Three Losses, One Second Chance

Chapter 4: The Disappearance of the Girl Next Door

Nora had been very gracious with him that day, and after that, they slowly grew closer.

Thus, they spent their entire adolescence together.

What was it like to suddenly see the girl who had once been his entire teenage world?

Ethan even had a name picked out for their kid.

Ha, just kidding.

He really had had a crush on Nora back then, but he'd also been self-aware.

Could he play basketball as well as the school's resident "Kobe"? Could he play the piano as smoothly and elegantly as the "Piano Prince" at the school talent show? Could he solve physics problems faster than the guy who sat behind her, the one who later got into a PhD program?

The answer to all three: no.

Those guys became cannon fodder. Some were like a ball thrown straight at a wall, shattering on impact. Some, after being turned down, were remembered years later as tragic heroes marching bravely toward certain doom. Some were still sending unrequited love letters in college.

But Ethan wasn't any of them.

Ethan took the "bitter rivals" route, a somewhat comical display of youthful impulsiveness. He wanted to get close to her, but he couldn't do it like a normal person. Instead, he deliberately provoked her just to stand out.

He remembered seeing her name on his class list at the start of high school and tossing and turning all night, sure that his chance had finally come.

Their relationship had started off normally, but then it suddenly cooled. Even after graduation, they hadn't signed each other's yearbooks, simply disappearing from each other's lives.

Ethan had never understood why. Perhaps the problem lay in that clumsy "route." Sure enough, he had just wrecked her birthday party the other day.

Sometimes, when he provoked her, she forgave him, half laughing, half exasperated, her clear voice exclaiming, "Ethan Carter, you still haven't grown up!"

Nora had probably filed him under "friend who hasn't grown up." That's fine once in a while, but if it kept going like this, perhaps at some point he would cross her line, and they would never see each other again.

Ha, his self-righteous, roundabout way of winning over a girl. How laughable!

Remembering the glare she had just given him, Ethan grew even more certain of his guess.

He wondered whether their relationship would change from this moment on.

Would it be the same as before?

...

"Ethan Carter is something else! I thought he'd keep a low profile today! After all, I told his mom about the stunt he pulled at your house the day before yesterday, and I heard he got a beating when he got home. Ha, I got revenge for you!" Jenna Price turned around and said to Nora.

"His mom hit him?" Nora was stunned. "He's seventeen, and his mom still hits him?"

Ethan had crashed her computer with a virus and broken her things, which annoyed her. But hearing Jenna say that Ethan had been beaten made Nora set all that aside for the moment.

"His mom is really something," Jenna added, "but she doesn't really beat him. She just uses a wire hanger to give him a few symbolic taps. Sometimes you see him bolt out the door in one go. Don't even ask. I bet his mom's grabbed the hanger again!"

Nora blinked, picturing the scene, and couldn't help but chuckle.

"What were you thinking, telling his mom?"

But she felt a little guilty, remembering that she had just glared at him.

"I was just trying to get revenge for you!"

"No need," Nora said coldly.

"Hey, are you mad? Don't be mad! I was only trying to help you... Okay, okay, I won't say it again." Jenna quickly stuck out her tongue. She actually loved stirring up trouble, partly to help Nora and partly to see Ethan get his comeuppance. But everything she'd said had been in Nora's defense. She knew Nora had probably seen through her, so she softened her tone.

Nora turned her head and went straight to her homework, leaving Jenna awkwardly at her desk.

...

Ethan finally got a clear picture of his situation over the course of a school day.

It was January 10th, 2000, just an ordinary Monday.

He had figured it would be just another ordinary day since his rebirth. But then he made a fool of himself in English class.

Mrs. Patterson handed back the tests from the previous week, first reading out several high scores in praise: Emily Sutton, Andrew Kessler, Owen Marsh, and Nora Hale. Hearing those scores, the class, as always, exclaimed, "Wow!"

Andrew Kessler was first in the class and one of the top students in the entire grade, the kind of student everyone assumed was headed for Harvard or MIT. His English score was also the highest, a 98.

Owen Marsh was a prodigy with exceptional language skills. He excelled in both English and French, and his essays had even been published in the regional teen literary magazine. His score was a 96.

Emily Sutton scored a 93. She was soft-spoken and wore glasses, which gave her a scholarly air. When she took her paper, she heard that Nora had scored a 92, just one point behind her, and amid the class's sighs of regret, a small sense of pride welled up inside her.

She secretly competed with Nora. She wasn't as beautiful, but she had her own advantage: the quiet, refined elegance of an Austen heroine, enough to beat a girl like Nora with gentle grace. Seventeen-year-old Emily thought to herself.

Nora was indeed a little disappointed. She could see Emily's expression clearly, and the class seemed to be quietly watching the two girls compete. The sighs of regret when everyone realized she was only one point behind Emily made that plain.

Even Mrs. Patterson shook her head slightly, making Nora's heart sink even further. She secretly vowed that next time she would definitely outscore Emily and make her taste this same disappointment.

The excitement didn't last long. After handing out the top ten papers, Mrs. Patterson's expression changed. "Overall, this test was mediocre. There are fewer than three weeks until finals, people! A few of you did well, some did okay, and some failed miserably. Let me go through them one by one. And I have to say, our class still has two loyal veterans at the very bottom! Second to last, Danny Brooks! Last place, Ethan Carter! You two are going to drag our class average down when finals come around!"

Ethan was caught off guard.

Then he saw Danny get up with a sheepish grin.

The two of them walked up to the front of the room one after another, took their tests from the disapproving Mrs. Patterson, and headed back to their seats.

Amid the laughter and jeers, Danny nodded and smirked in every direction as if he'd been awarded a title, as if telling the whole class:

Me.

Yes.

The fool.

What a great honor!

If he were still the Ethan he used to be, wouldn't he have been grinning and soaking up the attention just like Danny?

But now Ethan just wanted to bury his head in the sand. Seeing Danny's expression only made his regret sharper.

And he was dead last!

He had been reborn.

But this future...

endless darkness.