In my previous life, I donated my kidney to my husband's mistress. He told me she was his cousin. He told me she would die without a transplant. He cried at my bedside and said I was the only match. I believed every word. Three weeks after surgery, while I was still recovering in bed with a drainage tube in my side, I found their wedding photos on his phone. Not old photos. New ones. Taken while I was unconscious on the operating table. She wore white. He wore the suit I bought him for our anniversary. The venue was the rooftop restaurant where he proposed to me. When I confronted him, he didn't even flinch. "You were always just the donor, Olivia. Did you really think someone like me could love someone like you?" His name was Ethan Blackwell. Old money. Harvard Law. The kind of jaw that made women stupid. I was the stupidest of them all. His mistress, Serena Cole, was my college roommate. She introduced us. She said, "He's perfect for you." She planned every detail of our relationship like a architect drawing blueprints for a building she intended to burn down. Six months after my surgery, my remaining kidney failed. Ethan had already transferred all my assets — the inheritance my dead parents left me, the apartment in my name, the savings I'd built since I was nineteen — into a trust controlled by Serena. I died on a dialysis machine in a public hospital, alone, at twenty-six. The last thing I saw on my phone was Serena's Instagram story: a sonogram photo captioned "Baby Blackwell coming soon 💕" with my husband's hand resting on her belly. She used my kidney to carry his child. At my funeral, Serena cried the hardest. She told everyone I was her best friend. She wore a black dress that cost more than my medical bills and dabbed her dry eyes with a handkerchief monogrammed with my initials — a gift I'd given her in college. "She would have wanted me to take care of Ethan," Serena told the cameras. She started a grief-influencer channel that week. One million followers in a month. She built her empire on my corpse. But now I was back. I woke up gasping in my old apartment, eighteen months before my death, on the exact morning Ethan was going to ask me to get tested as a kidney donor for his "cousin." My phone buzzed. Ethan: Baby, I need to talk to you about something important tonight. It's about my cousin Serena. She's really sick. I stared at the message until my vision blurred. In my previous life, I replied in four seconds with: "Oh no! Is she okay? I'll do anything to help." This time, I let the message sit for three hours. Then I typed: "Of course, babe. Anything for family ❤️" Because this time, I wasn't going to refuse. I wasn't going to run. I was going to walk straight into their trap with my eyes wide open and make sure they both drowned in it. Serena wanted a kidney? I'd give her something much more valuable. I'd give her exactly what she deserved. My phone buzzed again. Serena this time. Serena: Olivia, I'm so scared. The doctor said I might not make it. You're the only person I trust. Can we meet tomorrow? I need my best friend. I smiled at the screen. In my previous life, I cried when I read this message. This time, I laughed until my surgical scar ached. "Of course, babe," I typed back. "I'll always be here for you." And I would be. Right until the very end.
