Chapter 1: The Comments in My Head

The tenth time I felt the school heartthrob’s brooding gaze on me, it was like my brain’s own For You Page—every snarky comment scrolling by, louder than my heartbeat:

[The male lead travels back ten years and finds his wife is now someone else’s girlfriend. Total disaster.]

[Years of secret love—he finally got his wife, but now he has to start from scratch.]

[Natalie has a boyfriend now. The male lead can only grit his teeth and deal.]

[I have a feeling this guy won’t hold back like he did at nineteen.]

No, my phone wasn’t glitching—these comments were all in my head, like my brain had its own peanut gallery. The kind of gossip that would have the group chat in flames if anyone else could see it.

Sure enough, the next second, my phone buzzed with an anonymous text:

[Hey, would you consider breaking up?]

[Or, would you mind having one more boyfriend?]

[I promise, until you break up, I’ll keep my distance and behave.]

I stared at the texts, thumb hovering, half-wondering if this was someone’s idea of a prank. Maybe a dare? My heart thudded, half from annoyance, half from a jolt of something I didn’t want to name. The nerve.