The day Daniel tried to rewrite his life, downtown Los Angeles was shining like it had never hurt anyone.
Sunlight ricocheted off glass towers, the air smelled like burnt coffee and car exhaust, and the elevator doors of the twenty-second floor law firm slid open to applause.
“Bye, Kevin! Congrats on making partner!” a paralegal called, waving a manila folder as she hurried past.
“Congrats on making partner at the firm, man. You really deserve it.” Another associate clapped Kevin on the back so hard his tie shifted sideways.
Kevin laughed, flustered and blushing. “Thanks, guys. I—I put in a lot of hours for a very long time. Guess it really does pay off, huh?”
Daniel watched from the doorway of his office, hands resting on the rims of his wheelchair. The plaque on Kevin’s new office door still gleamed: KEVIN SULLIVAN, PARTNER.
Same last name. Same degree. Same firm.
Different life.
One promotion, one choice, one accident ago.
“Dude.” Kevin spotted him and broke away from the little crowd, that bright California tan he’d earned on weekend surf trips glowing against his white shirt. “How are you doing?”
Daniel forced his face into something like a smile. “Look at you,” he said. “You got your tan back and everything. Nice.”
“Well, you know me,” Kevin grinned. “Do my work, go home, ride the waves. Never gets old.”
“Until you get skin cancer,” Daniel said flatly.
Kevin rolled his eyes. “Rude, bro. I wear SPF. The good stuff.”
A third voice chimed in—Matt from securities, juggling a laptop and a protein bar. “Why so miserable, man? Besides the obvious?” He nodded at the chair and winced immediately. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”
Daniel didn’t make it easier. “You mean besides the obvious,” he said, deadpan.
“You know,” Matt said, trying to recover, “I read they make special surfboards for people in wheelchairs now. You should come out with us one day. Seriously.”
“You think I’m going surfing?” Daniel stared at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Your brother’s just trying to be helpful,” Kevin said gently.
“Nobody can help me,” Daniel snapped. “Life is miserable.”
An awkward silence dropped between the three of them, thick as the California smog outside the windows.
“Okay,” Kevin said slowly. “Just… try to lighten up, man. Be happy. You gotta find your own happy.”
“Easy to be happy when you’re not stuck in a chair,” Daniel muttered.
The celebration shifted away from him, gravity pulling everyone back to Kevin’s new office, his new title, his new normal.
Daniel backed his chair into his own tiny office, grabbed his bag, and left before anyone could ask him to sign the card.
The lobby was cool and expensive, with oversized art and ficus trees framing the glass doors. As Daniel moved over the marble, the automatic door whooshed open to the glow of late-afternoon Los Angeles.
“Hey, man, you want a ride?” Kevin jogged up behind him, keys in hand. His shiny electric SUV waited at the curb, blue paint sparkling in the sun.
“You know my chair can’t fit in there,” Daniel said. “I’ll just call a car.”
“I’ll wait with you,” Kevin said. “We can—”
“No.” Daniel’s voice came out sharper than he meant it to. “I just want to be alone.”
Kevin stepped back, hurt flickering across his face before he smoothed it over. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Be safe, all right? Text me later.”
“Yeah,” Daniel lied. “Sure.”
He didn’t call a car. He just rolled aimlessly down the sidewalk, letting the Friday rush swirl around him—horns blaring, sirens in the distance, the faint hum of the 405 freeway not far away.
He stopped at a crosswalk, staring at the white stripes on the asphalt that looked a little too much like hospital sheets.
A voice sliced through the noise.
“Oh my gosh. Daniel? Is that you?”
He turned.
Rachel stood on the corner in a summer dress, her hair pulled back in a loose knot, a diaper bag slung over one shoulder. A man in a Dodgers cap stood beside her, one arm carrying a toddler who’d fallen asleep mid-snack, fist still wrapped around a cracker.
Daniel’s breath caught in his throat.
Multiple timelines of his life flashed in his mind at once: them in college, sharing cheap pizza; them on the Santa Monica pier, Rachel talking about kids and houses and a dog in the yard; them shouting in the parking lot the day he told her he didn’t get the job.
“Wow,” she said now. “How many other ex-boyfriends do I have in a chair?”
He barked out a humorless laugh. “That’s me. One and only.”
“Hi,” the man beside her said, adjusting the sleeping girl in his arms. “Nice to meet you. I’m Rachel’s husband. And this little one is Kira.”
“Husband,” Daniel repeated in his head. Kids. The whole American dream she’d drawn on napkins while he nodded and pretended he wanted it too.
“Hi,” he said stiffly. “Nice to meet you.”
“We were just headed out of town,” Rachel said. “Family weekend. It was really good to see you, Daniel.”
“You too,” he said, even though it wasn’t, not really. It just hurt. It hurt like his legs hadn’t, that first numb moment after the accident, when he’d still believed the lack of pain meant it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
They drove off in a sensible SUV, taillights disappearing into traffic and sunshine.
Daniel sat at the corner until the WALK sign blinked red, then white, then red again.
He didn’t know which direction he was going until he saw it—a crooked wooden sign wedged between a nail salon and a laundromat.
PALM READER – TAROT – FIND YOUR DESTINY.
Something about it tugged at him. Maybe it was the word destiny. Maybe it was the fact that he felt like his own had been hijacked.
“Stop the chair,” he muttered to himself, and laughed bitterly. “This is ridiculous.”
He rolled up the cracked ramp anyway.
Let me guess,” the woman inside said before he even crossed the threshold. “You knew you were coming. The spirits whispered.”
She sat at a small table, string lights draped around her, the air smelling faintly of incense and lemon cleaner. She wore large hoop earrings and a wrap dress, her hair pinned up with something that looked like a pencil.
“Sure,” Daniel said. “Must’ve been the spirits. Or the giant sign on the sidewalk.”
She smiled slightly and reached out a hand, palm up. “Let me see.”
He hesitated, then put his hand in hers. Her fingers were warm and steady.
“Your lines speak clearly,” she said after a moment. “You are fated for joy. Your life of happiness awaits you.”
“It’s too late for that,” Daniel scoffed.
“It is never too late,” she said calmly. “Even the darkest nights have a dawn. Joy isn’t found in lamenting the past and what could have been. Joy is found in the now, within.”
“Happiness is a choice we make,” she added.
“I thought you were supposed to help me with my problems, not give me inspirational quotes,” Daniel said. “Where’s the part where you fix things? Where’s your expert advice?”
“What burdens you?” she asked, ignoring his sarcasm.
He gestured at the chair. “Look at me,” he said. “Look where I’m sitting. I had a whole life planned. I did everything right. One missed job, one bike ride, one… moment, and now I’m here. I just wish—I just wish I could hit redo, you know? Go back to that day and make a different choice.”
The woman studied him for a long heartbeat. Then she leaned down and opened a small carved box on a shelf behind her.
“I have something that might be of interest,” she said.
She set it in front of him: a watch. Not a sleek smartwatch like his coworkers wore, but an old-fashioned timepiece with a brass case and a face etched with tiny Roman numerals. The leather band was worn but soft, like it had been handled a thousand times.
“A watch,” Daniel said. “Seriously?”
“This isn’t just any watch,” she said. “This will allow you to turn back time to any day of your choice. You will get twenty-four hours on that day. Once the sun sets, you will return to the present.”
He stared at her.
“You’re joking.”
She didn’t blink. “To use it, you spin the dial a full two turns,” she said. “Shut your eyes. Think of a time and place. And then…”
She let the silence finish the sentence.
“Sure, lady,” he said. His voice dripped disbelief, but his fingers reached for the watch anyway. It was cool and solid in his hand, heavier than it looked. The time on the face was meaningless, the second hand frozen between numbers.
“But I warn you,” she added, eyes suddenly dark and serious. “This will not bring the happiness you seek. The past is not meant to be altered.”
“Yeah,” Daniel muttered, fastening the band around his wrist with clumsy fingers. “Easy for you to say.”
He rolled back into the California glare.
Twenty-four hours.
One day.
That day.
He stopped on a side street where the office towers thinned and the sky looked bigger. Newspaper stands stood empty, a taco truck hummed at the corner, a palm tree swayed overhead.
Daniel looked down at the stubborn little watch, at its still hands and scratched glass.
“This is stupid,” he said aloud.
Then he twisted the dial twice.
Nothing happened.
He shut his eyes anyway.
“Back,” he whispered. “The day of the interview. Outside the building. Before Kevin gets the job. Before the fight. Before everything.”
For a second, there was only the feel of the hot sun on his face and the distant echo of a truck’s horn.
Then his stomach lurched.
The smell shifted—from street tacos to office lobby cologne. Sound sharpened: voices, heels on marble, the ding of an elevator.
He opened his eyes.
He was standing.
He almost toppled over from the shock, grabbing at the wall.
His legs were under him—thin, shaky, but there. Denim stretched over his knees. He looked down, stunned, and saw his old sneakers, the ones he’d argued with himself about throwing away after the accident, sitting in a box he never opened.
“What the—”
“Whatever happens, it won’t ruin our friendship, right?” Kevin’s voice called from behind him, bright and hopeful.
Daniel turned.
There they were: two younger versions of themselves, suits slightly cheaper, faces a little less lined. Kevin was talking to him, the way he had that morning years ago.
Now there was only one Daniel, but the memory was so strong it felt like he was watching a movie and acting in it at the same time.
“Don’t worry about it,” Daniel heard himself say. “Whoever gets the job deserves it.”
They’d stood in that same parking lot, trying to pretend life wasn’t about to split in two. One path up, one path sideways.
And then.
Kevin’s phone buzzed. He’d answered, then returned with that face.
“Kevin,” the hiring partner had said over the line. “Congratulations. You’ve got the job.”
Daniel remembered the burn in his chest, the roaring in his ears.
Now, standing there again with his legs under him and the watch on his wrist, the scene shimmered like heat on asphalt.
Not this time.
He felt the watch pulse against his skin, as if it were waiting.
Upstairs, the office buzzed. Daniel walked through the lobby like he’d never left it. People brushed past; someone said his name and it echoed like they were underwater.
“Interview in ten,” Kevin said, straightening his tie in the reflective glass of the conference room door. “Mine’s right after yours.”
Daniel nodded. “We’re always going to be buds, right?” Kevin asked, his voice tight. “No matter who gets it?”
“Of course,” Daniel lied.
He glanced at the watch. Time here meant nothing; this countdown was in his head.
“Hey,” he said quickly. “You’ve been up all night prepping, right? Why don’t you grab us some coffee? My treat. I’ll watch your stuff.”
Kevin’s shoulders slumped with gratitude. “You’re the best,” he said. “I’ve been dying for caffeine.”
He dropped his leather portfolio on the chair. “Don’t let anyone take that, okay? My résumé, my writing samples, it’s all in there.”
“I’ve got you,” Daniel said.
When Kevin disappeared around the corner, Daniel’s heart started pounding so loudly he could hear it in his ears.
Don’t, something inside him said.
But his hand was already moving.
He unzipped the portfolio, fingers finding paper, the crisp edges of printed résumés, the carefully tabbed samples. He pulled them out and slid them into his own bag, then placed a random stack of corporate brochures in their place.
When Kevin came back, coffee in hand, his shoulders were looser, his smile back.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Daniel said. “Let’s do this.”
He nailed the interview.
Organization, responsibility, vision—every buzzword the partners wanted to hear rolled off his tongue. With Kevin’s perfect samples and spotless résumé supporting him, he was untouchable.
He walked out of the conference room high on adrenaline.
Kevin walked in and out twenty minutes later looking like he’d seen a ghost.
“I totally blew it,” he said, eyes wide. “I didn’t have my résumé or the samples they requested. I swear I put them in my bag this morning.”
“That sucks,” Daniel said, forcing sympathy into his tone. “I’m sure those things don’t matter that much.”
“Gentlemen,” the hiring partner said, stepping out into the hall, tie crisp, smile practiced. “Thank you for coming in.”
Kevin and Daniel turned together.
“Congratulations, Daniel,” the partner said. “The position is yours. We really value your organization and your sense of responsibility. You’re exactly what this firm needs.”
Daniel felt the rush hit him like a wave.
This was the moment that had belonged to Kevin. Now it was his.
“Thank you,” he said, formally, while inside something small and decent curled up in a corner.
Kevin swallowed. “Congrats, man,” he said hoarsely. “You deserve it. You’re brilliant.”
“You’ll get the next one,” Daniel said automatically. “I’m sure.”
He didn’t look at him again.
The watch’s twenty-four hours didn’t feel like a single day; they stretched and folded, collaging themselves into years.
He saw himself climbing up the ranks of the Los Angeles firm, long nights at the office turning into bigger bonuses, his name on a door. He saw himself proposing to Rachel at some rooftop restaurant, his voice shaking as he held out a ring.
“We’ve been on such different pages lately,” she’d said, eyes wide. “I’ve wanted to talk about our relationship, but…”
“We could start a family,” he’d interrupted. “Kids, house, the whole thing. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
She’d stared at him, trapped and hopeful at the same time.
“Yes,” she’d said eventually. “Sure.”
He’d thought he’d fixed it. His career. His relationship. His entire life.
Twenty-four hours, and everything that followed, clicked into place.
When the watch face hit the invisible line where sunset should have been, he felt his stomach drop, like an elevator moving too fast.
Then—
He was back in the same downtown Los Angeles building, same firm, same air-conditioned lobby.
Only this time, people were smiling at him differently.
“Good morning, boss,” a junior associate said, nearly tripping over herself as she stepped aside.
“Morning,” Daniel said.
He rolled? No. He walked.
His legs moved easily now in well-cut slacks, shoes polished. Across the hall, the plaque on the big corner office door caught the light.
DANIEL SULLIVAN, PARTNER.
His office.
He could see the entire city through the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond—freeways curling like silver snakes, the Hollywood sign tiny in the distance.
Kevin’s desk was gone from the hall. No partner plaque. No corner office with his name on it.
“Coffee, sir?” his assistant called. “Black with one sugar?”
“That’d be great,” Daniel said faintly.
This is real, he thought. I did it.
That afternoon, heading to his car, he heard a voice that didn’t match the polished elevator lobby.
“Excuse me, sir? Sir?”
He turned.
A man sat near the parking garage entrance, back against the wall, cardboard sign propped beside him. His clothes were worn, his hair overgrown, his face sunburned from too many Southern California days spent outside.
Daniel’s heart stopped.
“Kevin?” he whispered.
Kevin squinted up at him, then broke into a sheepish half-smile. “Hey, man,” he said. “Long time no see.”
“What happened?” Daniel knelt without realizing it. “What are you doing out here?”
Kevin shrugged one shoulder. “Life’s tough, man,” he said. “You know, after I left that job and you got the position, everything just kind of went downhill. I honestly thought working hard would be enough. But when I lost that job, I realized maybe it doesn’t always work that way.”
Daniel felt like he’d swallowed a stone.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I stopped talking to you after that. I was… jealous. I couldn’t handle it back then. I guess—now here we are.”
“It wasn’t you,” Kevin said. “I couldn’t handle it either. I just didn’t care about trying anymore.”
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Daniel said, fumbling for his wallet. “Here, please. Take this.”
He pulled out everything he had—bills, a few hundred dollars.
Kevin pushed it back. “No,” he said. “Don’t. You earned that job fair and square.”
No, I didn’t, Daniel thought, the watch heavy on his wrist.
“I have to live with the consequences,” Kevin added. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out somehow.”
Daniel backed away, his heart pounding against the wrongness of everything.
He had the big office. The polished title. The life.
Kevin had… concrete and cardboard.
So why did Daniel feel more hollow than he had in the chair?
Dinner that night was in a house he barely recognized his own—big and beige in a gated community somewhere outside of the city, with a manicured lawn and a mortgage he didn’t remember signing.
He sat at a granite kitchen island, fork in hand, pushing food around his plate as Rachel paced back and forth, her voice sharp.
“I’m miserable,” she said, by way of greeting when he walked in. “Again.”
He blinked. “How was your dad?” he asked automatically. “I thought you took the kids over there.”
“Don’t act all shocked, Daniel. We have this talk all the time.” She threw open a cupboard just to slam it shut. “You’re always at your big fancy job. I’m always stuck at home with the kids. Alone. I’m losing myself.”
“This house,” he said, gesturing weakly, “this food—I thought you’d be happy. We’re in love, aren’t we? Isn’t this what we wanted?”
“You’re not happy,” she said. “Don’t you see that? Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life.”
He flinched. “What?”
“I loved you as a friend,” she said. “I only went through with it because I felt trapped. You knew I wanted kids. You knew I wanted a family. You knew I wanted to break up with you and instead of talking it through, you proposed. And I said yes because I am such an idiot.”
“Rachel, please,” he said. “There must be something I can do.”
“It’s too late,” she said quietly.
In the distant rooms of the house, a TV was playing a kids’ show. Somewhere, a child laughed. It sounded like it was coming from underwater.
Later, he drove back to the small apartment building he remembered as his pre-accident home. He wasn’t even sure why he went; he just knew he had to see something that made sense.
He called his brother as he parked on the street, the headlights of passing cars slicing across his dashboard.
“So happy to be here,” he said, trying for normal. “You wouldn’t believe the dinner I just had.”
“Rachel mad again?” his brother asked. The voice was familiar, but something in the tone was different—rougher, older.
He headed up the stairs. “Yeah,” Daniel said. “I honestly don’t think that marriage is going to last.”
“I guess not everything’s perfect,” his brother said. “Hey, I can’t really hear you. Can you come in here?”
“It’s so early. Why are you already in bed?” Daniel joked, pushing open the bedroom door.
Then the joke died in his throat.
Kevin lay in the bed, sheets tucked around his legs. A wheelchair sat nearby, its metal frame glinting in the dim light. Thick glasses rested on Kevin’s nose, but his eyes didn’t quite find Daniel’s face when he turned.
“Oh, you’re so—” Daniel started, then stopped. His chest hammered. “No. No, no, no.”
“Bro?” Kevin frowned. “You know I can’t really see you, so tell me why you’re freaking out.”
“How did this happen?” Daniel asked, voice cracking. “What happened to you?”
“What, did you forget?” Kevin laughed softly. “That day you took my car, I borrowed your bike. Remember? You were so excited about that job interview. I didn’t want to say no. I ended up like this.”
Daniel’s knees buckled. He grabbed the doorframe to stay upright.
In the original timeline, it had been the other way around. Daniel had been on the bike, racing through a yellow light on his way to nowhere, when the truck took the turn too fast.
He’d woken up in a hospital, his legs frozen, his future rewritten.
He’d always told himself Kevin would’ve handled it better. That if the universe had to hurt someone, it picked the right brother.
Now, looking at Kevin, scar running into his hairline, hands resting lightly on the blanket as if he’d gotten used to feeling his way, Daniel wanted to rip the watch off his wrist and throw it out the window.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” Kevin asked. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t hit me.”
You did when you took the car, a small voice in Daniel’s head said.
“You forgot to bring food, didn’t you?” Kevin added, sounding amused. “It’s fine. We can order something. You’re being so weird tonight.”
“How are you so happy?” Daniel blurted.
“Didn’t we have this talk like ten years ago?” Kevin asked. “You think I should be miserable just because I’m in a wheelchair and I can’t see perfectly anymore?”
He shrugged, like he was talking about a parking ticket.
“Life doesn’t end just because you have a disability,” he said. “It just changes. You play the cards you’re dealt. There’s no going back to change things. There’s only forward. And forward looks pretty good to me.”
Daniel’s throat burned.
He remembered saying almost those exact words to him once, back when he’d been the one learning how to wheel through doorways and navigate curbs.
“I love you, bro,” Daniel said suddenly.
Kevin snorted. “You are being so weird tonight,” he said. “So, Chinese or Indian? I’m starving.”
“Whatever you want,” Daniel said.
He stepped back into the hallway, hand pressed over the watch like it might burn through his skin.
The next time he rolled—or walked? He honestly couldn’t tell anymore—into the palm reader’s shop, she was already waiting at the table, fingers steepled, eyes knowing.
“I thought I’d be seeing you,” she said. “The spirits whispered you’d be near.”
“You were right,” Daniel said hoarsely. “I thought changing the past would make everything better. I thought it’d make me happy. But it just made everything worse. Kevin’s life, Rachel’s life… mine.”
“You learned something,” she said simply.
“I just want the people I love to be happy again,” he said. “I want my brother on his surfboard, not in a bed. I want my ex with someone who actually fits the future she wanted. I want my own life back, even if it’s in a chair. Just… tell me I can change it back. Please.”
“There is a way,” she said. “Reverse the watch back to its original time. Rewind it two turns. Shut your eyes and think back to before. Then—poof. You return to your old life.”
“Just like that?” Daniel asked.
“The choice is yours,” she said. “Your fate is in your hands.”
This time, when he looked at the watch, he felt less like he was holding power and more like he was holding a mirror.
He twisted the dial backward. Two turns.
He shut his eyes.
Before, he thought. Before I took the job. Before I took the car. Before I decided my worth was tied to a title.
When he opened them, he was back in his firm’s hallway, fluorescent lights humming, the Los Angeles skyline gleaming beyond the glass.
“Have a good weekend, Daniel?” the receptionist called as she passed. “Any fun plans?”
Fantastic, he thought.
“Fantastic,” he said aloud. “I feel refreshed and ready to take on the world.”
She laughed. “Love that energy. Do you have any plans tonight?”
Actually…
He turned his chair toward her desk.
The chair. His chair. The familiar weight of it under him felt, for the first time, less like a prison and more like a body he’d finally stopped punishing.
“Actually,” he said, “I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime. Dinner, maybe. Or just coffee. My treat. No time travel involved.”
Her eyes widened. Then she smiled, surprised and pleased. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said.
Out on the 405, traffic crawled toward the Pacific, toward beaches where adaptive surfboards cut through waves and sunsets didn’t care who was standing and who was sitting.
Daniel glanced down at the watch on his wrist. The second hand, which had been frozen since the day he’d strapped it on, ticked forward one notch.
He smiled.
Time hadn’t changed.
He had.
