San Diego – August 2001
Morning light filtered through Ethan's bedroom window, warm but unfamiliar.
It made everything in the room glow in a softened golden hue — the posters, the desk, the faded carpet. It almost looked like a memory trying to prove it was real.
Ethan sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, hands pressed against his face.
His breathing was shallow, careful, like one wrong exhale would break the illusion.
Maybe it was an illusion.
Maybe he'd finally snapped in 2020, and this was his mind's terrible, beautiful way of coping.
But the sunlight felt warm.
The carpet felt rough against his feet.
His body felt light and young.
And the sound of his parents talking somewhere in the house — that was too real to deny.
He lowered his hands slowly, staring at the familiar yet forgotten landscape of his room. There were cracks in the wall he remembered punching during teenage tantrums. Old high school trophies from winning local theatre competitions. Monkees and Aerosmith CDs were stacked beside his bed.
Everything was exactly how it had been at eighteen.
He stood and walked toward the mirror again — he couldn't help it.
He needed to see the truth reflected back at him.
His reflection looked back — wide eyes, messy brown hair, no traces of stress lines, no dark bags under his eyes from endless auditions, no tired sadness.
It wasn't the reflection of a man whose life had failed.
It was the face of someone who hadn't yet lived it.
Ethan reached up and touched his cheek, running his fingers along the smooth skin.
"Okay," he whispered to himself.
"Okay. This is happening."
Another breath.
Another grounding.
Another acceptance.
He looked down at his hands. When was the last time they'd looked like this? Not veined, not calloused from years of part-time jobs and endless side gigs. Not trembling with self-doubt.
They looked like a possibility.
He walked to his old desk, exhaling as he ran his fingers over the surface, remembering every groove, every mark he carved into it during stressful teenage nights of studying lines. The worn wood felt like a friend he'd abandoned.
He opened the top drawer.
Inside lay a stack of audition scripts — the same ones he'd burned through in his youth, stumbling through them with fear instead of confidence. He lifted one, reading the title: "The Quiet Man" — student film short." A film he auditioned for and completely bombed.
He remembered how nervous he'd been.
How badly he wanted to impress everyone.
How terrified he was of forgetting lines — and how he did, in fact, forget them.
He flipped to a random page. The scene was one he remembered vividly:
A man confessing regret for ruining the best thing in his life.
He skimmed it once — then closed his eyes, letting his older mind step inside the words.
He took a breath…
and spoke.
When he opened his mouth, the monologue poured out effortlessly, like something living inside him.
There was no trembling.
No panic.
No fear of judgment.
His voice, though young, carried the weight of a man who had lived a lifetime of mistakes. His tone was steady, shaped by heartbreak. His pacing is natural, not forced. The emotions were real — too real, because he had truly lived them.
By the end of the monologue, Ethan felt heat behind his eyes.
He wasn't performing.
He was confessing.
The silence in the small bedroom was thick, almost reverent.
This time…
He wasn't an awkward eighteen-year-old pretending to understand regret.
Now he knew what regret felt like. He had lived every failure, every poor choice, every lost connection. He had walked through the darkest corners of ambition and desperation.
His life experience wasn't a burden anymore.
It was an engine.
He inhaled shakily, wiping his eyes.
"I can do this," he whispered.
His voice cracked.
"God… I can actually do this."
He put the script down. Every cell in his body felt charged with new purpose, like someone had rewired him overnight.
He moved to the computer — the old, chunky white box sitting on his desk.
He pressed the power button. It whirred loudly, clicking and buzzing to life. The Windows 98 start-up chime rang out, bringing a small laugh from Ethan. It was a sound he hadn't heard in years.
It felt like booting up the past.
After a slow three-minute loading time, the desktop finally appeared. Ethan opened the browser — painfully slow — and searched for acting classes, auditions, anything that could solidify his return.
The first listing that appeared wasn't impressive.
A tiny local theatre workshop.
$40 per session, Saturdays at 11 AM.
He remembered this place.
He remembered standing nervously in line, terrified to even speak.
He remembered how much he'd hated himself afterwards for being too afraid to shine.
He swallowed.
Not this time.
He scribbled the address on a notepad.
He stared at it for a long moment, then folded the paper neatly.
A knock came at the door.
"Ethan?" his mother called softly. "You okay in there?"
He startled, momentarily forgetting she didn't know the weight he carried.
He cleared his throat.
"Yeah, Mom. Just thinking about… acting."
Her voice brightened.
"Oh, sweetheart, that's wonderful. Your dad and I always said you were talented."
Ethan leaned against the door, pressing his forehead into the wood.
His mother's belief — a belief he had taken for granted at eighteen — wrapped around him like a warm blanket.
"Thanks," he whispered.
"I won't waste it this time."
"What was that?"
"Nothing," he said gently. "I'm okay."
She moved away from the door, humming as she went.
Ethan straightened, taking deep breaths, letting the quiet fill the room. The ticking of the cheap wall clock sounded louder now, like time itself reminding him he had things to do.
He grabbed his backpack — the same faded, worn-out one he used in high school — and tossed in:
a notebook
a pencil
the script he'd just read
a bottle of water
and the printed address of the acting workshop
It felt symbolic — like packing tools for a new mission.
He slung the backpack over his shoulder, paused in front of the mirror, and whispered:
"You got a second life. Don't screw it up."
Then he opened the window, letting the breeze hit his face.
The neighbourhood looked just as it had in 2001 — kids on bikes, mothers pushing strollers, distant barking from the neighbour's dog.
Everything was familiar but new.
Old but fresh.
A past rewritten.
Ethan climbed out of the window and stepped onto the roof — something he used to do as a teen when he needed space.
He sat for a moment, staring at the sky, feeling an emotion too large to describe. Gratitude. Fear. Excitement. Determination.
He whispered,
"This is the first step."
He climbed back inside, walked to his door, and grabbed the doorknob.
But before opening it, he paused.
This wasn't just a door.
It was the barrier between the boy he had been and the man he could become.
He twisted the knob, opened it, and walked out with purpose.
His mother looked up from the kitchen counter.
"Going somewhere?"
Ethan smiled — a real, grounded, mature smile.
"Yeah," he said.
"I'm going to start again."
She blinked, surprised by the sudden conviction in his voice.
"Well," she said warmly, "go get 'em, sweetheart."
Ethan stepped outside into the sunlight.
The air felt clearer, cooler, alive with promise.
He walked down the driveway, backpack slung on one shoulder, determination in his step.
For the first time in a long time — in either life — he wasn't afraid.
He was ready.