If someone had told me I'd die at seventeen, I would've laughed. Not because I thought I was invincible—though, honestly, maybe I did—but because it didn't seem real. Death was something that happened to other people, on the news or in sad movies. Not to me.
The thing about your last night alive is that you don't realize it's your last night until it's too late.
It was one of those heavy summer evenings when the air clings to your skin, and the world hums with the promise of something—chaos, maybe, or regret. I spent it doing what I did best: screwing up.
There was a party, of course. There's always a party in these stories. The house belonged to someone whose parents were out of town, and the place smelled like cheap beer, sweat, and bad decisions. I floated through the rooms like I always did, playing the part of the guy everyone wanted to know. Chase Martinez: the life of the party, the guy who always had a clever comment or a reckless idea.
Sure, I wasn't always the life of the party. Not too long ago, I was this shy new kid in town. I barely spoke to anyone, and I could still remember the times I would literally hide behind my mom when we went outside.
It wasn't until my classmate, Noah, actually sat next to me at recess and became my first friend. It just got so much easier ever since. It was like a part of me just grew into the school, and I got invited left and right to anything and everything.
But tonight, the role didn't fit. Everything felt too loud, too close. Maybe it was because of Noah. He'd been watching me from across the room all night, his arms crossed and his face twisted in that way that made him look older than seventeen. Disappointed. Again.
I pretended not to notice him staring, but it bugged me. I don't know if it was hormones or something as we grew older, but Noah wasn't the same fun-loving kid that I met all those years ago.
Suddenly, he was obsessed with grades and getting to the top spot in school. Less fun, more studying, something I couldn't bear with unless absolutely necessary–or enforced by my mom. Sure we were still friends, and often hung out as much as we could after school, but there was something different about him now.
And now here he was, glaring at me like I did something wrong. I glanced at him once again before greeting a few more schoolmates near the kitchen, bopping my head to the loud EDM music.
"Chase, what are you doing?" Noah said as he arrived next to me.
"Having fun, you should try it more often," I shot back, flashing him a grin that didn't quite reach my eyes as I poured myself another cup of beer.
"You call this fun?" His voice had dropped, low enough that I had to lean in to hear him. "Showing up drunk, ditching your mom, stealing Lily's sketchbook?"
An odd, choking feeling suddenly came up to my throat. My mom's constant texts and missed calls made me feel the weight of my phone even more.
And then there was Lily and her sketchbook. Beads of sweat dotted my neck, making their presence known. I blinked hard and pretended not a single moment of it bothered me.
I shrugged. "She'll get it back."
"She trusted you, man."
That word—trust—landed like a punch to the gut. The whole Lily thing wasn't that big of a deal, and it wasn't that I stole it. She lent it to me, and I just…misplaced it somewhere. That was the part I didn't tell Noah; not like he needed to know.
I took a big gulp of the beer before replying. The bitter taste and alcoholic kick instantly pushed all those thoughts away, and I felt myself get way lighter.
"Why do you care, Noah?" I snapped, brushing past him. "You're not my dad."
I saw the flash of hurt in his eyes, but before I could process it, I was already pushing through the crowd of partygoers. The room felt like it was closing in on me—the flashing lights, the laughter, the sound of slamming doors and people shouting. This was a mess.
"Don't—don't say that," Noah's voice cracked as he followed me, his words barely audible over the chaos. "What's going on with you, man?"
I paused, my frustration bubbling to the surface. The room felt suffocating, everyone too busy with their own chaos to notice the tension between us. But Noah... Noah was different now. He wasn't the guy I used to know.
We used to skip class together for the stupidest reasons—like ditching math to sneak into the gym and practice half-baked basketball tricks we thought were "cool." We'd sneak into the teacher's lounge just to steal snacks from the vending machine, laughing like idiots. No one could tell us we were doing anything wrong. It was all fun, all part of being... well, being us.
But now? Now, Noah was acting like he had a stick shoved up his—well, you get the idea.
"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady, but I was still rattled. "You've changed, man. You used to be the guy who threw dodgeballs at the teachers in gym class just to see if we could get away with it. What happened to that Noah?"
His shoulders tensed, his eyes darting to the partygoers around us. "I—I'm just trying to figure things out, Chase. I can't keep messing around, okay?"
I felt my mouth go dry. "What's so bad about messing around?" I raised my voice over the blaring music. "You, me, we used to run through hallways with firecrackers in our backpacks, making bets to see if we could pull off a prank on Mr. Kramer before lunch. And now? Now you're acting like you're... what, some kind of goody two-shoes? When did that happen?"
Noah stiffened like I'd slapped him. His eyes flickered away from mine, and for a moment, I saw something I didn't expect—guilt. As if he was holding back something.
"I have to focus on school, okay? I can't keep getting detention for stuff that doesn't matter." His words were quieter now, but they hit me like a punch to the gut. He didn't even sound like Noah anymore. He sounded like... someone else. Someone I didn't know.
"Are you serious?" I shot back, crossing my arms over my chest. "You've always been the guy who knew how to have fun! We used to skip out on school trips, take the bus to nowhere just to spend the day eating burgers and laughing at stupid stuff. You're really telling me you're just going to throw all that away now?"
"I'm not throwing it away," Noah muttered, barely making eye contact. "I just—I need to think about the future. I can't keep being reckless. I have to get my grades up, apply for colleges—"
"Colleges?" I interrupted, my brain struggling to keep up. "You're talking about college? Dude, we used to skip class to sneak into the janitor's closet and mess with the cleaning supplies, and now you're acting like this?"
Noah's face darkened, a mix of frustration and shame passing across it. "I'm tired of getting caught, Chase. It's not working anymore."
He was really serious. He was... growing up?
The Noah I knew would've rolled his eyes at this. He'd laugh it off, maybe give me a stupid dare to forget about the whole "college" thing for a while. But now he was acting like he actually cared about being the responsible one.
It felt wrong. The whole situation felt like a nightmare, like I was watching a version of Noah who wasn't mine.
"You really think you have to give up everything for this future?" I scoffed, stepping closer, my anger pushing past my confusion. "You think all those stupid pranks, those dumb dares, weren't part of who you are? They were fun, man. They were us."
Noah's eyes met mine, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of the Noah I used to know—vulnerable, lost, but still there. "I'm not giving it all up," he said, his voice shaking. "I'm just trying to find something else, something... I don't know. I can't keep going down the same road, Chase. It's not worth it anymore."
I felt my chest tighten. This wasn't just about some stupid fight or an argument over some prank gone wrong. This was about Noah changing, and not just in the way people change when they grow older. He was becoming someone I didn't even recognize.
I turned away, the weight of everything pressing down on me. The music thudded in my ears, the crowd of people laughing, shouting, making memories I couldn't connect with anymore. I felt so far out of place.
"Look, man, I'm done with this," I muttered, brushing past him. "I can't stand here pretending everything's fine when you're not even the guy I used to know."
He reached out, but I was already heading for the door. "Chase—wait!" Noah called, but it didn't matter. The party was still raging behind me, but I couldn't hear it anymore.
I stepped outside, the cool air hitting my face like a slap. I could still hear Noah's voice echoing in my mind.
"You're really leaving?"
I didn't answer. I just kept walking, heading into the night. The Noah I knew wasn't there anymore. And I wasn't sure I could handle whatever version of him was left.
By the time I left the party, the guilt was a sharp weight pressing on my chest. I'd yelled at Noah and avoided my mom's texts all night. Plus, I couldn't stop thinking of Lily's sketchbook, and well…Lily. The quiet but cute girl in art class that just wanted my suggestions on her art project.
Ugh, what a mess. Maybe I should have been a little nicer, I thought to myself as I walked out of the house.
And yet, instead of going home and doing something remotely productive, I got in my car.
The engine growled to life, and I peeled out onto the empty street. The night outside was dark, the kind of dark that swallows up everything—the trees, the road, the stars. My headlights cut through the black, and the hum of the engine filled the silence in my head.
I should've been thinking about what I'd done, how I'd fix it. Instead, I thought about nothing. That was the point of driving: to feel like you're moving forward, even when you're stuck.
The crash wasn't dramatic. It wasn't some slow-motion Hollywood moment with violins and screaming. One second, I was speeding through the night, and the next, there was the blinding flash of headlights and the crunch of metal folding like paper.
Then there was nothing.
When I woke up, I wasn't in my car. I wasn't anywhere, really.
The world around me was blank—white and endless, like I'd been dropped into a fog that went on forever. I couldn't see where it started or ended. The air smelled faintly metallic, like a lightning strike, and the ground beneath me felt soft—like I was standing on cotton, or maybe clouds.
But there was no sky. No sun. Just infinite whiteness, stretching out in every direction.
I tried to speak. Nothing came out. I tried to move. My feet didn't obey. I was strapped by something invisible, and my thoughts raced faster than ever before.
Oh God. I'm dead, aren't I?
And then, from nowhere, a voice.
"Welcome to the in-between."
I froze. The voice was low, smooth—without a specific tone, like it didn't belong to a person. There was a hum in the words, a faint vibration that tickled my ears and set my teeth on edge.
I whipped around. There, standing in the distance, was the source of the voice. They—or it—wasn't really anything. More like the absence of something. Their shape flickered, shifting like a shadow in motion, but without a clear form.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
"Who I am is irrelevant," the dark figure replied. The voice was... disjointed, like it was too vast to come from just one place. "You have a choice, Chase Martinez."
I blinked. "Wait—what? Who are you? What is this place?"
"This place," the figure said, pausing, "is the in-between. It's where you go when you don't move forward. Where time pauses long enough for you to make a decision. Where the dead lie."
A silence. And then, "Yes, you thought right, Chase Martinez. Right now, you are dead."
My heart—if I even still had one—began pounding in my chest. I couldn't quite grasp the gravity of what the figure was saying. Dead?
But that didn't make sense. I remembered the night, the party, the fight with Noah, the screeching of tires, the flash of lights, and the pain—so much pain. It was nothing like I ever experienced before.
And then... nothing. The kind of nothing that filled your body with a cold, crushing emptiness. And now here I was, talking to something more like a being than a person, in a fully empty world.
So... this was death? This was the afterlife?
"You're not real," I muttered, my voice low but trembling. I was too shocked to even notice I could speak now. Not that it mattered, if I really was dead…but that can't be true, could it?
I half expected to look down and find that I was still bleeding out on the pavement. Maybe I was in some coma, trapped between life and death. Maybe I was just hallucinating.
But no. This... thing, whatever it was, felt too real. Too solid in its existence to be a figment of my imagination. The hum of its voice seemed to vibrate through the empty air, a constant reminder that I wasn't in control anymore.
"You're dead," the figure repeated, the words slicing through the air like glass. "And that's why you're here. You've reached a point where there's no turning back... unless you decide to."
I frowned, confusion mingling with a rising sense of panic. "Decide to what?" My voice cracked, but I didn't care. "You're telling me I'm dead, and you want me to... what? Choose? Choose what?"
The figure, for all its strange, shapeless form, somehow seemed to... watch me. It felt as though it was taking in every inch of me, reading my every thought, even as they tumbled in a chaotic rush.
"You have a choice, Chase," the figure said, its tone colder now. "You can move on—your life as you knew it will cease to exist, and you'll pass on to whatever lies beyond. Or..." It paused, and I swear the air around me grew heavier. "Or, you can go back. To the moment before your death. The catch is simple: you must make things right."
"Make things right?" I repeated, my voice tinged with disbelief. "What do you mean, 'make things right'? You can't be serious. I'm dead, remember?"
The figure didn't flinch at my sarcasm. Instead, it almost seemed to chuckle, a sound that was more felt than heard, like an ancient sigh echoing through the vast emptiness.
"You were reckless, Chase. You hurt the people who cared about you—your mother, your best friend, the girl you admired from afar." There was a note of something like... disappointment in the figure's voice, though it remained strangely devoid of emotion. "You never took responsibility. Never stopped to understand the damage you were causing. You were dead, yes, but your life doesn't end here. Not if you choose to fix it. The choice is yours."
I stumbled back, feeling like the ground had just dropped from beneath me. I was dead. But now I had a chance to go back. To fix things?
I laughed, the sound bitter. "You want me to fix things? How? I've burned every bridge I've ever crossed. My mom? I barely talk to her. My best friend Noah? I—" My voice faltered, the weight of those words almost choking me. Noah. The fight. The distance I'd put between us. "And Lily—" I broke off, my heart hammering in my chest.
I looked up at it, a burning feeling growing in my chest. "I can't fix this. It's too late." It hurt to talk.
The figure's shape shifted again, but I could almost feel its presence pressing down on me, forcing me to pay attention. "You can. But you must be willing to change. Not just for yourself, but for them. For the people who still care, even if you don't see it."
"But, how?" I asked. I could hear the absolute confusion in my voice. "It's over, isn't it? How could there be a second chance in death?"
The figure spoke once more: "You have been given a second chance—a rare opportunity. You have three months to set things right. If you succeed, your life will be different. If you fail..." The figure's voice darkened, trailing off ominously. "You'll die in the same way. Only, this time, there will be no second chance."
I stood in the vast white nothingness, the weight of the figure's words pressing down on me. I had three months to fix everything I had broken. Three months to rebuild everything.
My mind raced as the enormity of what the figure had said began to sink in. Three months. That wasn't a lot of time. I didn't even know how to begin. But I also knew one thing—I couldn't go back to how things were. Not after this. Not after being given a chance to get it right.
And most of all…I can't die yet. Not now. There was still so much to do, so much to see. Noah, Mom, Lily…
"If I can't make things right in three months," I dared to ask. "What happens?"
"It's simple," the figure spoke. "You die, and this time, it's final."
The figure could have dropped a truck into my chest, and it would have felt lighter than it did at that moment.
I really do have just three months?
"Alright," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. I spoke fast, so that my mind couldn't stop me. "I'll do it. I'll go back. But you've got to answer just one more thing."
The figure's shape quivered, almost like it was curious. "What is it that you ask?"
I swallowed hard. "What's the catch?"
For the first time, there was something like a shift in the figure's tone. It felt... almost approving.
"You will find out soon enough, Chase Martinez. You will have your life—your second chance—and the opportunity to right your wrongs. But the journey is yours to walk."
The air around me began to distort, warping, bending, like reality itself was folding in on itself. I tried to take a step forward, but my body felt like it was weightless, floating.
"Good luck, Chloe," the figure murmured, its voice fading, "you'll need it."
Chloe?
There was no chance to speak as the whiteness enveloped me completely. The air buzzed. The ground disappeared. Everything blurred into a hazy mess of light and motion.
Then, with a sickening jolt, everything went black.
The darkness swallowed me whole, like I was falling into a void, but then—bam—a sharp jolt brought me back, like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over me.
My head spun, and for a moment, I didn't know where I was. The air around me felt different, cool and crisp, and I could hear soft rustling noises, the kind that made you think someone was moving around in the room. I tried to blink, but my eyes felt heavy, as though I'd been asleep for hours.
I forced myself to sit up, pushing against a soft surface beneath me. My head swam with dizziness, and I groaned, trying to steady myself. The first thing I noticed? I wasn't lying on the cold pavement anymore. I was in a bed. My bed. But there was something strange about it.
I rubbed my eyes—still groggy—and reached up to push my hair out of my face. Only... there was no hair.
My hand froze, fingers splayed across the surface of my head. My hair. It was gone. I almost panicked, my pulse spiking, but then I felt something. Something soft, like... silk? I ran my fingers through it. It wasn't the messy, disheveled mess I was used to. No—this felt... long.
What the hell?
I quickly yanked my hands away, pulling back the covers. My heart pounded. I looked down—no, I gasped—and I saw... a chest. But it wasn't my chest. I blinked.
What was I seeing?
I quickly scrambled to get out of bed, feeling the soft fabric of the blankets slide off my new body. My limbs felt strange, more delicate than usual. And—oh God—when I looked down at my hands, they were small and slender. A flash of panic washed over me, my breathing quick and shallow. I rushed over to the mirror, my reflection slowly coming into focus.
The face staring back at me was me—but it wasn't.
I was staring into a girl's face. A perfect, unmistakable replica of myself, but in female form. Same dark eyes, same dark hair, same angular jawline—but softer, rounder, more feminine. My skin had a different glow to it, too, smoother, untouched by the roughness I'd always carried with me.
I leaned in closer to the mirror, touching my face, like maybe it would all make sense if I could feel the reality of it. The reflection stayed the same. This... wasn't a joke. It wasn't some weird dream or hallucination.
I wasn't in my body anymore.
I'm a girl.
I stepped back, eyes wide, my chest tightening as a wave of realization crashed over me. The figure's words came rushing back like a tidal wave.
He called me Chloe, so does that mean….
I shook my head, trying to make sense of it, but no matter how hard I tried, the reality didn't change.
There really was just one reason.
I felt my stomach drop. The figure hadn't been playing around. This... this was real. This was my second chance. Only now, I wasn't me. I was... Chloe.
I stumbled back from the mirror, my brain trying to process what my eyes were telling me. This was insane. There was no way in hell this was happening. I didn't just get hit by a car and wake up as some alternate version of myself, and as a girl to boot.
I blinked rapidly, as if trying to reset the whole situation. But no. The reflection staring back at me was still her. Same eyes, same jawline, same nose, just... more feminine. And the hair. Oh, the hair. It was this smooth, shiny, totally-perfect-without-trying thing that I definitely didn't have in my normal life. I mean, look at it. I never had hair this nice.
I ran my hands through it again, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. It slid through my fingers like... like... okay, I don't know what. But it was way too fluffy to be real.
And then, without thinking, I did the one thing every teenage boy would do in my situation. I grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked it down.
"What the hell?" I muttered under my breath.
What the actual hell?!
A deep, horrifying realization hit me like a freight train. "Okay, I gotta be dreaming."
I pinched myself. Nope. Not a dream. I wasn't waking up in my bed. I wasn't going to snap back to my old, annoying reality of high school with a car full of late homework and a permanent relationship with the school's detention room. This was it. This was real life.
I slowly reached up, tugging at my new, too-long hair, trying to make sense of what was happening. "I'm... Chloe now? Like... Chloe with boobs and a voice that might be more high-pitched than I'm used to?" I muttered, doing the only logical thing a boy in my position could: talking to myself like some weird psychological test.
I took a deep breath and sighed. "No way. This is a nightmare."
Suddenly, I noticed something else. I mean, I had to. It was kind of hard not to. My body was... different. "Dude," I said to my reflection, "You've got curves! What the hell am I supposed to do with curves?"
I just stared at myself for a moment, my brain short-circuiting again. "Okay, cool. Whatever. Just... breathe, Chase... I mean, Chloe... whatever. Ugh, this is confusing."
I took another look at myself, trying to calm the storm of confusion.
At least I wasn't wearing pink—yet.
"Oh no," I whispered, scanning my room for any sign that this could be a practical joke. No, nothing here. Just the same old junk scattered around my desk. A couple of old sports trophies. Wait. Was that a dress?
I immediately whipped my head away, my face flushing. "Okay. Okay, nope, not doing that," I muttered, my voice squeaking a little as I tried to act cool in front of... myself?
I could already feel the embarrassment bubbling up inside of me. There was no way I was walking into high school like this. No way. I wasn't ready to face Noah, my best friend, the dude who'd seen me act like a total idiot since childhood. He was going to lose it. He'd probably think I was trolling him or, worse, that he somehow turned into a weirdo.
"Oh, God," I said, looking at my reflection and placing my hands on my now-probably-girly hips, "I'm gonna have to learn how to sit like a girl, aren't I? And walk like a girl... and... god, how do you even... I don't know how this works!"
I grabbed my face in frustration, like it could somehow reset this whole freakshow. But the more I stared, the more Chloe seemed like someone I might... become. I couldn't keep putting this off. I had a mission here, and I couldn't spend all day gaping at my boobs. (Which, by the way, I had no idea what to do with. Can you tell?)
With a sigh, I let my hands drop to my sides. Time to face the music, I guess. I was going to have to figure out how to fix my life. As a girl.
But first, I had to survive the first few awkward moments of being me, just... in a different form.
This. Was. Insane.
"You know what? Fine," I muttered. "We'll deal with the whole boob situation later. Focus. You've got a bigger problem. Like... figuring out how to get through this day without embarrassing yourself.
I rolled my eyes at myself, half-laughing and half-crying. "Okay, Chase... no, Chloe. You've got this. Totally."
I looked back in the mirror.
The girl staring back at me raised an eyebrow.
"Nope. Nope, this is not okay."
I glanced at the clock: 8:15 AM. Three months before the crash.
I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
This was gonna be hell. And I was gonna have to figure out how to make things right, all while figuring out how to live with boobs.