She Stole My Marriage—and My Nightmare

My cheapskate best friend offered to buy a bottle of water for the Quan heir — the richest kid in our valley — lying there with heatstroke, and that was how I knew she had been reborn too.

In my last life, she and I took the SAT together, and when the scores came back we had both scored over fifteen hundred.

That spring the decisions came in, and we both got into Harvard, UCLA, and Berkeley.

But we had promised each other back in middle school that we would go to the same school, and whoever clicked commit first would be deciding it for both of us.

Neither of us wanted to be the one who spoiled that, so we kept putting it off, all the way to May 1, the national deadline to commit.

That afternoon, on my way to the college counseling office to click commit, I found the Quan heir collapsed from heatstroke in front of the school.

I bought him a water and dragged the umbrella from outside the convenience store over to keep the sun off him.

Then I called an ambulance, rode with him to the ER, and stayed until he woke up. He opened his eyes a little after nine. Midnight on the East Coast is nine o'clock out here.

By the time I remembered what day it was, it was already past midnight in California too. She clicked commit before the deadline and went to Harvard that fall.

I clicked nothing, and Harvard, UCLA, Berkeley — every admission offer I had was gone overnight.

But the Quan heir was so moved by my little goodSamaritan act that he proposed to me. In the end I married him and became a society wife.

My best friend got her Harvard, and then found herself smothered under coursework that never let up.

Every day she watched me with more money than I could spend, and the jealousy turned her eyes red, and one day she lost it and stabbed me to death.

When I opened my eyes again, the two of us were back on the day the Quan heir went down with heatstroke.

Chapter 1 "Hey, give me a bottle of the most expensive water you've got." I was standing in the convenience store across from school when someone knocked into the small of my back, and my eyes flew open.

Outside, the May heat wave was sitting on the valley at over a hundred degrees, and the asphalt shimmered like it was going soft.

Vivienne Gee took the bottle and shot me a wary look before hurrying out of the store, heading straight for the bench under the umbrella outside.

Sitting on that bench, whitefaced and sick with the heat, was Eugene Quan. The Quan family's only son.

In the Chinese community out here in the San Gabriel Valley, the Quan name carried more weight than anyone else's, and people called him the heir.

Vivienne set the water down beside him, pulled out a tissue, and carefully blotted the sweat off his face. Watching how anxious she looked, I was sure of it.

She had been reborn too. Sure enough, she turned around and put herself between me and Eugene. "Celine, hurry up and go click commit at the counseling office. I've got Mr.

Quan handled. Quit standing there getting in the way." I looked at her, cold. "You're reading too much into it.

I wasn't planning on taking care of him anyway." She clearly didn't believe me, and she snorted. "Yeah, right. Who's gonna believe that?

Last life it was because—" She shut her mouth right there, but I knew what she meant.

In my last life, it was because I took care of Eugene when he had heatstroke, and he was so moved that he proposed. I married into money, and Vivienne got her Harvard.

Then she graduated and turned into just another working stiff grinding it out, while I was a rich man's wife. At a class reunion, out of pure jealousy, she stabbed me to death.

And now, somehow, the two of us had both been reborn. A few classmates nearby knew exactly how cheap Vivienne was, and they were already whispering. "Vivienne's dirt cheap normally.

She finds out it's the Quan heir and all of a sudden she's buying the sixdollar imported stuff." "If it was a regular guy she wouldn't have looked twice.

What a snob." Vivienne's neck went stiff. "Quit talking crap. I just like helping people, okay? What do you know." "Celine, I'm not going to Harvard.

I'm giving it to you." Everyone around us looked startled. Vivienne came over to me with her chin in the air. "So what if it's Harvard?

The way things work now, you can come out of the best school in the country and still end up breaking your back for somebody else." "For a woman, the best thing you can end up with is a good man." She gave me a cold sideways look. "But you already missed your shot.

Don't even dream about it this life." I nodded, not interested in arguing with her, and went with everyone else to the counseling office to click commit.

If she wanted to marry into money that badly, she could have it. A little over ten minutes later, we were all done.

When we came back past Vivienne and Eugene, he was slowly coming around. Vivienne threw herself down beside him and took his hand, her whole face worried. "Mr.

Quan, are you feeling better? Do you want me to get you to a hospital?" Eugene met that ridiculously anxious look of hers, and for a beat he clearly froze.

She laid her hand on his forehead. "Does anything else feel wrong?" "I'm fine now.

Thank you," Eugene said. "Were you the one taking care of me?" Vivienne smiled, all bashful. "I was. Let me stay a little longer.

If anything happens, I'd feel better being right here." Right then a Maybach pulled into the dropoff lane at the front of the school, and the Quans' house manager came hurrying toward them.

Eugene saw him and took the opening. "Vivienne, thank you for looking after me today. Let me take you to dinner." The excitement in her eyes was impossible to miss.

She nodded, and kept nodding. On her way out she threw me a contemptuous look. "Celine, you're going to be a wage slave your whole life. Me, I'm different.

I'm going to marry into money." I watched her swagger off, and I sneered. Vivienne, do you really think regular people like us marry into money that easily?

Chapter 2 A few days later, at the senior class dinner, Vivienne came in late.

Her family lived in a small town out past the valley, inland, and her parents worked the back of a Chinese restaurant kitchen.

She'd always had that scruffy, offbrand look about her.

Tonight, though, she was head to toe in logos, the luxury coming off her in waves, and she walked in and turned every head in the room.

She flipped her hair back and came straight to the seat next to mine.

She had barely sat down before she covered her nose, drew her eyebrows together, and announced with total disgust, "What is this? I'm allergic to cheap sparkling apple juice.

Take it away.

Excuse me — bring us the best bottle you have, and stop trying to pass garbage off on people." Then she raised her voice across the table. "Everything tonight is on me.

Order whatever you want." People stared at her, not believing it. You couldn't blame them. Vivienne was famously tight.

Her family was poor enough that she used to split one steamed bun across two meals.

Normally she wouldn't spring for a single glass of the stuff she'd just sent back, let alone pick up the check for the entire room. "Vivienne, is this…" One of them looked at her, half believing it.

Vivienne pulled a card out of her bag and waved it in front of everyone. "I'm with the Quan heir now." The table exploded. "Vivienne, you're with the Quan heir?" She spread her fingers to show off her fresh nails and nodded, grinning so wide it nearly reached her ears. "Yep.

He chased me for days. I actually hesitated at first, but I finally said yes." Some of them were already up out of their chairs fussing over her.

Vivienne glanced at me with distaste. "Celine, why do you still look so broke? We're out of high school and you can't even put on something decent.

It's embarrassing." "Then again, what do you expect. A blockhead who only knows how to study. This is as good as it gets for you this life.

You were born to go nowhere." Someone spoke up for me. "Vivienne, come on, you can't talk like that. Celine's going to Harvard." Vivienne snorted. "So she goes to Harvard.

And then what?

She gets married, has kids, works for somebody else, kills herself doing it, and still never makes any real money." "Celine, if you keep me happy, then once I marry into money, maybe I'll throw you a meal now and then and let a little of it rub off on you." I gave her a mild smile and nothing else.

A few of them had heard enough, turned up their noses, and started talking under their breath off to the side. "She's dreaming. No way the Quan heir marries someone like her.

She should take a good look in the mirror." "A family like that already has some business marriage lined up.

He's just playing with her, and she actually thinks she's something." "Right? The heir isn't blind.

He's not going to fall for that." But I was the only one there who knew Vivienne really was going to marry Eugene.

For the next few days she was all over Instagram, every single day, more of her than anyone could stand.

She was with Eugene constantly, flying all over the world, living the rich life ahead of schedule. She sent me video after video in my DMs to show it off.

I never opened a single one. I had already lived through all of it in my last life.

Chapter 3 Before long my confirmation letter and newstudent packet came from Harvard, while Vivienne sank all the way into her richwife life.

The school was holding a recognition ceremony that day for the seniors who'd gotten into top schools, and a local TV station sent a crew out.

What I didn't expect was Vivienne showing up. She was done up to shine: a white dress, her makeup flawless.

Objections started coming from our classmates on every side. "Vivienne, what are you doing? Today is for the people who got in.

You dress like that so you can steal the spotlight?" Harvard, UCLA, Berkeley. She'd had admission offers from all three, and she had thrown every one of them away.

The college counselor had tried to talk her out of it, helpless about it. "A degree is your foot in the door.

If you don't go, you're going to regret it…" Vivienne wasn't the least bit shy of the camera. She swept a cold look across all of them. "I have something important happening today.

So you got into Harvard. So what?

By the time you graduate, the best you'll be good for is working as my family's housekeeper." There was a reporter from the local station on hand, and more than that, the whole thing was going out live.

The school's own account had been streaming since the start. The chat blew up the second the viewers heard her.

People tore into her, saying she had no idea who she was dealing with, that she was living in a fantasy.

Somebody clipped that piece off the stream and put it on TikTok, and by that night it was everywhere. Vivienne didn't care in the slightest.

As far as she was concerned, they were all just jealous. But I was the only one who knew why she had made herself so beautiful.

In my last life, today was the day Eugene proposed to me. The principal reached his limit and stepped forward to call her out. "Vivienne! We are live, and there are reporters here.

You are a student at this school. How can you say things like that? Leave. Now." She shoved him aside, hard, her whole face impatient. "You're the one who needs to get lost.

Stop blocking me." Her shove came out of nowhere, and it left the principal's chest heaving, the blood up in his face.

He lifted his chin toward the bottom of the steps, where campus security was already coming toward her. A familiar Maybach pulled into the dropoff lane at the front of the school.

Vivienne looked down, smoothed her skirt, and spoke to the camera with contempt. "Harvard this, Harvard that. Today is your lucky day.

You get to see something big happen to me in person. Record all of it. You'll be telling this story for the rest of your lives." That was when Eugene got out of the car.

He was in a sharp black suit, carrying flowers, walking toward Vivienne. The reporters turned every camera on the two of them.

Everyone there stared, and nobody had the faintest idea what was going on.

Vivienne looked at those shocked faces, lifted her chin, and gloated. "I told you I was going to marry into money. You didn't believe me. How does it feel now?

The Quan heir came here to propose to me. Open your damn eyes and take a good look.

This is an honor none of you will get in your whole lives." Eugene came up, took out the ring, and went down on one knee in front of her. "Sweetheart, will you marry me?" Vivienne burst into happy tears. "Of course I will!" Then the two of them were in each other's arms.

She held her hand up to the cameras, delighted. "See this? This one ring is enough to feed regular people like you for the rest of your lives." "Harvard, please.

I'm the heir's wife now. After you graduate you'll all be working for me anyway." She let out a scoff, her whole face full of herself.

What she didn't know was that the truth behind her marrying into money was about to be ripped wide open. Sure enough, a second later Eugene's expression changed completely.

He grabbed her wrist and demanded: "That thing on your—" Chapter 4 "Where is the red string that was on your wrist!" It clearly startled her.

Something panicked went across her face, and she rushed to explain. "I just thought that red string didn't really go with my dress today, so I took it off." Eugene's eyes went bloodshot with fury, and he roared, "Where is the red string?

Didn't I tell you? It has to be on your wrist!" The