A/N: This is a sequel to Weekend Girlfriend/My Best Friend's wedding. If you haven't read those, you need to read them first. It is very Ranger-specific AU and mostly focused on Ranger, OCs, and Stephanie, but canon does come into play eventually. And for the sake of simplicity, I'm not distinguishing between when Spanish and English are being spoken unless there is a specific reason for it in the plot.

December 24, 2023

The alarm on my phone brought me out of a fitful sleep. I'd been dreaming about the weekend of Julio's wedding again. I sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched. It was nine p.m. and I had to get ready for an overnight patrol shift. I always worked holidays because I had employees who wanted to be with their young children when they woke up Christmas morning. I didn't have anything to worry about on Christmas, so it had never bothered me to work. I'd thought this year would be different, but I'd been wrong.

The man who stared back at me in the mirror after my shower wasn't the same man who had looked at Stephanie in the mirror on New Year's Eve. The man who looked back at me now had lost about twenty pounds since then. Lines in my face had appeared in the last six months that hadn't been there before. I was dressed in my Rangeman uniform and a silver chain with two silver rings hung around my neck. One of the rings was so small it fit inside the other one. I looked at it for a minute before tucking it under my shirt like always.

Our bags had been packed for Vegas. Our flight had been booked and a room at the Four Seasons had been waiting for us. She had called me to say she had one more skip to pick up and then she'd be over. She didn't want to leave town with any open files. I reminded her of the time we needed to be at the airport, and she promised to be at Rangeman in plenty of time. But we never got to the airport. She never made it back to Rangeman. We never got to wear our rings or promise to be together forever. I'd stood next to her heartbroken family at the cemetery five days later, where I would have to leave her one last time. My mother had stood next to me, a hand on my back, crying her own tears. It had taken all the restraint I possessed to walk away from her grave instead of putting a bullet in my head so I could be buried with her.

I made my way down to the garage and climbed into the patrol car. I was going out alone because we were short-staffed. I was the only one allowed to do so and was grateful to be alone. Christmas would be six months to the day since Stephanie had died, and I didn't want to talk to anyone. My hopes of being married to her had almost come true, but the worst part of all had been when the medical examiner told me she had been pregnant. There had been a positive pregnancy test found in her purse at the scene, almost certainly taken that morning, and the autopsy had confirmed it. She had probably planned to tell me when she got to Rangeman. The memory itself was enough to make me want to drive my car off a bridge.

I headed out into the night and started the patrol path that I would drive for the next eight hours. It would be quiet until around six, when excited children would start sneaking downstairs to see what Santa had brought them. I'd be sent to check on a few alarms, but nothing major would happen. It would just be another day on the job, and the first of many unfortunate days left for me to live without Stephanie.

December 25, 2023

I've always believed a boss should never ask something of their employees that they wouldn't be willing to do themselves. Unlike every supervisor or commanding officer I'd ever had, I was going to live by that philosophy.

I didn't have anyone waiting for me at home which was why I was out on patrol alone on Christmas Day. My mother knew I was up working and texted me to see if I was any better. She had been begging me to spend Christmas with her and my father this year, and after several polite refusals I had been short with her and hung up. I knew she meant well, but I was barely getting by today. The isolation of the patrol car was the only thing I wanted. I promised myself I'd call her when I took a break to apologize. None of this was her fault.

A call came through on a residential account in a recently completed neighborhood on the boundary between Hamilton Township and Trenton. There was no need for police, but there was a request for in-person follow-up. The clients were Jade and Amaryllis Anderson, a married couple around my own age who owned several organic food and vitamin stores around central New Jersey. They had moved into the house six months earlier and had become Rangeman clients at the recommendation of a neighbor.

I made my way to the house wondering what problem they might be having without the need for the police after four in the morning on Christmas Day. A chill went down my spine as I drove across the Assunpink Creek. Even though I was on a different road, the memory of Stephanie's car lying on its side in the creek filled my mind. The flashing lights of the police cars and ambulances felt as real in that moment as they had six months ago. Eddie Gazarra had stopped me from getting closer. They're working on her, he had told me. They worked on her until they couldn't work anymore. I couldn't feel my body as I watched the coroner arrive on the scene and walk down the embankment to where Stephanie had been lying, surrounded by EMTs and firefighters. I forced myself to focus on the road. Stephanie's car ending up in the creek had been an accident. If I didn't get it together my car was going to end up there on purpose.

The neighborhood was dark when I arrived. Unless they were emergency room doctors, no one was working in this neighborhood on Christmas Day. I pulled up to the Anderson home, which was dark except for a small light somewhere in the downstairs. I walked up to the front door and knocked, waiting a moment before the door was opened by Jade. Her blonde hair was disheveled, and she was wearing blue satin pajamas. The look of fear in her eyes registered seconds before the door swung open wide. A man dressed in black was standing behind Jade. I recognized him immediately as Trevor Burns. He had worked at the Trenton office briefly but had been fired because he got in a fight with his patrol partner and caused severe injuries. He had tried to argue that it wasn't his fault, but he forgot about the dash cams in the cars, which caught the entire encounter. He had been arrested and was currently facing assault charges.

"The boss. Even better," Burns said, as I reached for my weapon. I didn't have my hand completely wrapped around the handle of my Glock before Burns' weapon came up, pointed directly at my head, and everything went black.

When I next opened my eyes, I was in an airport. Was I in purgatory? Did I have to work out my sins by practicing patience at baggage claim? Then I realized I was in Newark Liberty International Airport. Shit. I'd gone to hell. That was the only explanation for it. And while I hadn't always been sure I believed in hell, Newark Airport was the closest thing I'd ever seen to it outside of war.

I was sitting in a row of chairs at a departure gate. There were people milling around the airport. Mostly older people, but there were people of varying ages walking around, including a handful of children. There were different languages being spoken and I couldn't really understand anyone, even if they were speaking a language I knew. I got up to walk around and saw a stack of newspapers on a nearby table. I looked down at the front page and saw my own face looking up.

Rangeman CEO murdered in Christmas Day attack.

I read the article and realized that the Andersons had also been killed. Who had killed us was unknown. I could have told them who it was. I vaguely wondered if Morelli was investigating my murder.

"Carlos Manoso, please report to gate 37," said a female voice over what sounded like an intercom. "Carlos Manoso, please report to gate 37."

I glanced around to see what gate I was currently at and was surprised to see I was already at gate 37. I was also completely alone. Everyone else was walking past the gate as though it wasn't there. I walked to the check-in counter and looked around but saw nothing. I went to the door that would take me to the plane, but it was locked.

"Hola, mijo."

I hadn't heard that voice in twenty-five years. I spun around to find my maternal grandfather, Carlos Carranza, standing in front of me. He was wearing the same suit I'd seen him in at his funeral. At thirteen years old, my grandfather had seemed almost ancient. Now at thirty-eight, I realized he hadn't been old at all. He had just turned sixty-five when he died from a heart attack in his sleep.

"Abuelo," I said, closing the space between us to hug him. I hadn't realized how short he was. I was at least half a foot taller than him. I felt his strong arms around me and could have sworn I smelled his familiar cologne. "Where are we?" I asked as we pulled apart.

Grandpa looked around and assessed the scenery. "Looks like an airport."

Leave it to Grandpa to state the obvious.

"But what is this place? Is it purgatory? Hell? If this is heaven, the priests have some explaining to do."

My grandfather threw his head back and laughed, the sound bouncing off the hard surfaces around us. "This isn't heaven, purgatory, or hell, Carlos. It's more like a layover. You stopped here before going on to your next destination."

"Isn't that purgatory?"

Grandpa shook his head. "You've been given a chance that very few people get, mijo. You get to decide what you do next."

I raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think it was up to me whether I went to heaven."

"It isn't," Grandpa said. "That's not what I meant. You are being given the opportunity to either move on to whatever is waiting for you in the afterlife or to start over."

"What does start over mean?"

Grandpa put a hand on my shoulder. "If you decide to start over, you'll be sent back to a point in your life where everything before it will have happened as before, but everything from that moment on is up to you. You could keep things exactly how they went, or you can do things differently. You'll be sent back with all the knowledge you have so you can decide what to do."

I could have sworn I felt my heart skip a beat. "How far back would I go?" I asked. I only needed six months. If I went back more than six months, I could save Stephanie.

Grandpa shrugged. "Could be five minutes, could be thirty years. You never know. That's the risk."

"Will I still die like I did?"

"Only if you don't change a thing, which would be damn stupid if you ask me."

I was presented with two options: one might take me to an afterlife where Stephanie was waiting, but there was no guarantee that I'd make it to heaven. Or I could go back and do things over without a guarantee that I'd go back far enough to save her. The afterlife was permanent. Going back felt like it would have better odds of taking me back far enough to save her. I wasn't sure I could have peace in any form of afterlife if I didn't take the chance.

"I'll go back," I said. "I have to try to save her."

Grandpa patted me on the arm. "I'm glad to hear it. I like Stephanie. I would love to see you two have more time together."

I raised my eyebrows. "You've met her?"

Grandpa nodded. "She's wonderful. I can see why you love her."

I furrowed my brow. "So, if I go back to a time where she's alive, does that mean there is a Stephanie in heaven and one on Earth? Or does she leave heaven and go back to Earth?"

Grandpa stopped to consider it. "You know, I don't know about that. I don't know exactly what happens. I guess we'll find out someday."

Grandpa hugged me again before guiding me toward the door. "You'll get on this plane and go back to wherever you end up. I hope you go back far enough to save her. It was hard watching you suffer."

"Will you tell her I love her, if she's still there and I didn't go back far enough to save her?" I asked.

"She knows."

The door opened when my grandfather pulled on it and I walked down the hall to the plane. The door to the plane was open, but there were no pilots or flight attendants. Nor were there any other passengers. I took a seat in the front row and waited. After a minute the door to the plane closed. I waited for announcements or something to indicate the plane was moving but found myself feeling tired and dozing off before anything else happened.

A series of loud thumps jolted me awake.

"Carlos, it's time to get up! We'll be late for Mass."

I opened my eyes at the sound of my grandmother's voice and looked around the familiar room. It was the room I'd lived in during high school in Miami. Posters of soccer players hung on the walls along with whatever had been hanging up in there before I'd moved in. I sat up in bed and looked down at myself. I was wearing an FC Barcelona t-shirt and boxers. My body was smaller and less toned. I scrambled out of bed and went over to the mirror on the wall. I was a teenager again. Based on my appearance and the state of my bedroom, I guessed I was about seventeen, give or take a year.

I had been fifteen when I'd moved to Miami. Because I had fucked around so much my freshman year, then ended up in juvenile detention, my parents had made me repeat the year. I had refused to unpack the boxes of anything other than the bare minimums for six months, convinced my parents would change their mind. When they told me I wasn't coming home for Christmas, I'd accepted defeat and unpacked. It had taken me another few months to start making the bedroom my own by hanging up my posters.

Not wanting to annoy my grandmother, I hurriedly got dressed in church clothes, brushed my hair and teeth, and headed out to the living room. My grandmother and my mother's youngest sister Mariana were sitting in the living room waiting for me. Mariana and I only called each other aunt and nephew in jokes because we felt more like cousins. Mariana was ten days younger than me. She had been a surprise to my almost fifty-year-old grandmother who had assumed she was in menopause and had fainted when the doctor told her she was four months' pregnant.

"It's about time," Mariana complained as they rushed me towards the door. "Mom was about to come drag you out in whatever you were wearing."

"Sorry," I muttered, still baffled by everything. I was quiet on the ride to church, trying to wrap my head around everything that had happened. I'd died in Trenton, New Jersey as a thirty-eight-year-old and woken up again in Miami as a teenager. I had made the choice to come back rather than go on to an afterlife. Because of Stephanie.

I caught a glimpse of the date on an electronic sign at a bank. 12/25/03. I'd come back exactly twenty years. I was eighteen and a senior in high school. I would graduate in June and go back to Newark to live with my parents while I attended Rutgers-Newark for two years, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Stephanie was back in Trenton, attending Central High School. Even though I was only two months older, our birthdays fell in a way that meant I had started school a year before her. I had been a year ahead of her until I'd been made to repeat my freshman year. Now we were in the same grade.

Godzilla could have shown up at Mass and I doubt I would have noticed. I spent the entire service trying to remember what my life was like that year. I had been dating Lindsey Martinez, but she had moved to California a month earlier when her father had gotten a job transfer. It hadn't been a serious relationship, and I'd been glad she was gone. That was one relief. I wouldn't have a girlfriend asking me a thousand questions about why I was so quiet or what I was thinking about. It would be hard enough to keep things from my grandmother and Mariana. They had already asked me twice what was wrong with me. I'd told them I felt nauseous and had even excused myself to the restroom to give validity to the lie.

By the time we left Mass, I had convinced them that I was too sick to go to Christmas dinner at my aunt Maria's house. My grandmother offered to stay home, but I told her to go ahead. I was going to stay in bed anyway. Which was the truth. I would be sitting down writing out everything I needed to remember both from the future and the past. Well, I guess it was the present now. Grandma crowded the top of my nightstand with anything and everything she thought would help me feel better. She left the cordless phone and told me to call Aunt Maria's if I got worse.

I spent the next four hours writing down the immediate stuff I needed to remember. I walked around the house looking at different things to remind myself of what the world had been like back then. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found my school schedule crammed in a drawer which also had my locker number and combination. I wrote down important phone numbers, the schedule I worked that year at my grandmother's bakery, friends' names and details about them, family stuff, and anything that I needed to remember about the world and culture from that year. I had to remember not to mention future presidents or world events, that not everyone had a cell phone at that time and texting wasn't very popular yet. Social media was in its infancy. Myspace existed, but Facebook was just being created. I couldn't remember when it was officially launched but remembered it started hitting college campuses my freshman year at Rutgers. Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok wouldn't exist for several more years. Nor would the streaming services. Netflix was still a mail-order DVD plan. iPods were still relatively new and popular. No iPhones yet.

Once I felt like I could operate in the world over the next few days without looking like an idiot, I started writing down important dates in the future, both for myself and the world at large, as best I could. I had to remember what kids my siblings had at that point in life and what they were doing with their lives. I was scribbling notes until I heard my grandmother and Mariana come home. I stuffed the notebook between my mattress and box spring and pretended to be asleep when my grandmother came to check on me. She felt my forehead and left again without waking me.

I laid awake that night with my mind spinning. How did I do this? Should I follow the exact same path I did the last time? Should I change some of it? All of it? Should I still go to the Army? I had the skills, mentally if not yet physically, to do whatever I needed to do. I knew how to run a business, but no one would want security services from a random guy who had no military or police experience. I reached under my mattress and pulled out the notebook to start a new page of notes. I started to make a list of what I wanted to keep the same, what I wanted to change, and what I wasn't sure about.

Things I want to keep the same

Military-joining Rangers

Bond Enforcement

Security company

Meeting Stephanie

Things I want to change

Having a relationship with Stephanie earlier. Cut Morelli out if possible.

Protecting Stephanie from situations she runs into in bond enforcement.

Saving Stephanie from the car accident.

Keep Orin from going to Afghanistan.

Kill Vlatko-if I can't avoid him completely.

Avoid arrest in front of Scrog.

Don't date Sarah Peterson.

To Be Decided

Julie

I closed my eyes and leaned against the headboard. I had almost four years to decide whether to sleep with Rachel. I'd always felt guilty about derailing her life, and later about not being a bigger part of Julie's life. I could keep Rachel's life on the path it would have taken, but Julie would never exist. It felt like a betrayal to even consider the possibility. I may have kept my emotional connection to her in check, but I still loved her. I'd been selfish and arrogant the first time around, which had led to Julie's conception. I didn't want to be that person this time. But was I willing to sacrifice her existence in the process?

I managed to fall asleep again around three but woke up around seven when I heard Mariana moving around in the bedroom next door. She was never quiet when she got up on the non-school mornings that she had to work at the bakery. Sometimes I suspected it was because she didn't like the fact that I worked the closing shifts and got to sleep in. But she would be the one who would take over managing the bakery once my grandmother retired. Grandma's pre-retirement routine had been to arrive at the bakery at five-thirty and see how the bakers had been doing since they'd arrived two hours earlier. She would get things put into the display cases and open the doors at six-thirty to the customers before spending time in the office reviewing the previous day's sales. She would be there until three then go home to start preparing dinner and doing whatever else she needed to do that day. She was always in bed by nine. Her post-retirement routine meant she arrived at the bakery at eight and left at four. It drove Mariana insane.

I had the house to myself all day and took the opportunity to do more investigating to remind myself of our daily life back then. I stayed out of my grandmother's bedroom because she had an unnatural way of knowing if we had been in there. I still hadn't figured out how she knew. I snooped through Mariana's room since we were in the same grade and had many of the same mutual friends. I mentally apologized as I read her diary, flipping back to the previous few months to catch up. I read about gossip at school, arguments she had with my grandmother, me, her boyfriend Paolo, and other friends. Mariana had been bossy when we were younger. It got slightly better with age, but I grimaced as I remembered what she had been like in high school. I found her birth control pills buried in her drawer and shook my head. They weren't going to be much help.

I took a shower and spent a few minutes examining my body. I no longer had scars from being shot when I surrendered myself to Scrog or from Vlatko trying to disembowel me in North Korea. I had never been one for tattoos, so I wasn't missing any of those. The one thing I missed was the strength I'd had in my later years. I wasn't weak at eighteen but was nowhere near as strong or toned as I had been. I considered joining a gym, but since I was only going to be in Miami another six months I decided to wait until I got to Newark. There was plenty I could do in the meantime. I was a couple of inches shorter than I would be. I was currently about 5'10" and would be 6' by the time I joined the Army.

I found my cell phone in my nightstand drawer and looked up the number to make sure I remembered it correctly. I found my friend's cell phone and home numbers programmed in the contacts. One less thing to worry about remembering.

I headed to the bakery around two-thirty dressed in a gray Little Havana Bakery t-shirt and jeans that were pulled up enough to satisfy my grandmother but sagging just enough to keep my peers from making fun of me. I dreaded the need to fit in at high school again. I only had to deal with one semester and then I'd be done. And as a Senior, I could argue that I didn't give a damn anymore what other people thought, which was true. I couldn't care less about what a bunch of teenagers thought about me. I may look like a teenager, but I wasn't one in my own head.

"Go help at the counter," my grandmother said the second I crossed the threshold. I clocked in and headed up to the front counter where a line of people waited to order. The bakery was especially busy after being closed since two on Christmas Eve. Afternoons tended to get busier as people stopped in after work to pick up whatever they might need for the evening.

My grandmother's bakery was solely baked goods. Most of the other bakeries also offered meals to help boost business around lunch, but my grandmother had no interest in that. She was where people bought fresh bread, cakes, cookies, donuts, and other pastries. And she didn't just stick to Cuban foods either. She loved trying new recipes from around the world and embraced her life in America. She had opened the bakery in the late 60s and hadn't changed much. The people knew her, and she knew them. She knew their children's and grandchildren's names and birthdays. She knew when people died or were born. She had orders prepared for regulars before they even walked in the door. She figured if business waned, that meant it was time to close the doors. Her business had never declined.

Mariana was supposed to clock out at three-thirty but ended up working until almost four. She practically ran out of the bakery once the chaos was under control and Grandma said they could go home. I would be working until close, then would have to do my usual cleaning. It wasn't a hard job, and my grandmother paid us decently considering we were teenagers. I was working with Esperanza, a woman a few years older than me who had been working for my grandmother the last couple of years. I recalled having a crush on her in high school, but never acted on it because she had a boyfriend who could have easily kicked my ass.

Once the doors were locked and the bakery was officially closed, I got to work on my cleaning responsibilities and closed out the register and while Esperanza packed up the food that didn't get purchased. Some of it would be sold at a discount tomorrow, the rest would be donated to the local homeless shelters. The bakers were responsible for cleaning their workspaces, the floors in the kitchen were my responsibility after they were done. It was surprising how easily the routine came back to me. I moved on autopilot as I grabbed supplies and got to work. On the days when I had cleaning duty, I was the last to leave and responsible for locking up.

It was just after seven as I locked up and set the alarm system. Grandma always kept the alarm code written down in the office for any new employees who might forget it. Or her grandson who came back from twenty years in the future to relive his life.

My phone vibrated in my pocket as I walked back home. The display told me it was Julio.

"What's up?" I asked as I crossed the street.

"Um, hey," Julio said hesitantly. "I wasn't sure you'd answer."

"I just got off work. We hangin' out tonight?" The idea of hanging out with Julio, maybe drinking a little and playing video games, sounded amazing. I could just shut my mind off for a while and shoot a bunch of pretend people.

Julio was silent for a few seconds, and I realized there was something I was forgetting. I tried to remember what had been going on in our lives around that time, but it was hard to remember the little things after twenty years.

"Uh, yeah. Can you come over?" Julio asked. "Dad just left for work."

I stopped so suddenly that I nearly fell over. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! Why hadn't that been the first thing I'd thought of when I sat recalling details about Julio on Christmas Day? It had been less than a year ago that I'd found out his feelings for me at his wedding.

"Yeah, I'm on my way," I said, hanging up as I turned the corner. My ability to compartmentalize information was usually a good thing. This was one of those times that it came up to bite me in the ass.

Julio lived two blocks away from the bakery in the opposite direction of my grandmother's house. He and his father lived in his grandmother's house, though his grandmother now lived in a nursing home because her dementia had gotten too bad for her to stay at home. He had moved to Miami to live with his father a couple of months before I'd moved in with my grandmother. Like me, he had gotten into trouble and did a stint in juvenile detention before being sent away to have a fresh start. Being the new kids had been the thing that bonded us in our freshman year. Our experiences at juvenile detention had been what led to the relationship we'd had our junior and senior years.

I slowed my pace as I turned down Julio's street, trying to remember why he had sounded so awkward. Had we fought? Trying to remember day-to-day activities and conversations from twenty years ago was like trying to find a particular grain of sand on the beach. Julio and I had always been close. We hadn't been the type of friends to argue or fight. We had done plenty of stupid shit together, especially in our freshman and sophomore years. We had been on the periphery of gang activity, transporting money and drugs for some of the lower-level guys on the streets. We'd thought we were badasses and that we wanted to be part of it. A major police crackdown had been a close call for us both. We had been on our way to do some transport when we saw the police swarm in and start cuffing the people we were supposed to meet. After that, we stayed mostly on the straight-and-narrow, except for that time Julio stole a Mercedes and led the police on a high-speed chase through Coral Gables. He had managed to outrun the cops and swore that was his last brush with the law. And it had been.

We had been on our best behavior senior year. The most rebellious thing we did that year was get drunk at Julio's house on nights when his father was working. The other stuff that happened on those nights would probably be considered rebellious by our families, but for us it had been healing. This was probably going to be one of those nights. Could I do it?

I knocked on the front door and waited for Julio to appear. My heart was pounding in my ears as the seconds passed. I had fooled myself into believing I wouldn't be faced with any difficult decisions for a while. I had been so lost in my relief to know Stephanie was alive again and my agony over what to do about Rachel and Julie that I had forgotten about this. Julio opened the door a few seconds later and it took me a minute to appreciate how different he was. The man I had seen at his wedding a year earlier had been a couple of inches taller than me and muscular. Eighteen-year-old Julio was a couple of inches shorter than me and lanky. He was wearing a t-shirt from the school's cross-country team and basketball shorts. He looked as nervous as I felt, though I still hadn't figured out why. He stepped aside to let me walk into the cramped living room. It was only Julio and his father living in the house, so a lot of space wasn't needed. They also weren't usually home at the same times since Julio was at school during the day and his father worked nights as a hospital janitor.

"Are you still pissed?" Julio asked once the front door was locked.

I still had no clue what I was supposed to have been pissed about. "No."

Julio breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean it, okay? I was just shitfaced, you know. I'm not sure why I said it."

Déjà vu smacked me in the back of the head, and I suddenly remember what Julio had been referring to when he had repeatedly mentioned senior year at his wedding. We hadn't seen or talked to each other outside of school in a month. Even at school our interactions had been stilted and limited just to keep our friends from asking what was wrong. We'd avoided eye contact whenever possible and physical contact like one of us had leprosy. It had been a miserable month. Guilt washed over me as I remembered my reaction. As an adult, I was secure in myself. I had mostly avoided the negative aspects of machismo, but as a teenager, and even in my early twenties, I had been less secure. My pride was wounded if I was made to feel anything remotely resembling weakness, even if that weakness was only in perception.

I had gone to Julio's house the night after Thanksgiving to hang out. When other people were over, hanging out looked like watching movies, playing video games, drinking or smoking weed, and if our girlfriends had come over, sneaking off with them to other rooms. When it was just Julio and me, hanging out looked like watching movies or playing video games, getting shit-faced, then having sex with each other. Though we never called it that. We never referred to it at all. Which had made what happened that night even more startling.

The routine was always the same: I came over after his father had left for work. We'd start drinking whatever booze an older person had bought us and watched movies or played Call of Duty. After a while, once the alcohol had lowered our inhibitions and the movie or game had started to lose our interest, one of us would start stripping, which would prompt the other one to do the same. We would have sex and as soon as it was over, I would jump out of his bed, get dressed, and leave without looking back. It had been that way for over a year, ever since the first time we were together. But that night had been different. Julio had been on top and instead of immediately climbing off me, he had leaned closer and kissed me.

"I love you," he said, his voice shaking with nerves. "I wanna be with you."

I had shoved him off me, dressed as fast as I could while telling him I wasn't gay, and to go fuck himself. I had hurried home and locked myself in my own bedroom in a panic, worried that Julio thought I was gay, or even worse, that maybe I was gay. Those fears had kept me away from him for a month. Last time we hadn't made up until after winter break. I had been desperate to forget the whole thing and the space from him over the holiday had let that happen. I had been the one to reignite conversation and we'd slept together again later that week. But he had never again veered from the routine, nor did he ever repeat his love or wish for us to be together. As an eighteen-year-old, I had wanted to believe it was just the Jack Daniel's talking and had left it at that. The man who had lived another twenty years knew that wasn't true. Even without his confession at his wedding, I knew Julio had been clear-eyed when he had said those words. He had meant them. His protestations now were just trying to reverse the damage and go back to the way things were.

"I think you did mean it," I said, wondering what this change would do. "You weren't that drunk."

Julio chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I'm not gay."

"I didn't say you were."

"Saying you think I meant that shit sounds an awful like you callin' me gay," Julio said, his body language shifting from the remorseful slumped shoulders to straight-backed and defensive.

I ran my hand through my hair and paced the living room. I didn't know how to handle this. I wanted more time to plan, to figure out the best move. I was in treacherous waters here. The relationship we had those last two years of high school had been confusing. We had both been sexually abused in juvie and taking back control of our bodies by being together had been healing. I hadn't realized it back then because I spent so much time trying to avoid the feelings of shame, but years later had truly appreciated the impact it had on both of us. We had been angry, self-destructive boys before that. We had parted ways much less angry and able to forge ahead with productive lives for ourselves.

"It's okay if you meant it," I told him. "I just don't feel the same way."

Julio glared at me. "I didn't mean it."

"Okay," I said, hands raised in defeat. "Fine. It's over. Let's just move on. But I don't think we should keep—you know," I hesitated to say the words out loud. We'd never said them before. Saying the words would have meant things we didn't want to face.

Panic rushed over Julio's face. "No," he said immediately, and I was reminded of his reaction when I told him I was going to stay away at his wedding. "No, I—I—I mean, I don't want things to change," he stammered. "I—we—we can't stop. I don't want to stop."

Shit. I rubbed a hand over my face. I didn't think I could do it. I wasn't sexually attracted to him or any other man. And faking something I didn't feel felt wrong. I would be lying to my family and friends enough as it was to hide the truth of my trip back in time. I needed to be as honest as I could where I could.

"You're cheating on Jasmine," I told him. "It isn't fair to her."

"No, I'm not," Julio argued. "It's not—I'm not cheating on her."

"Having sex with me is cheating on your girlfriend," I said. Julio crossed the room in three strides and grabbed the front of my shirt. He shoved me up against the wall, causing a picture of the Virgin Mary to fall to the ground.

"Don't call it that," he hissed, his face inches from mine.

"What do you want me to call it then?" I shot back. "Fucking? Making love? Screwing? It doesn't matter what you call it. That's what we were doing."

Seconds passed where I thought Julio might hit me. "I'll break up with Jasmine," he said. "I'll call her right now and break up with her."

"I don't want you to break up with her," I said. "I just don't think we should keep doing this. We started because we needed it, but I don't think we need it anymore."

Julio huffed and started to pace. "So that's it? You're all better so you don't need me anymore? I don't need it for all that shit anymore either. I just need you."

As an adult, I'd gotten my temper in check. I was careful with my words and actions. I didn't let anger get ahold of me. I was able to stop and think before I said something. But now my still developing brain and raging teenage hormones were overpowering that self-control. I knew I shouldn't say anything else. I knew the best thing to do was to walk away and give him time to think, but in that moment I cared more about defending myself than the right thing.

"You really want me to fuck you when I don't want to?" I shot back. "Sounds an awful lot like the shit that happened in juvie."

Julio picked up a figurine and threw it across the room as hard as he could. He continued to pace and clench and unclench his fists.

"I'm sorry," I said. That had been a low blow. I wanted to say more, to tell him that it wasn't because I was a selfish bastard who only cared about getting myself healed, but that I didn't want to be unfair to him. That would require telling him the truth, and he'd either laugh in my face or call my grandmother to drag me off to a psychiatric unit.

Julio sniffed and glanced up at me briefly. "Whatever. Fuck off."

I hesitated before walking back to the front door and leaving. I had forgotten how damaged he was back then. He always hid it better than I did. I was the brooding type and isolated myself. He was the social one who hid his pain behind jokes and a friendly smile. I was the one who had really seen it. And maybe Jasmine, though I didn't think he'd told her about what had happened to him at juvie. We still had over a week until we went back to school. I hoped by the time we had to be together around our friends he would be less angry with me.

I spent my free time over the next few days remembering how to be a teenager again and thinking about Stephanie. Knowing she was alive in Trenton had lifted me out of the misery I'd been in since she died. I kept touching my chest, feeling for the rings I'd worn on a chain, but they weren't there. I was glad, but at the same time I missed them. Having something to touch, a connection to her, had been comforting. I didn't have anything this time, not even a picture. I tried to find her on Myspace but wasn't having much luck. I couldn't remember her mentioning whether she'd had Myspace in high school. Social media wasn't particularly important to her, and I couldn't have cared less about it.

I continued my list of details as the days passed and things came back to me. Eduardo's parents had been going through marital problems at the time and he had spent a lot of time at our house. My oldest sister Celia had one daughter and was pregnant with her second who would be born in March. My next sister Sofia had two girls and was pregnant with her third, who would be born in late January. They were the only two siblings who would have kids over the next few years. My brother Emilio and sister Aurelia had their kids in their thirties. Silvia hated kids and refused to add to the Manoso brood. My mother was still working at the hospital where she had been since I was born but would move into working in a doctor's office once I left Rutgers and joined the Army. My father had been doing the same job since long before I was born and had still been doing it when I died. He loved working in construction, and if possible, he would reanimate himself just to keep doing it after he died.

Trying to act as normal as possible in front of my grandmother and Mariana was the hardest part. They noticed something was different because they kept commenting on how happy I seemed. I had been far happier as an adult than as a teenager. The few months after losing Stephanie had been the exception, but now that I knew she was alive again, that weight was off my chest. I kept telling them it was because I was glad to be graduating soon, and they seemed to believe that. My teenage years had typically been spent hanging out around the neighborhood and trying to pass myself off as a thug. This time around I was laying low. I just needed to get through the next few months and then I would be back in Newark. My parents hadn't spent much time around me in the last four years, so they wouldn't be as suspicious of changes in my behavior as the people who saw me every day.

I hadn't seen or heard from Julio since the day after Christmas. Mariana had noticed Julio and I hadn't been hanging out as much since Thanksgiving and had been trying to find out what happened. I'd told her he was just busy hanging out with Jasmine and I got bored because they always went off to have sex. But when Jasmine showed up at our house the night before we went back to school, I knew my excuse was gone.

"He broke up with me!" she sobbed. "I kept asking him why. He said it was because we'd be going to different colleges, and we would just be breaking up this summer anyway. I told him I wanted to try the long-distance thing, but he said no. He was acting so weird. He kept saying it was better this way, and when I kept trying to get him to talk to me about what was really going on he started yelling at me to leave him alone."

"What the hell is wrong with him lately?" Mariana asked me. "You two haven't been hanging out like you used to, and I don't believe it just because he was spending time with her."

I shrugged. "I don't know."

Did he break up with her because he really wanted to, or was it an attempt to get me to resume our sexual relationship? I hoped it wasn't the latter. I had worked hard to keep my emotions out of the situation, but Julio hadn't. He had fallen in love with me. I'd go over to his house tomorrow to talk to him. I needed him to know he was still my best friend, even though I wasn't in love with him. I didn't want to ruin our friendship.

"He also gave me all the money he had saved. He told me he wouldn't need it anymore," Jasmine said. She pulled a wad of cash out of her pocket. "Why would he do that?"

I felt a cold chill run through my body. Julio was suicidal. I jumped up and ran out of the house towards Julio's, ignoring the girls' shouts. I had changed things too much. Once I realized what had happened, why not just play along with Julio's denial? We could have just gone back to the way things were. It probably would have put Julio back on the original path. That was gone now. No matter what happened next, this changed everything. I just hoped I got to him in time.

A/N: If you stuck around for this story, now you can see why I ended MBFW the way I did. I needed to break your heart so you could start out this story with a sense of relief. Stephanie is alive. Ranger is happy. He has a chance to do things differently this time. I don't know how regularly I will get to post because I'm not finished writing the story. But as you can tell from the timeline, this is going to be a longer story. We have 20 years (at least) to cover. If you can't tolerate the journey of the unknown in a story, then move on. I don't give you warnings about things unless they are the really bad stuff.