Chapter 1

When the truck came barreling toward my classmate, I shoved her out of the way with everything I had, and the wheels rolled over my own legs and crushed them.

Two days later she had me posted all over the campus forum.

"He's a sick stalker. He knocked me down so he could feel me up in the confusion."

"The desperate simp playing hero. Losing his legs is just karma."

I explained online that I was crippled for life because I saved her.

But she didn't want to pay the medical bills, so not only would she refuse to come forward and testify, she hired trolls to spread the lie that I'd molested her on purpose.

The whole internet piled on cursing me, and I was forced to drop out.

My parents went to demand an explanation, and she begged her rich boyfriend to hire someone to stage a car crash that killed them both on the spot.

Grief-stricken and furious, I tracked her down and set us both on fire to end it together.

When I woke up, I was standing at that crossing again.

Joy Galloway had her head down, texting the third of her "brothers."

She had her earbuds in, one line already typed into the chat box on her screen.

"Come pick me up tonight, sweetie."

The light was still red.

She was standing at the edge of the crosswalk, one foot already stepping out into traffic.

A truck horn blared at the intersection.

I looked up. That fully loaded truck was bearing down on us.

The driver leaned on the horn, tires screeching across the asphalt.

The truck had broken down. Its front end swung sideways, plowed through the barrier, and came straight at the sidewalk.

In my last life, this was the moment I rushed forward.

I hadn't thought about anything at all.

I shoved Joy Galloway clear, but I didn't make it out myself.

The truck wheels rolled right over both my legs and shattered every bone.

During the emergency surgery the doctors said I was lucky to keep my life at all.

But I would rather have died right there at that crossing.

After they amputated both legs, my whole life was ruined.

Back then I was still naive enough to think I'd saved a classmate.

Instead, to dodge that enormous medical bill, and afraid people would point at her and call her ungrateful, Joy Galloway did something else.

On top of that, her rich boyfriend, Lucius Finch, couldn't stand her being tied to a cripple day after day.

So she flat-out refused to come forward and testify during the investigation.

Instead she went online and posted everywhere, spreading the lie that I was a sick stalker who'd had designs on her all along.

She said I'd only rushed over to "save" her so I could feel her up in the process.

Behind the scenes Lucius Finch paid people to steer the narrative, and within days the campus forum was full of filth aimed at me.

"The dead simp playing hero."

"Saving her was fake, groping the campus queen was real, right?"

"For a guy like this, losing his legs is just karma."

I dropped out.

My parents went to demand an explanation, and on the way they were deliberately run down by a car with fake plates that Lucius Finch had hired.

The two of them went down in a pool of blood and died on the spot.

In the end I sat in my wheelchair staring at two cold bodies in the morgue, and something in me went dead.

Grief-stricken and furious, I brought gasoline, tracked down Joy Galloway, and set us both on fire to end it together.

The moment the flames swallowed me, I thought: if I ever got to do it over, I'd leave Joy Galloway to her own fate.

"Paul Henson!"

Someone shouted beside me.

I came back to myself.

The same crossing was still in front of me.

Joy Galloway stood next to me, head down, texting, earbuds in, so she didn't even hear the truck's horn.

Then she suddenly seemed to realize something and jerked her head up in terror, but the truck was already right in front of her.

Last life I threw myself over and shoved her out of the way.

This time I stepped back and grabbed the arm of a bystander about to rush in.

"Don't go out there."

"Bang——"

The truck hit.

Joy Galloway took the front end of it, flipped over the railing, and landed in the planting strip.

Her phone hit the pavement, screen cracked, chat box still glowing.

A few messages popped up.

"Why aren't you answering me, baby?"

"Weren't we supposed to meet tonight?"

"Your boyfriend doesn't keep tabs on you, right?"

Everything around us broke into chaos.

People were shouting, someone was calling for an ambulance, someone else went to check on the driver.

I stood off to the side and looked at Joy Galloway in the planting strip.

A pool of blood was spreading out beneath her.

Her eyes were open, that expression from a second ago still frozen on her face.

She glanced over this way, her eyes shifting a little.

This time she hadn't gotten out of the way.

The ambulance arrived, and the medics lifted her onto a stretcher.

Someone asked me, "Do you know the injured woman?"

I looked at Joy Galloway and nodded.

"I do."

"She's my classmate."

"But how she got hurt, I don't know."