Chapter 1The Decimal Point That Ruined Her

When I opened my eyes again, the world was no longer white, sterile, and smelling of industrial bleach. I was back in my first year of grad school.

In the dim light of the stairwell, Beth was hunched over, her eyes rimmed with red, her knuckles white as she gripped a tuition past-due notice.

In my first life, I had found her here, sobbing because she couldn’t afford the semester. I had handed over five thousand dollars—every cent I’d clawed together from late-night tutoring and skipping meals. She had clung to me then, her voice thick with tears, swearing I was the most important person in her life.

But by graduation, my senior thesis data had vanished into thin air.

A week later, Beth published a paper with the exact same findings, claiming lead authorship. She didn't stop there—she married our department head, Dr. Whitaker. When I confronted her, she simply leaned into his arm, looked at me with pity, and told the board I was "unstable." She said I had "persecutory delusions."

That was how they dragged me to the psychiatric ward. For three years, I lived in a fog of sedatives, my veins hardening from the injections, until I finally died in a bed that wasn't mine.

* * *

Beth sat on the concrete step, her shoulders shaking with rhythmic sobs. The notice was a crumpled ball in her hand, then smoothed out, then crushed again.

I stood over her, the five thousand dollars I’d just withdrawn from the bank heavy in my pocket.

In my last life, I didn’t hesitate. I’d pressed the cash into her palms like a lifeline.

This life, I just watched her cry. All I could see was that hospital bed. The peeling white ceiling. The needle marks mapping my forearms. I could still feel the phantom chill of the sedatives turning my blood into lead.

Beth looked up, tears snagged in her lashes, her lip trembling.

"Julie, I’m tapped out. My mom’s medical bills... the house... we just don't have it. If I don't pay this by Friday, I’m out of the program. I'll have to go back home."

I knelt down, but I only pulled one thousand dollars from my pocket. I laid the bills across her knee.

Beth froze. She looked at the stack, then at me.

"Take this for now," I said, my voice steady. "For the rest, I’ll help you talk to the department. There are work-study positions available. If you apply, you won’t have to pay it all back at once, and you won’t owe me nearly as much."

Beth stared at the money. She didn’t move.

"Is... is this it?"

"One thousand is a lot, Beth. I make fifteen an hour tutoring. It took me months to save this."

I pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from my bag.

"Write me a promissory note. It’s not that I don't trust you—it’s just a habit I’m trying to start. For my own records."

Beth took the pen. Her fingers hitched for a fraction of a second. Then she smiled. It was a smile I knew too well—the corners of her mouth went up, but her eyes remained cold and flat.

"Right. Of course. You’re being so sweet."

She scribbled the note and handed it back. I folded it carefully and tucked it into the hidden inner pocket of my backpack.

On the walk back to the dorms, she looped her arm through mine. Her voice was still watery.

"Julie, thank you. Seriously. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me. You're my sister."

"Mhm," I murmured.

You said that last time, too, I thought. Right before you locked me in a cage.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Once Beth’s breathing turned heavy and even, I crawled out of bed and opened my laptop. I exported every single byte of my experimental data.

One copy to a private cloud.

One copy to an encrypted Dropbox.

One copy in a password-protected zip file sent to a burner email address.

Finally, I sent a summary to my primary email with the subject: Thesis Progress Backup - Oct 17.

Three locations. Three different, complex passwords.

I watched the "Upload Complete" checkmark flicker on the screen and shut the laptop. Outside, the hallway light was buzzing, flickering in the dark.

Beth rolled over in her sleep, mumbling something incoherent.

The next morning at the lab meeting, our advisor, Dr. Whitaker, called for progress reports. He was forty-one, perpetually single, wore gold-rimmed glasses, and spoke with a slow, measured condescension that people mistook for wisdom.

In my first life, I thought he was a visionary. Now I knew the truth: he was a weak man, easily swayed by a woman who knew how to play the victim.

When it was Beth’s turn, she stood up. Her voice was thin. She got two sentences in before her voice cracked.

"I’m so sorry, Dr. Whitaker. I’ve had some... family emergencies. My progress is a bit behind where I wanted it to be."

Whitaker pushed his glasses up his nose, his tone softening instantly.

"It’s alright, Beth. If you’re struggling, talk to me. You don't have to carry the weight of the world alone."

Beth nodded, dabbing at her eyes as she sat down. The other PhD candidates in the room shifted, their expressions full of easy sympathy.

Then it was my turn.

I flipped the slide to the third page and began detailing the data I’d pulled that week. Whitaker cut me off halfway through.

"What’s the basis for this variable? Did you check the literature?"

"Dr. Thompson’s 2019 paper, and the MIT study from last spring—"

"Are you sure? I recall the MIT findings being inconsistent with your trajectory."

I rattled off the DOI numbers and the specific methodology citations. Whitaker scrolled through his tablet, silent for a long moment.

"...Fine. Keep running it."

After the meeting, Beth sidled up to me. "Julie, that experimental design was actually really clever. Do you think you could send me the slides? I want to learn from how you structured the variables."

I pulled my thumb drive from the port and dropped it into my pocket.

"Once I’ve cleaned up the formatting, I’ll send it over."

I never sent it.

She asked again a week later. I told her I’d forgotten. She didn’t ask a third time.

But that night in the dorm, as she lay on the top bunk, she spoke into the darkness.

"Julie? Are you mad at me?"

"No. Why?"

"I don't know. You just... feel different lately."

I pulled the duvet up to my chin.

"Just tired, Beth. The lab is a grind. Don't overthink it."

There was a long silence.

"Oh. Okay. Goodnight."

"Night."

I lay there with my eyes open, listening to her toss and turn above me.

Different? Of course I was different.

The Julie she knew had died on day 1,087 in the psych ward.