During an important company meeting, Kate Henson called on me by name.

She asked what I thought of Nelson Gilbert's collision-avoidance program.

I stood up, mumbled something about a stomachache, and walked out.

Because in my previous life, I'd pointed out a critical flaw in that program. Told them the whole thing needed to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.

Nelson, humiliated in front of the entire room, went out that night and drank himself blind. A wrong-way semi hit him head-on. Killed him instantly.

At the funeral, Kate comforted me with a steady voice. Said it was his own doing, that it had nothing to do with me.

Then she slipped poison into my drink at our engagement party.

As the toxin tore through me, her face twisted into something barely human.

"If you'd kept your mouth shut, Nelson would still be alive."

"You destroyed his future. Everything he worked for."

"Now you can join him in hell."

God gave me a second chance. Sent me back to the day of that meeting.

So this time around, I was keeping my mouth shut.

——

When I said my stomach hurt, Kate frowned.

Looking at her face, the memory hit me like a freight train. My own death. The poison eating through my organs, a fire that started in my gut and spread until every nerve was screaming. That sensation still clung to my body like a scar that hadn't fully healed.

And her expression. That mask of pure, unfiltered hatred. It was carved into my soul.

"Terry Dickerson, are you alright?"

Kate's voice pulled me back.

I shook my head. Said nothing.

Nelson stood up then, wearing that humble look of his as he turned to me.

"Mr. Dickerson, do you have any thoughts on my program? If there's an issue, please don't hesitate to point it out. I'm more than happy to take feedback."

His tone was earnest. His posture, deferential.

Every executive at the table turned to look at me, expectation written across their faces.

I stared at his young face and remembered. He'd worn the exact same expression in my last life. All humility and open hands. Then he'd gone straight to Kate to complain. Told her I'd embarrassed him. That I'd dressed down a graduate from an Ivy League program like he was some intern.

"I don't have any concerns."

I turned and walked out of the conference room.

The moment the door clicked shut behind me, whispers bled through.

"What's going on with Mr. Dickerson? He usually loves picking things apart."

"Who knows. Maybe he really does have a stomachache."

Kate rapped her knuckles on the table. "Ignore him. Let's continue."

I stood in the hallway and drew a long breath.

Afternoon sunlight poured through the window at the far end of the corridor, pooling white and harsh across the floor. I walked over and leaned against the windowsill for a while.

In my previous life, I'd flagged three critical flaws in that program during the meeting. Nelson's face went pale on the spot. Kate's expression hardened right alongside his. I told them the entire thing had to be rebuilt. Testing would be pushed back. We'd need to renegotiate the delivery timeline with the client.

After the meeting, Nelson caught up with me in the hall. Smiled. Thanked me for the guidance, promised he'd go back and revise everything.

I actually believed he meant it.

That same night, he drank himself into oblivion and was killed by a truck.

Kate pinned every last bit of it on me.

She said if I hadn't humiliated Nelson in front of everyone, he never would have gone drinking. He never would have died. I'd destroyed his brilliant future.

But his program did have those flaws. Every single one I'd identified was real.

If it never went live, fine. But the moment it launched, the data errors would have cascaded across the board. The company wouldn't just lose money. It would lose the trust of every client we had.

I did what needed to be done. Said what needed to be said.

But she would never see it that way.

In her eyes, Nelson Gilbert was perfect. The golden boy who'd come home from a prestigious university overseas, wrapped in brilliance. And me? A nobody who'd graduated from a state school nobody had heard of. Who was I to question him?

I was the one who should have kept his mouth shut. So this time around, I said nothing.

That evening, I had just changed out of my shoes at home when Kate pushed through the door.

Displeasure was written all over her face. She tossed her bag onto the couch and stood in the middle of the living room, staring at me.

"What was that about today?"

"Stomachache," I said evenly.

"Don't give me that excuse." She took a step closer. "Do you have a problem with Nelson?"

I didn't answer.

She let out a cold laugh.

"Terry, be honest with me. Are you jealous of him?"

"Jealous of what, exactly?"

"His degree. His talent. The fact that I put him in a key position the moment he came back."

Kate's voice dropped a few degrees.

"Your attitude in that meeting made it perfectly clear you didn't want him to succeed."

"You think I couldn't tell? The second he started his presentation, your whole expression changed."

"I know you were picking his work apart in your head. You just held your tongue for once."

I didn't argue.

She took my silence as confirmation, and her tone hardened with certainty. "Terry, I know you think highly of yourself. You've been with this company for years, put in the hours, put in the work, and you figure nobody measures up to you."

"But Nelson is different. He has a graduate degree from a top university overseas. His expertise speaks for itself."

"No matter how much he rubs you the wrong way, you don't get to humiliate him in front of the entire team."

"Humiliate him?" I almost laughed. "I didn't say a single word. I got up and left. How is that humiliation?"

"Your attitude was the humiliation."

"Everyone in that conference room saw it. You think they're stupid?"

I stopped responding.

Everything she was saying, I'd heard a thousand times in my last life.

Back then, I'd fought her on it. Told her I was looking out for the company. Told her his program genuinely had problems. As a co-founder, I couldn't just sit back and watch a product riddled with flaws go into live testing.

We'd fought viciously, and she ended it with a line I still remembered to this day.

"You just can't stand anyone being better than you!"

Looking back now, my relationship with Kate had shifted the day Nelson walked into the company.

Nelson was the one that got away for her.

Almost nobody at the company knew, but I did.

They'd grown up together. He'd gone abroad for high school and stayed through graduate school. When he finished, Kate offered him a salary far above market rate to bring him back.

His title was technical supervisor. His actual compensation and treatment were closer to a vice president's.

Her favoritism toward him had been brazen from day one.

When the company was first starting out, Kate hadn't been like this.

Back then, we fought side by side. Pulled all-nighters to hit deadlines. Dealt with impossible clients together.

She told me I was the person she trusted most, that the company wouldn't be where it was without me, that half the credit was mine.

But after Nelson came back, everything changed.

She started finding me lacking. My degree wasn't impressive enough. My way of thinking was too old-school.

Nelson could float any half-baked proposal and she'd call it cutting-edge, forward-thinking, globally minded.

Anything I suggested, she treated like I was just being contrary.

In my previous life, after I pointed out the flaws in his program, Nelson went running to her. Told her I'd embarrassed him in front of everyone. Said months of his hard work had been shot down in a single stroke.

Kate came home and tore into me. Said I didn't know how to respect people. Said I never should have called him out like that with the whole team watching.

I'd felt wronged. Told her I was only stating facts.

She told me I could have handled it differently, that my emotional intelligence was too low.

Looking back now, it wouldn't have mattered how I handled it.

The moment I opened my mouth to point out any flaw in Nelson's work, no matter how gently I phrased it, Kate would have taken it as a personal attack on him.

Because in her mind, the two of us had been ranked a long time ago.

Nelson would always come first.

Kate's voice was ice. "You're attending the program test tomorrow."

"And when you're there, keep your mouth shut. Let the test run its course."

I said nothing. Just nodded.

She glanced at me, seemingly caught off guard by my compliance.

But she didn't press it. She turned and walked into the bedroom.

"Since your stomach's bothering you, sleep in the guest room tonight."

I sat on the couch, listening to the door click shut behind her.

Three years of living together, and this was the first time we'd slept in separate rooms.

The streetlamp outside flickered on, casting a wash of amber light through the window, pooling in pale shapes across the floor.

I was thinking about my past life.

After Nelson died, Kate became a different person.

On the surface, she seemed fine. Went to work, sat through meetings, handled business as usual.

But there was something cold behind her eyes. Something that never thawed.

At the funeral, she even comforted me. Told me Nelson chose to drink that night, chose to get behind the wheel. Said the truck that hit him was just fate, and none of it was my fault.

Her voice was calm when she said it. She even patted the back of my hand.

I actually believed she'd made peace with it.

It wasn't until the poisoned wine at our engagement party hit my stomach that I realized how naive I'd been.

She had never let go. Not for a single day.

She just buried the hatred. Behind her smiles. Behind her casual concern. Inside that carefully prepared glass of wine.

When the poison took hold and I collapsed, she crouched down and looked at me. The expression on her face is something I will never forget for as long as I live.

It wasn't anger. It was satisfaction, bordering on madness.

She never once believed she'd done anything wrong.

Never believed Nelson's program was flawed. Never believed he chose to drink. Never believed he chose to drive.

All she remembered was that I embarrassed him in that meeting. That I was the one who pushed him down that road.

There was no reasoning with that kind of logic.

So in this life, I wasn't going to try.

The next day's test was scheduled for two in the afternoon.

By the time I arrived, Kate was already standing in the observation area.

Nelson stood right beside her, tablet in hand, leaning in to show her some data. Their shoulders were nearly touching.

I didn't spare them a glance. Found a seat in the corner and sat down.

The test track was a closed-off stretch of road behind the company building. A straight lane ending in a cluster of simulated obstacles, traffic cones lining both sides. The test vehicle was a modified SUV with a lidar array and cameras mounted on the roof, "Autonomous Driving Test" decals running along the body panels.

The executives filtered in one by one. Three people came from the client's side, led by a man in his forties. His name was Nigel Donaldson, and everyone addressed him as Mr. Donaldson.

The first test began.

The vehicle pulled away from the starting mark, cruised at a steady speed toward the first simulated pedestrian, and braked to a clean stop.

Mr. Donaldson nodded, visibly pleased.

Nelson jumped in immediately. "That's the result of our optimization for low-speed urban scenarios. Detection range is up fifteen percent over the previous build."

The second test was a following scenario. The lead car decelerated, the test vehicle matched it, gap distance controlled perfectly.

The third was a lane-change overtake. Smooth and seamless.