Chapter 1
My best friend murdered me.
Before the team tryouts, Mia handed me a pink energy drink. I didn't know it was laced with sleeping pills.
Thirty feet in the air. Top of the pyramid. My body went limp, collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.
I can still hear my bones shattering.
Mia threw herself into my fiancé Carter's arms, sobbing: "Oh God, I grabbed the wrong bottle! The vitamins and sleeping pills got mixed up! Vic will forgive me, right?"
Carter held her tight, not even glancing at me lying in a pool of blood. "Stop crying. It was just an accident."
An accident? My spine snapped in three places.
He lied to the police, saying I was under too much stress and took the pills myself. Packaged my death as the suicide of someone who couldn't handle the pressure.
When I died, the whole school treated me like a joke.
But now I'd opened my eyes. I was back on that day.
Victoria's POV
"Vic? Are you even listening to me?"
Mia's voice cut through my thoughts. I blinked. I was standing in the cheer locker room, training bag in hand.
The clock on the wall read 2 PM. One hour before I died last time.
"You look like hell. Training getting to you?" Mia walked over, holding that pink bottle.
"Here, made you something special." She smiled as she held out the bottle. "For the tryouts. I know how hard you've been pushing these past few days."
I stared at that bottle.
Last time, I drank it. During tryouts, I went limp at the top of the pyramid and fell to my death. Mia cried and said she'd mixed up her vitamins with sleeping pills. My idiot fiancé believed her bullshit story.
"Vic?" Mia pushed the bottle closer. "You feeling okay? Just drink this. I spent forever researching the formula. It'll give you a HUGE energy boost—"
I raised my hand and smacked the bottle away.
CRACK!
Pink liquid exploded, splashing all over Mia. The bottle hit the floor and rolled into a corner.
"What the HELL?!" Mia shrieked, staring down at her soaked clothes.
"Oops. Hand slipped."
"You... How COULD you?!" Her eyes instantly filled with tears. "I spent the entire morning making this!"
Other team members in the locker room stopped what they were doing and turned to look.
Mia covered her face, choking back sobs. "I know it's not like those fancy drinks you're used to... But it was from my HEART. I even skipped lunch to afford the ingredients..."
A few teammates started whispering.
"Skipped lunch?" I laughed. "Mia, you asked me for five hundred bucks last week for textbooks. Then I saw you post that new lipstick haul on Instagram."
Mia's face went white.
"And everything you're wearing," I pointed at her designer training outfit and jewelry, "adds up to at least two grand. ALL paid for by ME. And now you wanna talk to me about skipping lunch?"
"I... Vic, those were gifts you WANTED to give me..." Mia sobbed. "I thought we were actually friends..."
Friends.
Would a friend poison you? Would she throw herself into your fiancé's arms while you lay dying? Would she wear your clothes and sleep with your man after you were dead?
The locker room door burst open.
Carter stormed in. The second he saw Mia crying, his face darkened.
"What's going on?" He yanked Mia behind him. "Vic, what are you throwing a tantrum about NOW?"
Now.
Like I was ALWAYS throwing tantrums.
I looked at him—football team captain, campus heartthrob, my fiancé of two years. Last time, he watched me fall to my death, then immediately got together with Mia.
"No tantrum," I said. "Just didn't wanna drink something spiked with sleeping pills."
The air froze.
Mia's crying stopped. She stared at me, eyes wide.
"What sleeping pills?" Carter frowned.
"That bottle." I pointed at the wreckage on the floor. "The 'energy drink' she just gave me."
"How... How COULD you say that?!" Mia cried even harder. "I was just trying to HELP you! Carter, how could I possibly hurt Vic? We've been best friends since freshman year!"
She grabbed Carter's arm. "I know I'm nothing compared to Vic. She's rich, beautiful, the team's main flyer. I can't compete with her in anything. But I really think of her as a SISTER... How could I hurt her?"
Best friends.
I never knew last time that these two had been screwing around behind my back.
"Vic." Disappointment flooded Carter's face. "Mia woke up early just to make this for you. You know how much she wanted to help? How can you treat her like this?"
"Help me?" I laughed. "Help me DIE?"
"ENOUGH!" Carter roared. "Mia has been SO good to you! You hurt her again and again! What the hell is WRONG with you?!"
Again and again.
"Carter, forget it..." Mia tugged at his sleeve, her voice cracking. "Vic is under too much pressure. The tryouts mean everything to her. I don't blame her. Really."
"You see?" Carter pointed at Mia, pity filling his eyes. "She's so KIND. Anyone else would've lost it by now. Vic, Mia has NOTHING. All she has is a genuine heart that wants the best for you. But you treat her like THIS—"
I raised my hand and slapped Carter across the face.
SMACK!
The sharp sound of the slap echoed through the locker room.
Carter grabbed his cheek, staring at me in disbelief. "You DARE hit me?!"
"That slap," I said, "is for being a blind IDIOT."
"Victoria Vanderbilt, you—"
"Our engagement is OVER." I cut him off and started pulling off my engagement ring. "From this moment on, you and I have NOTHING to do with each other."
The ten-carat diamond sparkled under the lights. When Carter proposed last year, he knelt for half an hour, saying he'd saved for two years to buy it.
Later I found out that money came from the first investment my father made in his startup.
I pulled off the ring and threw it straight at Carter's face.
"Take it back! Go marry your TRUE LOVE."
