a sheltered girl who'd never lifted a finger to a fierce business partner, fighting side-by-side with him.

We moved out of the basement, into a penthouse, and eventually, a standalone villa.

The day he proposed, he rented every digital billboard in the city, and fireworks lit up the sky all night long.

I honestly thought that was our happily ever after, that we'd live the fairy tale ending forever.

Until that young female intern, Chloe Peterson, showed up.

She was young, vibrant, and her adoring gaze was exactly like mine had been all those years ago.

Jake fell for her.

Fights, silent treatments, throwing thingseventually, it all devolved into mutual destruction.

The lovers who once shared everything became enemies who wanted nothing more than to tear each other apart.

I was lost in thought when the door suddenly pushed open.

Eighteen-year-old Jake walked in, his eyes locked on me. There was no youthful adoration in themonly a shocking complexity: the weariness and resentment of someone who'd survived a storm.

Just one look, and I understood.

He'd been reborn too.

And he knew I had been reborn.

In this small room, once filled with sweet memories, the air hung thick with unspoken tension, almost tangible.

"Um..." Jake cleared his throat, his voice rough. "Earlier in the car... I was just so furious I didn't think before I spoke, okay? I didn't mean those terrible things I said."

Looking at him, I suddenly found it absurd.

Years ago, in this very room, he had held me and said, "Ava, I've put you through so much. I promise I'll give you the best of everything in the world."

I believed him then, truly.

Just as I believed him when he called me "desperate" in the car before we died.

The love was real, and the hate was real too.

Time truly is a cruel thing; it can turn a precious gem into a worthless stone.

We sat at opposite ends of that narrow bed, neither of us speaking.

"Ava, since we're both back..." Jake was about to say something when a frantic pounding on the door interrupted him.

I got up to open it.

The moment the door swung open, I froze.

Standing outside was my mom, Sarah Reed.

The woman I remembered as always elegant and put-together now had messy hair, eyes swollen shut, and a sickly, grayish complexion, like she'd aged ten years overnight.

She grabbed my wrist in a vice grip that made me wince. "Come on! You're coming home with me right now!"

Memories instantly overlapped.

In my previous life, it was at this exact moment that my mom found me here.

She cried and begged me to come back, promising that if I did, everything from before would be forgiven.

But I was still so stubbornly naive, like I was under some kind of spell. I wrenched my hand free, yelling that I loved Jake and would never marry anyone else.

My mom trembled with rage and slapped me hard across the face. "I wasted all these years raising you! You'd throw away your own mother for a boy?"

Finally, completely heartbroken, she left, tossing one last remark over her shoulder: "From now on, I'll pretend I never had a daughter!"

From that day until I died, we never saw each other again.

Later, when Jake became wealthy, I brought gifts hoping to mend our relationship, but my dad threw me outgifts and all.

It was the biggest regret of my life, a pain that haunted me every single night.

Now, my mom's voice was raw. "Ava, if you come home with me now, our family can still be whole. But if you insist on staying with this deadbeat, then just pretend I'm dead! Pretend I never gave birth to you!"

She continued to spout harsh words, but tears streamed down her face.

I looked at her familiar yet strangely aged face, my eyes stinging.

How long had it been since I'd seen my mom?

My stubbornness in my past life had brought me nothing but ruin and total alienation from everyone I loved.

I turned my hand and squeezed her calloused one, gently cutting her off. "Okay, Mom. I'll come home with you."

My mom's sobs abruptly stopped. She stared at me wide-eyed, like she couldn't believe what she'd heard. "What did you say? You... you'll come home with me?"

She'd clearly braced herself for a huge fight and hadn't expected me to agree so easily.

Jake, who had been sitting on the bed, spun around, staring at me with utter disbelief.