The apartment felt too familiar and too distant at the same time, as if two different versions of my life were laid over each other. I needed proof that this wasn't a hallucination stitched together by a dying brain.
I checked the calendar first.
January 2003 stared back at me, the numbers printed in the same faded ink my mother preferred. My thumb brushed the square marking today's date. The paper didn't dissolve. Nothing warped or glitched. It was real enough to pinch between my fingers.
A muted news anchor filled the room when I turned on the television. A story about a midwinter airline scare. A senator under investigation. A product recall I remembered complaining about at work. Every headline matched what I once lived through.
The Nokia on the counter lit up when I opened it. The screen was a small grayscale box with a battery icon shaped like a Lego block. No notifications. No apps. No endless scrolling. Just a call log and a few saved contacts.
The modem's screech answered when I logged into the old computer. Slow images. Slower text. No social media. No streaming. Just forums with blinking advertisements pushing ringtone downloads.
Nothing contradicted the date.
I moved to the mirror again. The face looking back had a youthfulness I had lost years before the crash. Fewer lines around the eyes. No hollowed cheeks from stress. A neck free from the tightness that eventually became permanent.
The reflection didn't sway or distort when I leaned closer. It held steady.
A younger body.
Decades of memory.
One impossible morning.
My heart pressed against my ribs as the truth settled. I died in November 2025 at fifty-one.
Now I stood in January 2003 at twenty-nine.
Twenty-two years and ten months sat in the back of my mind like an unopened book I already knew by heart.
I knew who I became.
I knew what happened to my children.
I knew what I refused to see.
A cardboard box hid beneath the sagging couch. When I slid it out, dust rose in a light puff. Inside sat a small journal—cheap cover, bent corners, pages that had soaked up too much humidity.
I opened it carefully.
The handwriting was mine, but younger, more certain, unaware of everything waiting ahead.
He loves me. I know he does.
My stomach tightened.
Another entry:
This is worth it. I just need to push a little longer.
Then a final one, written late at night:
People don't understand him the way I do.
Celso's name didn't appear directly, but every line pointed at him. Hopeful delusion disguised as courage. Not a single entry mentioned Joaquin waking up alone. Not one word about Lissette crying at dawn.
The guilt rose sharp and quick, but I didn't let it settle. I pulled the pages free. They tore unevenly, a jagged edge left behind. I placed them in the trash and opened to the first clean sheet.
A blank page.
A real beginning.
My pen hesitated only once before the words came.
January 15, 2003
I shouldn't be here. But I am.
I woke up today in a younger body with the full weight of a future I already lived.
Joaquin is eight. Lissette is two.
I remember twenty-two more years after this day, and in those years, I failed them in every way that mattered.
The next lines came steadier.
If this second chance is real, I will not waste it.
I wrote my vow in clear, deliberate strokes.
End it with Celso. TODAY. No more excuses. Stop waiting to be chosen. You already have people who need you. Joaquin made breakfast again. He's EIGHT. Be there. Just be there.
A breath steadied inside me as I lifted the pen.
The page felt heavier than paper should, but it no longer frightened me. It held witness to a promise I meant to keep.
A small knock sounded from the hallway.
Too gentle to be anything but a child's hand.
"Mom?" Joaquin called.
The pen rolled from my fingers.
I closed the journal and turned toward the doorway, knowing who waited on the other side and what he deserved from me now.