Chapter 1: Reborn

I took three days of sick leave for a minor surgery.

The day I got back to school, the whole campus was saying I’d had an abortion.

Greer posted a photo of my back on the school forum with a single line:

“Saw her outside OB-GYN.”

I explained.

No one believed me.

I showed them my medical records. They said they could be forged.

The school counselor told me one thing:

“Stop making trouble.”

Later, some boys cornered me at the school gate and called me a slut.

After that, I swallowed half a bottle of sleeping pills.

My mother held my body and cried until dawn.

The next day, she hanged herself from the oak tree in our yard.

When I opened my eyes again, my phone screen was glowing.

Greer’s post had gone up nine minutes ago.

This time, I didn’t explain.

I found a photo I’d taken at the hospital three days earlier.

In the photo, Greer herself was standing at the OB-GYN registration desk.

I opened the replies, attached the photo, and typed one line:

“What a coincidence. Were you there for an abortion, too?”

...

A dull ache pulsed in my lower abdomen.

I lay curled on my side on the bed in my rented apartment, staring at the peeling paint in the corner of the room, waiting for the pain to pass.

It was the third day after my ovarian cyst removal, and any movement tugged at the incision.

My phone buzzed relentlessly under my pillow.

I reached for it. The screen was painfully bright.

The screen was flooded with notifications from the school forum.

The little red bubble in the corner was stuck at “99+.”

I tapped it.

Pinned post.

The title was marked in red:

“That 11th grader who took sick leave? Saw her at the OB-GYN.”

The attached image was a shot of my back.

I was in a hospital gown, a blue folder in my hand, my hair down as I walked out of the OB-GYN wing.

The person in the photo was me.

The poster was Greer Pierce.

The comments were already pages long.

“OMG, is that Imogen, the scholarship kid?”

“Three days of sick leave. OB-GYN. Got it.”

“She actually took leave for an abortion? Bold.”

“Greer doesn’t post bullshit. Let’s wait for the girl to say something.”

“The goody-two-shoes from some small town? Guess she’s just like the rest of them.”

I gripped my phone, my knuckles turning white.

The dull ache in my abdomen radiated upward, and my stomach started to churn.

Then I remembered the last time.

I remembered returning to school, how everyone stared.

I remembered the words scrawled on my desk.

When I showed them my medical records, someone rolled their eyes and called them fake.

The school counselor leaned back in his chair, tapping the desk. “The more you explain,” he’d said, “the worse it looks.”

The basketball guys shouted “slut” at me by the school gate.

Someone shoved a note under my apartment door. It said, “Go die.”

My mother stood outside the office with a box of homemade applesauce, her voice low as she begged the teachers to help me.

When they told her to leave, she stumbled, her knee cracking against the edge of the steps.

That night, I counted the sleeping pills one by one.

My hand shook when I got to the thirty-seventh.

The last thing I heard was my mother crying.

The next day, she died, too.

I shot up in bed, sucking in a sharp breath.

The incision burned with the sudden movement.

It really hurt.

I looked down at the gauze taped beneath my hospital gown.

The stitches had only been removed today.

I’d only just gotten back to the apartment today.

The post was still on my screen.

I checked the time.

Nine minutes ago.

I had returned to that day.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Last time, at this exact moment, I was hiding under the covers, crying.

I cried the whole night, wrote countless explanations, and deleted every single one.

The next day, I went back to school with my eyes swollen shut, and from that day on, I was walking toward my end.

This time, I didn’t cry.

I didn't type out an explanation, either.

I opened my photo album and scrolled back.

Three days ago, bored in the hospital waiting room, I’d snapped a picture of the lobby and sent it to my mother to let her know I was okay.

In the lower right corner of the photo, someone was standing at the OB-GYN registration desk.

High ponytail, white T-shirt, school uniform jacket draped over her arm.

Her student ID was lying on the counter.

Greer.

Last time, I never looked closely at this photo.

Back then, all I could do was explain, beg, and be afraid.

I couldn't even protect myself.

How could I have had the headspace to wonder why Greer was also at the OB-GYN?

This time was different.

I knew what to do.

I opened the forum and found Greer’s post.

The comments had already blown past twelve hundred.

I hit reply.

Uploaded the photo.

Typed.

“What a coincidence. Were you there for an abortion, too?”

Sent.

I set my phone aside, lay flat on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.

My incision still ached.

A hot feeling bloomed in my chest.

It wasn’t pain.

It was hatred.

Last time, I begged.

This time, I wouldn’t.

Half an hour later, I picked up my phone.

Comments: 1,487.

All the top comments had changed.

“Wait, Greer was at the OB-GYN too?”

“I zoomed in. That’s totally her!”

“The timestamp matches. Same day.”

“So Greer was at the registration desk while taking a pic of someone else?”

“Okay, now it’s Greer’s turn to explain.”

“So, Greer, who exactly was getting the abortion?”

My DMs were blowing up, too.

The first was from a classmate.

“Imogen, are you crazy? You can’t mess with someone like Greer.”

After that, it was just a flood of messages from people I didn't know—all shock emojis and question marks.

And one more.

From Greer.

Two words.

“Delete it.”

I stared at them.

Funny. Last time, she was the one who said explanations were pointless.

Now she was the one panicking.

I didn’t reply.

I shoved my phone back under my pillow and closed my eyes.

I was going back to school tomorrow.

This was only the beginning.