My Boyfriend Rejected Harvard Offer, I Rejected Him

In my previous life, I practically dragged my useless childhood sweetheart to Harvard with me.

My academic record was top-notch, and I spent three years tutoring him.

I asked my father to donate a library to Harvard University, ensuring that they would extend an additional offer of admission to Felix.

Finally—when he rejected the offer in favor of taking a gap year to go work in Australia with the girl he was infatuated with—I raised such a massive scene that I ultimately forced him to go to Harvard with me.

After graduation, we got married. The natural ending. He built a tech empire and made me the wife of the richest man in the country.

One regret. He died too young.

Didn't leave me a single word at the end. Just went.

And I — I inherited his billions, and lived comfortably all the way to eighty-eight.

But when I died, I saw his soul.

His eyes were blood-red.

"You forced me onto this path. You took me from the only woman I ever loved. I died with regret. Pray we never meet again in the next life."

...What the fuck?

He'd been in that much pain?

And I was the only one — happily riding it out?

Captions drifted across my vision.

[Lmao — how thick is this side character's skin?]

[Male lead dies young in agony, she breezes through to 88 as the richest widow in the country.]

[The girl he actually loved was the one who flunked her SATs and ran off backpacking, hello???]

[They both died young, missed each other, and the side character had the time of her life.]

Even I felt bad.

When I opened my eyes, I was back — standing in that basement he'd sworn would be his life of freedom, on the day he was supposed to reject his Harvard offer.

This time, I am not stopping him from going to Australia.

"Stop it already. I will only ever love Naomi, for the rest of my life."

Felix's eyes were rimmed red. He was hunched over his open laptop at the foot of the mattress like he was guarding it with his body.

The basement was a shrine to his idea of freedom.

A thrift-store mattress on the concrete floor. It smelled like weed, damp laundry, and the takeout from two days ago congealing on the floor.

He'd signed the lease a week ago, the minute he and his mother stopped speaking

In my previous life, he was in the middle of drafting an email to decline Harvard's offer when I found him.

I'd yanked the laptop out from under him and sent the acceptance in his place — to the seat my father's money had bought him.

He'd gone on to become the richest man in the country. Then he'd died young. And he'd left me an estate worth billions.

In my dreams, he'd stared at me with bloodshot eyes and cursed me.

He'd said I'd ruined his entire life.