This Time, I Choose Myself

Annie dies in a psychiatric hospital after her family has branded her unstable and never answers the doctors' calls. In the Soul Shop, she pawns her ability to love and buys one more life.

She comes back at twelve, the day her parents bring Chloe Lynn home. The old pain doesn't come. Her mother's gentleness, Liam's arm hooked around hers, her father's calls—none of it lands. She just takes inventory of what she still owns.

The last life had already shown her how this goes. Annie and Liam were the Carter twins, spoiled until Chloe arrived when Annie was twelve. On Annie's eighteenth birthday, she catches Chloe kissing Ethan. The people she demands answers from look at her with disgust. She lunges with a plastic cake cutter. Liam kicks her into a bed of thorny roses. Her parents call her mentally unstable, lock her in a psychiatric hospital, and never answer. She dies after repeated electric shocks.

This time, Annie doesn't scream or plead. She packs her jewelry, including the bracelet Chloe once threw from a window and crushed under a car, and joins dinner. Chloe is sitting in Annie's seat. Liam offers to sit between them. Their parents stay silent.

Dad brings up the real request: Annie and Liam should drop out of the elite program, transfer to a private school, and attend classes with Chloe. Liam has already agreed. Annie doesn't. "I have zero duty to bond with her." She keeps her spot in the elite program and walks upstairs. Chloe bursts into loud sobs behind her.

Annie walks away from the family and the marriage tied to Ethan. She meets Jay. When the truth comes out, Jay carries memories of his past life and bets his entire soul on winning back her true heart.