The rain fell in sheets, punishing the earth with its relentless downpour. Lysander Everett stood motionless in the middle of the deserted street, his expensive suit soaked through, clinging to his body like a second skin. The cold had long since seeped into his bones, but he barely noticed. Physical discomfort paled in comparison to the hollowness that had carved itself into his chest, a void where his heart had once been.
His phone lay shattered on the asphalt several feet away, thrown in a moment of blind rage and despair. The cracked screen still illuminated occasionally with incoming messages—colleagues wondering about his sudden departure from the conference, his assistant frantically trying to reschedule the meetings he'd abandoned. None of it mattered now. Nothing mattered.
Eliza was gone.
The text from his brother, Marcus, replayed in his mind with cruel clarity: Where the hell are you? She's asking for you. The doctors say it's a matter of hours. Please, Ly, if you ever loved her, get here now.
That had been sixteen hours ago, when he was midway through his keynote address at the financial summit in Seattle—three thousand miles away from the hospital in Boston where his wife had been fighting for her life. By the time he'd seen the message, by the time he'd managed to charter a private jet and race across the country, it was too late.
The second message had come as his plane touched down: She's gone. You weren't here. Again.
Those four words—"You weren't here. Again."—carried the weight of a thousand accusations, each one justified. Each one a dagger.
Just like with his mother three years ago. Another deathbed he had failed to attend, another goodbye he hadn't said. Always chasing the next deal, the next expansion, the next milestone. Building an empire of wealth while the foundations of what truly mattered crumbled beneath his feet.
Lysander tilted his face upward, letting the rain mingle with the tears he could no longer hold back. The droplets felt like absolution he didn't deserve, washing away the evidence of his grief but not the guilt that fueled it.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the stormy sky, his voice hoarse from screaming. "God, Eliza, I'm so sorry."
They had met in college—she, a passionate art history major with dreams of curating museum collections; he, the ambitious business student determined to leave his humble beginnings behind. They were opposites in many ways, but something had clicked between them from their first meeting in that crowded campus café. Her laughter had cut through the ambient noise, drawing his attention like a beacon. When their eyes met across the room, Lysander had felt something shift within him—a recognition of something essential he hadn't known he was missing.
Their love story had been beautiful in the beginning. They'd supported each other's dreams, celebrated each other's successes. When Lysander landed his first investment banking position, Eliza had thrown him a surprise party in their tiny apartment, cooking his favorite meal despite her notorious lack of culinary skills. When she secured an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he'd taken her to dinner at a restaurant they couldn't afford, toasting to her future with cheap champagne that tasted like victory.
Somewhere along the way, the balance had shifted. His career had skyrocketed—venture capital, then his own investment firm, then acquisitions and expansions until Everett Financial Group had become a force to be reckoned with on Wall Street. Meetings ran into dinners. Business trips stretched from days to weeks. Phone calls became texts, which became brief, perfunctory check-ins.
Eliza had never complained, not directly. She'd simply retreated into her own world, her passion for art becoming both companion and substitute for the partnership that was slowly dissolving. He'd justified his absences with the lifestyle he provided—the penthouse apartment, the vacation homes, the designer clothes, the ability for her to pursue her career without financial pressure.
Material comfort in exchange for his presence. It had seemed like a fair trade to him then. Now, standing in the rain with the knowledge that he would never see her smile again, never hear her laugh, never have the chance to make amends, the hollowness of that bargain struck him with devastating force.
The diagnosis had come six months ago. Stage IV ovarian cancer, already metastasized. Aggressive treatment had been their only option, though the prognosis had been grim from the start. Lysander had hired the best oncologists, researched experimental treatments, even looked into clinical trials abroad. What he hadn't done—what he hadn't been able to bring himself to do—was sit with her through the endless chemotherapy sessions, hold her hand through the nights of pain and nausea, truly face what was happening.
He'd told himself he was fighting for her in his own way, using his resources and connections to find a miracle. In reality, he had been a coward, unable to confront the imminent loss of the one person who had seen him—truly seen him—beneath the wealth and success.
And now, standing in the middle of an empty street in Boston's financial district, drenched and devastated, Lysander Everett—the man whose name graced the covers of business magazines, whose decisions moved markets—had never felt smaller or more insignificant.
"It's a terrible thing, isn't it?" a voice spoke from behind him, barely audible above the drumming rain. "Regret."
Lysander didn't turn, assuming the voice belonged to some random passerby, perhaps concerned about the soaking wet man standing motionless in the downpour. "Leave me alone," he managed, the words scraping his raw throat.
"Most people carry their regrets to the grave," the voice continued, closer now. "Heavy things, regrets. Especially the ones born of choices we can never unmake."
Something in the stranger's tone—a peculiar blend of compassion and detachment—compelled Lysander to turn. Through the curtain of rain, he made out the figure of a man. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him at first glance—average height, indeterminate age, dressed in a simple gray suit that somehow remained dry despite the deluge. It was only when Lysander met his eyes that a chill unrelated to the rain shivered down his spine.
The man's eyes were the palest blue Lysander had ever seen, almost colorless, and they seemed to look not at him but through him, as if reading the story of his life written in invisible ink upon his soul.
"Who are you?" Lysander asked, suddenly uneasy.
The stranger smiled, a gentle expression that nonetheless failed to reach those unsettling eyes. "Someone who recognizes the weight you're carrying." He gestured vaguely at the space around them. "Not everyone stands in the rain when they've lost their way. Most run for shelter, hide from the storm. But here you are, facing it."
"I'm not facing anything," Lysander replied bitterly. "I'm just... here. Because I don't know where else to go."
"Precisely," the man nodded, as if Lysander had confirmed something important. "You've reached an impasse. A crossroads, if you will."
Lysander laughed, a harsh sound devoid of humor. "A crossroads implies choices. Options. There are none left for me."
"There are always choices, Mr. Everett," the stranger said softly. "Even when we can't see them."
The use of his name without introduction should have alarmed Lysander, but in his grief-stricken state, it barely registered. "The only choice that matters is one I can't make," he said, his voice breaking. "I can't go back. I can't undo what I've done—or failed to do. I can't bring her back."
The rain seemed to slow around them, the drops becoming heavier, more deliberate, creating a strange bubble of silence. The stranger stepped closer, close enough that Lysander could see his own reflection in those pale eyes—a broken man, undone by loss and regret.
"What if you could?" the man asked, his voice barely above a whisper yet somehow perfectly clear. "What if you could go back? Change your choices? Rewrite your story?"
A spark of something—anger, perhaps, or desperate hope—flared in Lysander's chest. "Don't mock me," he growled. "She's gone. My mother's gone. Time only moves in one direction."
"For most," the stranger agreed, with the faintest hint of a smile. "For most."
He reached into his pocket and withdrew what appeared to be a pocket watch, though unlike any Lysander had ever seen. Its case seemed to be made of a material that shifted and changed as it caught what little light remained in the stormy evening—sometimes silver, sometimes gold, sometimes a color that had no name.
"Time is not as linear as we've been led to believe, Mr. Everett," the stranger continued, running his thumb over the watch's surface with something like affection. "It loops and bends, doubles back on itself in ways most never perceive. And sometimes—very rarely—it can be... persuaded... to offer second chances."
Lysander stared at the watch, mesmerized despite himself. A distant part of his mind screamed that this was madness, delusion born of grief and exhaustion. But another part, the part that ached with the weight of his regrets, reached toward the impossible hope being offered.
"If you had the chance," the stranger asked, his voice echoing strangely now, as if coming from much further away than the few feet that separated them, "if you could turn everything back, would you do so?"
Lysander looked up from the watch to meet those unnerving eyes, his own vision blurred with tears and rain. The rawness of his pain stripped away any pretense, any caution. In that moment, he was not the powerful CEO or the strategic businessman—he was simply a man drowning in regret, offered the possibility of salvation.
With a voice coarsened by grief and hope, he answered: "Yes."
The word hung between them, heavy with desperation and longing. The stranger's expression softened infinitesimally as he extended the watch toward Lysander.
"Then take it," he said. "But remember—changing the past carries its own price. The universe maintains its balance, one way or another."
Lysander reached for the watch with trembling fingers, his mind racing with questions he couldn't articulate. Before he could touch it, the stranger added one final warning:
"Choose wisely this time, Mr. Everett. Some mistakes, even time cannot forgive twice."
As Lysander's fingertips made contact with the cool, shifting surface of the timepiece, the world around him began to blur and distort. The rain seemed to freeze in mid-air, then reverse its direction, rising upward instead of falling. The street beneath his feet became insubstantial, melting away like mist. The last thing he saw before everything dissolved into darkness was the stranger's face, those pale eyes watching him with an expression that might have been pity, or perhaps anticipation.
Then the world as he knew it ceased to exist.