The Return (Book One in the Wattpad Featured Return Series)

Chapter Five

2014

I stifle another yawn and rest my head back on my desk. This has got to be one of the longest days of any of my lives. The minutes are slowly dragging by, and I can't concentrate on anything because I hardly got any sleep last night.

It was Caroline's fault. She kept me out way too late. Keeping up with her has become like a full-time job, and it's exhausting. After ditching school yesterday, she picked up some random guys at the skate park, broke into an empty house her mother has been trying to sell, and then stripped down and got in the hot tub. She would've stayed all night if I hadn't nagged her until she finally agreed to go home.

I know I'm to blame. Caroline's out of control because of me, and what I told her about the past. Frankly, I was lucky she didn't do the math that night when we were thirteen. She wouldn't have been able to comprehend how much of a role she plays in my story.

Of course, over the years, and through the countless of conversations we've had, she's figured it all out. But she didn't outright ask me about it until last year. Initially, I wasn't even sure how honest I should be; after all, her future is wrapped up with mine and that doesn't lead anywhere good, but Caroline has never been anything if not persistent.

"I don't get it," she huffed as she leaned up against the display counter in Mrs. Chang's Antique Shop while I was working late one summer afternoon.

"What don't you get?" I asked.

"Well, some of your story doesn't make sense, like, I was thinking about it... Wouldn't my old incarnation still be alive when you're reborn?"

I stopped filling out the order forms in front of me and put down my pen, grateful that the store was empty. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean, how would it be possible for me to exist in 1997 when the old me from your last lifetime—Claire, wasn't it? Wouldn't she be, like, only thirty-five or something? I mean, don't we both share the same soul or whatever? How can we both exist at the same time?"

I peeked over as she picked a broken pocket watch up off the counter and let it swing from her hand, waiting for some kind of explanation, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her. Instead I just blinked back down at the order forms and kept my mouth shut.

"Oh." She was silent for a moment, understanding what wasn't being said. "So, I die too, huh?"

I didn't have it in me to lie anymore, and yet I couldn't bring myself to give her all the gory details either, so I kept it brief.

"Caroline, none of you—your parents, your brother, Nina Donaldson—none of you survive very long after me. That's how the cycle keeps repeating itself," I explained, trying to break it to her as gently as I could.

She dropped the watch back on the counter and turned around. The resentment on her face making it clear that she didn't want to believe me.

"That doesn't make any sense. I mean, you're telling me that my parents die after you, and yet somehow manage to be reborn and grow old enough to have Derrick all before you're reincarnated again? I mean I know my mom had us super young, but Ellie, listen to how that sounds."

I sighed in exasperation and pushed the forms away from me. Sometimes I felt like I spent a majority of my lifetimes fielding questions I didn't have the answers to.

"Listen, I don't know what you want from me, Caroline. No guardian angel has ever appeared and explained the rules like they would in a fairytale; because this isn't a stupid fairytale. It's more like a curse, and it didn't come with any instructions. All I know is that I never make it to eighteen. It always happens. I'm murdered, and born again, still living in Connecticut, but in a whole new time. I don't remember the in-between. I don't know what happens. It's just like that. It's always been that way."