Chapter 1

The acrid smell of smoke burned Sarah Miller' s nostrils, yanking her from a haze of pain.

Her leg throbbed, a sharp, insistent agony from her ankle to her hip.

She tried to sit up, but the floorboards beneath her were hot.

Flames licked at the frayed edges of the old floral wallpaper in the hallway.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the fog in her head.

"Rick!" she screamed, her voice raspy.

No answer.

Only the crackle of the fire, growing louder, hungrier.

The old house, their house for twenty miserable years, was eating itself.

And her with it.

She remembered the argument. Money, always money.

Rick' s latest brilliant idea, another scheme cooked up with Brenda Jenkins, his eternal high school flame, had soured.

"It' s your fault, Sarah!" he' d yelled, his face puce. "You' re a jinx! You don' t support me!"

"Support you?" she' d shot back, years of swallowed resentment finally boiling over. "I' ve supported your failures for two decades, Rick! I gave up everything!"

Her dream of community college, a small catering business, all sacrificed on the altar of his ego and his endless, half-baked ventures.

He' d shoved her. Not hard, but she' d been off-balance, near the top of the rickety basement stairs they never fixed.

The tumble was a blur of splintering wood and a sickening crack in her leg.

Then the smell of smoke, a different kind, electrical.

The faulty wiring Rick had promised to fix for months.

He' d come down, seen her crumpled at the bottom.

His eyes hadn' t held concern for her, only a frantic, wild look.

"The papers," he' d muttered, "the deal with Brenda, they' re in the office."

He' d scrambled back up, leaving her.

Abandoning her.

For some worthless documents, for the ghost of a chance with a woman who' d barely given him the time of day in twenty years.

The heat was unbearable now.

Black smoke billowed, choking her.

Twenty years.

Twenty years of being his scapegoat, his emotional punching bag, the one who quietly paid the bills his ventures couldn' t cover.

Twenty years of him mooning over Brenda, the one that got away, blaming Sarah for his inability to "win her back."

As if Brenda, with her perfectly manicured nails and predatory smile, would ever want a loser like Rick Peterson unless he had something she could use.

Sarah had been the crutch, the safety net, the one who absorbed his failures and propped up his fragile sense of self.

She thought of her own ambitions, gathering dust like the unsold inventory from his last failed business.

Unappreciated.

Invisible.

Until he needed someone to blame.

A burning beam crashed nearby, sending sparks flying.

This was it.

Her last thought, a bitter, fervent wish: I wish I' d never met Rick Peterson. I wish I could do it all over again, without him.

The flames surged, a wave of orange and black, and then, nothing.

Darkness.

Then, a dull ache in her head.

Sunlight, too bright, sliced through her eyelids.

Sarah groaned, trying to lift a hand to her face.

Her body felt…young. Less worn. The chronic ache in her back from years of stress and hard work was gone.

Her leg didn' t hurt.

She forced her eyes open.

She was in her childhood bedroom.

The faded band posters on the wall – Pearl Jam, Nirvana.

Her cluttered desk with high school textbooks.

The flowered quilt her mom had made.

It was 1995.

She knew it with a certainty that chilled her to the bone despite the summer heat drifting through the open window.

She sat bolt upright, her heart hammering.

1995.

She was eighteen again.

A recent high school graduate.

And, a cold dread washed over her, she was just at the beginning of her serious relationship with Rick Peterson.

The Rick who, in another life, would kill her through his rage and neglect.

Her wish. It had come true.

A wave of nausea hit her, followed by a dizzying, fierce surge of determination.

This time, things would be different.

This time, Sarah Miller would live for herself.

She would get her education. Start her business.

And Rick Peterson?

He would never, ever benefit from her again.

She' d see how well he fared without her, his constant, uncomplaining support system.

Without her to bail him out, to soothe his ego, to blame for his own pathetic shortcomings.

She remembered all those years, the small slights, the big betrayals.

Rick taking her savings for a \"sure thing\" that vanished.

His mother, Patty, with her endless complaints and demands, always expecting Sarah to cater to them, to be the dutiful, unpaid servant.

His father, Gary, subtly undermining Rick, then blaming Sarah when Rick inevitably failed.

His layabout brothers, Kevin and Kyle, always with their hands out.

They had all used her, bled her dry, emotionally and financially.

Rick was the worst, a black hole of need and narcissism.

The memory of the fire, the searing pain, Rick' s indifferent face as he chose his papers over her life, was branded into her new, young mind.

He hadn' t even called for help.

He' d just left her to die.

Trapped by a broken leg he caused, in a fire his negligence started.

No more.

Never again.

Sarah swung her young, healthy legs out of bed.

She had a life to reclaim.

And a loser to dump.