Chapter 2

I woke up to find myself reliving the day of Gavin’s college acceptance party.

At the moment, Dad was at the dinner table bragging to everyone about how Gavin was about to be accepted into Sunshine University.

He proudly explained how he’d been working his “connections” since Gavin’s junior year of high school. Recently, he’d met someone who claimed to work in the admissions office at Sunshine University. This so-called admissions officer had assured Dad that as long as Gavin put Sunshine University as his top six choices, the acceptance letter would arrive in the mail within a month.

Some of the more practical-minded guests tried to talk Dad out of it. “You’ve got to be careful with people like that. He sounds like a scammer.”

“No way!” Dad shot back indignantly. “We’ve known each other for a while now. He hasn’t asked me for a single penny. In fact, every time we’ve gone out to eat, he’s the one who pays the tab. You tell me, where are you going to find a scammer that generous?”

Then Dad turned to me, throwing me squarely under the bus. “And isn’t Stella working in the education department? Stella, you tell them—don’t colleges sometimes admit students even if their grades don’t exactly meet the requirements? That’s how these things work, right?”

All eyes turned to me.

For a moment, my mind drifted to my previous life. I remembered this exact scene playing out before. Back then, I had given Dad a serious, straightforward answer.

I told him that college admissions were one of the few truly fair opportunities for ordinary people to change their lives. There was no way someone could get into a top-tier school like Sunshine University through “connections.”

I even gave him examples—cases where desperate parents had been scammed out of their life savings by people pretending to be college recruiters. These scammers would strike up casual conversations, claim they had “connections,” and promise the world, only to disappear once they got their money.

Dad didn’t take it well. Right there in front of everyone, he slapped me across the face.

After that, he confiscated my phone and my wallet and kicked me out of the house in the middle of a thunderstorm.

But later that night, after being pressured by relatives and friends, he reluctantly dropped the idea. I spent a week researching schools and helped Gavin apply to a second-tier university in Germany that matched his grades.

That decision haunted me for years.

Any time Gavin faced even the smallest challenge in school, Dad would blame me for not letting him go to Sunshine University. Over time, Gavin’s resentment toward me grew deeper and deeper.

It all came to a head one evening when I came home for dinner. Gavin handed me a glass of juice laced with pesticide.

Even as I lay dying, struggling to breathe, Dad stood there watching. He didn’t call for help. Instead, to protect Gavin, he dismembered me and fed my remains to the neighborhood’s stray cats and dogs, bit by bit.

When the deed was done, he told everyone I had run away with a man, abandoning my family.

One night, I saw him sitting alone in my empty room, staring at the walls.

“Stella,” he muttered to himself, his voice heavy with guilt. “I’m sorry. But you were already gone. I had no choice. I had to protect Gavin.”

I was there, my soul floating above him.

I couldn’t contain my rage. I had been alive when he made his choice. He had seen me fighting for my life, and still, he did what he did.

Now, back at the dinner table in this new timeline, I looked up at Dad, who was waiting for my answer. His eyes were filled with pride, eager for validation.

“I mean, I don’t know all the ins and outs of how these things work,” I said with a smile. “But Dad, you’re Gavin’s father. You’d only want what’s best for him, right?”

Hearing my response, Dad beamed and turned to the guests.

“You see? Even Stella, who works in the system, isn’t against it. So why are you all so worried? Just wait! When Gavin gets into Sunshine University, I’ll throw another party to celebrate, and you’re all invited!”

I couldn’t help but smile.

Dear Dad, I can’t wait to see how far your “connection” gets you this time.