Erased from His Timeline

"Why couldn't it have been you who died that day!" Gideon hurled our milliondollar custom wedding portrait onto the marble floor.

He stormed out the door, leaving behind a blinding, jagged sea of shattered glass. A mechanical voice slammed into my skull. [Mission failed.

System obliteration sequence initiating.] He went straight to Delaney's grave.

He rented out the entire private cemetery just to pour the most expensive bottles of Ace of Spades champagne over her headstone.

I packed away every trace of my existence in that house. I left nothing behind.

Right before the obliteration sequence began, I stared at him like he was a pathetic stranger. "Gideon, if I disappear completely, will you finally pay the price for your arrogance?" He scoffed, his face twisting with disgust. "Never.

If I had the choice, I'd swap her life for yours in a heartbeat." A cold smile touched my lips. "As you wish." I submitted my final command to the system. "Reverse the timeline.

Put me in that accident instead of her." Goodbye, Gideon. Chapter 1 Another argument.

Gideon threw out his favorite closing line—"Why couldn't it have been you who died that day!"—grabbed his coat off the couch, and slammed the door behind him.

Right on cue, the system delivered the final verdict in my head. Mission failed.

I stood alone in the center of the wrecked living room. "System," I finally rasped, a dry, selfdeprecating laugh catching in my throat. "Didn't you say that once his affection hit ninetynine percent, it was permanently locked?" Gideon was at ninetynine.

We were so close. Just a fraction of a percent away from me getting to stay in this world with him forever. Silence echoed in my head.

The system was, at its core, just a string of code woven from higherdimensional data.

According to its cold, hard algorithms, human emotion didn't degrade once it crossed that ninetynine percent threshold.

But the failure blaring in my mind was a slap in its digital face. It was a glaring error in its flawless calculations. Humans were just too messy for math.

The AI sounded almost guilty. [Host, to compensate for this calculation error, I can grant you a grace period to say goodbye to this world.] Taking in my pathetic state, it added another line. [If you have any final requests, I can fulfill them.] I sank to the floor, my knees hitting the hardwood with a dull thud.

I didn't answer. My eyes locked onto the shattered glass scattered across the rug. Slowly, I reached out, my fingers trembling as I picked up the jagged pieces.

It was from our first anniversary. Gideon had made it himself. I could still see the look on his face the day he gave it to me.

I had been reborn into this world, growing up right next door to him. We were childhood sweethearts; falling in love was the most natural thing in the universe.

He was just an earnest, clumsy boy back then, holding out his handmade gift with whiteknuckled hands, his jaw tight with nervous anticipation.

When I accepted it, his eyes went glossy. He rubbed his face hard, blaming the wind for blowing dust in his eyes.

Sitting in the ruins of our living room today, that boy felt a million lifetimes away. Neither of us could have ever predicted we'd end up like this.

When did the cracks actually start showing? I honestly couldn't remember. All I knew was that at some point, a plain, unassuming girl just appeared in his orbit. Delaney.

At first, Gideon wouldn't even bring her up. But gradually, she seeped into his life like a slow gas leak. Our dates started feeling crowded.

She wasn't physically there, but her ghost haunted every conversation.

We'd be walking through a mall, and he'd point at a plush toy in a window. "I don't get why girls like these ugly things." I didn't like stuffed animals. He wasn't talking about me.

He was talking about Delaney. Or the time we were hosting a dinner at a threestar Michelin restaurant.

The server placed a plate in front of me, and Gideon instantly slammed his hand on the table, glaring at the executive chef. "Take this back! There's peanut puree in this!

She'll go into anaphylactic shock!" I wasn't allergic to peanuts. Delaney was. Gideon knew he was slipping.

He'd hold me tight, his grip almost bruising, and swear up and down that I was the only one he loved. He claimed he just admired Delaney. He promised he'd keep his distance.

I really thought we could get back on track. I thought the nightmare was over. Until the day of our wedding, when Delaney crashed back into our world for good.

Chapter 2 She bribed the penthouse security. Just as I was about to say my vows, she rushed the rooftop wearing the exact same custom bridal gown as me.

She threw herself at me like a paranoid lunatic, trying to drag me over the ledge with her. My heels slipped.

I tumbled over the edge, my fingers desperately digging into the concrete parapet. Delaney clawed at my other arm, her dead weight trying to rip me down to the pavement below.

The rooftop doors banged open. Gideon sprinted out. Delaney's manic face lit up with delusional joy. "Gideon!

You came to save me, didn't you!" He stared at us dangling over the abyss. My shoulder joint burned, tearing under the weight of two people. My grip was slipping fast. Gideon froze.

The hesitation lasted only seconds, but it was enough to brand itself into my brain.

He lunged forward and gripped my wrist, his face completely drained of blood. "Sloane, grab onto me." The sick light in Delaney's eyes instantly died. She started laughing.

A hollow, grating sound that ripped through the howling wind.

Right before her fingers gave out, she locked eyes with him, sickeningly devoted. "I wore this dress for you today, Gideon.

In this life… just pretend we got married." Then, she let go. Delaney's timeline froze forever on that concrete. News helicopters circled overhead that day.

They broadcasted the entire thing live to the world—the heir to the global empire shoving past his own bride to cradle the broken body of another woman, howling like a wounded animal.

From that moment on, my wedding of the century became a grotesque reality show. The entire internet laughed at me.

Every year on our anniversary, Gideon vanished to her grave to drown himself in liquor and memories. The tabloids tore me to shreds.

They called me the ultimate trophy wife—a hollow title with zero actual power in his heart. The only person taking up space in his chest was Delaney.

I dragged the rotting corpse of this marriage for three years. And today, the final verdict dropped. We had fought a thousand times.

But this was the first time he actually said it out loud: "Why couldn't it have been you who died that day!" He regretted it. He regretted grabbing my hand instead of hers.

There's a harsh truth about men like him. If they marry the perfect girl, she eventually just becomes a dull stain on their collar. But the one who slipped through their fingers?

She becomes a permanent brand burned right over their heart. Delaney died on her pedestal. She became his untouchable tragedy. You can never win against a ghost.

Love was always a fragile, decaying thing anyway. The next morning, I watched the sun rise through the floortoceiling windows. It was blindingly bright.

I wouldn't be seeing it for much longer. The system set the countdown. One week. Seven days until I was wiped from the face of this earth.

Years ago, my only fear was failing the mission and getting deleted. Then, somewhere along the line, I actually fell for him. I just wanted to build a real life together.

For years, I revolved around Gideon like a mindless satellite. I missed a lot of sunrises staring at his back. For my final week, I was going to live for myself.

I was going to leave with my spine straight. I started packing. Everything in this penthouse was something I bought during our time together.

Gideon grew up in a toxic, broken family. He was always desperately searching for a place to anchor himself. I was young and stupid enough to think I could be that anchor.

So, when we moved in together in college, I poured my blood and sweat into building us a home.

From the imported hardwood floors to every single piece of custom furniture, I curated it all. Now, I was walking away.

Chapter 3 With me gone, there was zero chance Gideon would keep any of it. He despised me too much. And honestly?

I refused to let him bring some new woman in here later to taint the space. This apartment was a museum to the most genuine, burning love of my youth.

I stood by the door, directing the movers, ensuring they hauled every piece of custom furniture out. I even hired a crew to rip out the fixtures.

I didn't just move out; I ordered every single expensive item Delaney had ever touched or even looked at to be smashed and tossed into the dumpsters out back. My phone buzzed.

It was Gideon's assistant.

I stared at the screen for a solid minute before swiping accept. "Sloane, please, you need to come talk some sense into him!" he pleaded, panic bleeding through his voice.

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. And Delaney's death anniversary. He had stormed out after screaming at me.

Now, he was probably curled up next to her tombstone in the pouring rain. A classic tradition he'd faithfully kept for the past three years.

He played the role of Delaney's grieving widower perfectly. I let out a harsh, dry laugh. In the past, I would've played the pathetic wife.

I would have made him a custom hangover coffee and dragged myself out in the rain to beg him to come home, only for him to smash the mug onto the floor and humiliate me.

Not anymore. It wasn't my problem. "Sorry," I said, my voice dead flat. "You've got the wrong number. I can't talk sense into Gideon.

He doesn't listen to me." I hung up and blocked the number before he could get another word in. Three days left until the system wiped me out. The penthouse was stripped bare.

I signed the divorce papers he'd been shoving in my face for years and left them squarely on the kitchen island.

I knew it wouldn't matter once the system erased me, but it was the final nail in the coffin of this threeyear joke of a marriage.

The first time he demanded a divorce was when I tried to force him back to reality by screaming that Delaney was dead.

He snapped, slapping the predrawn papers against my chest with a sharp crack. I remembered standing there, paralyzed.

I looked at the legal document and saw the ghost of the boy who used to try and hand me the moon. I used to be the absolute center of his gravity. That boy was gone.

It was so ridiculous, a broken laugh clawed its way out of my throat.

Gideon yanked at his custom silk tie, disgust written all over his face, and slammed his checkbook onto the table. "Not satisfied with the settlement?

Name your alimony price, fill out the check, and get out of my sight." I laughed until my eyes burned and the tears spilled over. "Gideon," I choked out. "Do you remember what you said when you proposed?" What did he say?

His proposal broke the internet. He broadcasted to the entire world that he was desperately, agonizingly in love with Sloane.

He had dropped to one knee on his private yacht, shaking so hard he almost dropped the pink diamond ring. When I said yes, he broke down sobbing.

He said he was the luckiest bastard alive. He had looked me dead in the eye and swore, "There is no divorce for us, Sloane. Only death.

The only way you leave me is if I'm in a body bag." It even sparked a trending hashtag online: Find a man who loves you like Gideon loves Sloane.

Chapter 4 But the man who once gave me the world just looked at me with sheer annoyance. "Sign the papers. Let's just end this cleanly." I stared at the settlement.

I don't know where the nerve came from, but I snatched the document and ripped it right down the middle.

Maybe I was still clinging to the ghost of our past, or maybe I just refused to let them win so easily.

I met Gideon's gaze dead on and forced out the words. "I'm not signing." That flipped a switch.

The man who used to treat me like glass glared at me, his eyes dark with warning. "Don't regret this, Sloane." Drowning in the past is just another form of suicide.

I snapped back to reality and focused on getting my affairs in order. I knew the system obliteration would scrub every trace of my existence from this world.

Still, maybe for my own sanity, I wanted a grave. I just needed to know I had a final resting place. I drained my savings to buy a plot.

There wouldn't be a body to bury, but setting up a cenotaph felt like the only way to prove I was ever actually here. The system didn't stop me. Meanwhile, Gideon was busy.

Every day, he was either throwing massive checks at Delaney's parents or setting up a charity foundation in her name, desperately trying to buy off his pathetic guilt with hard cash.

He was stretched so thin playing the tragic hero that he even abandoned his duties at the global conglomerate.

When his assistant mentioned that Sloane left something for him at the Long Island penthouse… he just kept his eyes on his phone and deadpanned, "Don't bother me with updates on irrelevant people anymore." His assistant swallowed his words and nodded.

He went to high school with us. He watched our entire relationship unfold from day one. He probably couldn't process how two people who loved each other that much ended up here.

With the plot secured, I needed a proper photo for the headstone. I tracked down a highlyrated photographer and booked a session.

The location was right by the lake in Central Park, near the Ivy League campus where Gideon and I used to go to school.

It was a massive tourist trap, but I used to walk there alone all the time during college. It reminded me of the lake by my house back in my original world.

On the day of the shoot, I wore my favorite dress and actually did my makeup. I stood by the water, taking in the view while waiting for the photographer.

I just never expected to run into Gideon there. He had an entire entourage of executives trailing behind him. He spotted me, his brow twitched, and he kept walking.

Total radio silence. I just shrugged it off and checked my phone. The photographer showed up a few minutes later. I gave him the exact vibe I was going for, and we shot for a while.

The raw proofs looked perfect. Just as I was packing up to leave, Gideon materialized again. This time, he ditched his entourage. He was completely alone.

He marched straight toward me, his jaw locked tight. "What are you doing here?" I stared at him, my brow furrowing. "Taking my funeral portrait.

Want to hop in for one?" The line between his brows deepened into a harsh crease. "What kind of sick game are you playing now, Sloane?" Chapter 5 His tone was laced with pure impatience