In my last life, I took a bottle of sulfuric acid to the face for Jackson Cole. Half my face was gone. So was my dream of going to Harvard. He told me he'd marry me after graduation. But one night, outside a bar, I heard him tell his friends: "That wrecked face of hers makes me sick." When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the morning of the SATs. The acid came flying at him again. This time, I stepped back. Three steps. As the sizzling sound of burning skin filled the air, I was already sitting in the exam room. ...... The first Saturday in June. The sun was vicious, beating down until the asphalt felt soft under my shoes. The air shimmered with heat, thick with the cloying sweetness of lilacs from the flowerbeds by the school gate. I stood at the entrance to Westbrook High, gripping my SAT admission ticket so hard my knuckles were white. Not because I was nervous. Because I remembered exactly what was about to happen. Under th......
