Jace Donovan didn’t believe in fate.

He didn’t believe in second chances, either.

But something had been nagging at him ever since Everleigh Carter threw that damn juice in his face.

A feeling he couldn’t shake. A memory he couldn’t grasp.

So, like an idiot, he found himself standing in front of his old house—the one he barely remembered living in, the one that had been abandoned for years after his family moved away.

It looked smaller than he remembered. The white paint was peeling, the wooden fence half-broken. The old oak tree in the front yard still stood tall, its leaves rustling in the autumn wind.

For some reason, just looking at it made his chest feel tight.

Jace exhaled and shoved his hands into his pockets. He didn’t even know why he was here. Maybe it was because of that damn dream he had last night—the one where he was small again, sitting under that same oak tree, laughing with a girl whose face he couldn’t quite see.

She had meant something to him. He just didn’t know why.

He ran a hand through his hair, annoyed at himself. He was Jace freaking Donovan. He didn’t dwell on the past.

But just as he turned to leave—

“Jace?”

His body froze.

That voice.

Soft, hesitant, yet painfully familiar.

Slowly, he turned around.

A girl stood at the gate, her eyes wide with shock, her lips parted like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Like she had been waiting for him.

She looked like she belonged to this place—like she was a piece of the past he had forgotten.

"You came back," she whispered, almost like she was afraid to say it out loud.

Jace’s brows furrowed. His heartbeat quickened, a strange sense of déjà vu crashing over him.

"Who is she?"

But before he could open his mouth—before he could ask—the wind blew, and the girl’s long brown hair shifted slightly.

His stomach dropped.

Because for the first time, he really looked at her.

And his world tilted.

Everleigh.

It was Everleigh.

The girl from his memories. The girl in his dreams.

The girl he had been searching for.

And he hadn’t even known it.