Chapter 2

I stared at those lines, my breathing nearly stopped.

I knew this handwriting too well.

Ethan's current writing was practiced regular script. Steady, restrained, carrying the authority of someone in power. But this wild, almost flying scrawl could only have been written by that reckless eighteen-year-old Ethan.

A hallucination?

Had the cancer spread to my brain?

I pinched my thigh hard. The pain was piercing. Not a dream.

Looking at the question marks and exclamation points that kept appearing, my tears flowed even harder.

I wiped my face, gripped the pen tightly, and wrote tentatively.

"Are you the eighteen-year-old Ethan Blackwell?"

The response came instantly, incredibly fast.

"Obviously! What the hell are you? Why are you writing in my notebook? And why are you calling Violet cursed?!"

"Say one more bad word about her and I swear I'll kill you!"

Even across time and space, across the distance between life and death, I could picture how he looked right now.

Definitely wearing that red jersey, eyebrows raised high, looking fierce as he protected what was his.

Once, this fierce devotion was my security.

Now, it had become the sharpest blade stabbing into my heart.

I took a deep breath and wrote.

"Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is this, Ethan Blackwell: Violet will cause you unbearable pain in the future."

"Bullshit!"

The words on the other end were so large they nearly burst off the page.

"Violet is the best girl in the entire world! I chased her for three whole years before she agreed to date me. I'm terrified of dropping her, afraid she'll melt if I hold her in my mouth. How could she possibly cause me pain?"

"You're the problem, you sneaking rat!"

"You're just jealous I have a girlfriend, aren't you? Single loser!"

Looking at these words, I cried and laughed at the same time.

Yes, I was jealous.

I was jealous of eighteen-year-old Violet. Jealous that she had a boy whose heart and eyes were full of her alone.

That boy hadn't yet learned to weigh pros and cons. Hadn't learned to put on false smiles. Hadn't learned to kick away the one he loved like garbage for profit.

"Ethan Blackwell," I wrote, my wrist losing strength, "I'm from the future... an observer."

"I've seen how you two end up."

"End up?" He paused for a few seconds. "Did we get married? Have kids? Violet says she wants a daughter, a beautiful daughter just like her."

That blade struck true.

I instinctively covered my flat stomach.

There had been a little life there once. Three months along.

That day Sophia pretended to fall. Ethan shoved me without asking any questions.

I tumbled down the stairs. Blood stained my white dress red.

When I woke up, the baby was gone, and I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.

And Ethan just looked at me coldly and said, "Violet, stop pretending. Sophia was just trying to help you up. You lost your balance. Who can you blame?"

The memories corroded my sanity like acid.

I gritted my teeth and wrote, one word at a time.

"You got married."

"But seven years later, you'll have an affair with her best friend."

"You'll force Violet to divorce you for that woman."

"You'll personally kill your child."

"Ethan Blackwell, is this what you call love?"