No More Second Chances

During the first year of my Master's program, my roommate, Noelle Sterling, couldn't afford her tuition. She was huddled in the stairwell, sobbing her heart out.

I had spent years working as a private tutor to save up twenty thousand dollars. I gave every cent of it to her.

She hugged me, crying into my shoulder. "Sloane Vance, you are the most important person in my life."

The year we graduated, my experimental data vanished. A week later, Noelle published a paper identical to my project as the lead author.

Then, she married our advisor.

When I went to confront her, she clung to his arm with a pitiful look. "Sloane, you need to take your meds. Your paranoid delusions are getting worse."

I was dragged to a psychiatric ward and pumped with sedatives for three years. I died in that cold hospital bed.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my first year.

Noelle was standing in the stairwell, her eyes red, clutching her tuition overdue notice.

Noelle crouched in the corner of the stairwell, her shoulders shaking with every sob.

She crumpled the overdue notice into a ball, smoothed it out, and crumpled it again.

I stood before her, twenty thousand dollars in cash tucked into my pocket. I had just withdrawn it from the bank.

In my last life, I hadn't hesitated for a second before shoving that money into her hands.

This time, I just looked down at her. All I could think about was that bed in the psychiatric ward.

I remembered the white ceiling and the needle marks covering my arms. Every time they injected the sedatives, I felt numb from the inside out.

Noelle looked up, tears clinging to her lashes. Her lips trembled.

"Sloane, I'm totally broke. My mom is sick, and my family can't help me with the money"

"If I don't pay the tuition, I'll have to drop out."

I knelt down and pulled five thousand dollars from my pocket, placing it on her knee.

Noelle froze, staring at the cash.

"Take this for now. For the rest, I'll help you ask the department about work-study programs. You should apply."

"That way, you won't have to pay me back such a huge lump sum later," I added calmly.

Noelle looked at the five thousand, but she didn't move to take it.

"Is... is this all?"

"Five thousand is a lot. I only make fifteen hundred a month tutoring."

I pulled a piece of paper and a pen from my backpack.

"Sign a promissory note. It's not that I don't trust you, I just want to keep things professional."

Noelle took the pen, her fingers hesitating for a split second.

She smiled at me. It was a look I knew all too wellDthe corners of her mouth turned up, but her eyes remained cold.

"Sure. That's only fair."

She finished writing and handed the note to me. I folded it carefully and tucked it into the hidden compartment of my bag.

On the way back to the dorm, Noelle clung to my arm, her voice still thick with tears.

"Sloane, thank you. Seriously. I'll remember your kindness for the rest of my life."

"Mm," I grunted, not bothering to look at her.

You said the exact same thing in my last life. And then you sent me to the madhouse.

I didn't sleep that night.

Once Noelle's breathing became heavy and even, I got up and opened my laptop. I exported every single byte of experimental data from my hard drive.

I saved one copy to Dropbox.

I saved another to Google Drive.

I encrypted a compressed file and sent it to my private ProtonMail account.

Finally, I sent another copy to my Outlook, titling it "Year 1 Research Progress Backup - Oct 17th."

Three locations, three different passwords.

I stared at the "Message Sent" notification and closed my laptop.

The hallway light was flickering, dying out.

Noelle rolled over in her sleep, mumbling something incoherent before drifting off again.

The next day at the lab meeting, our advisor, Professor Silas Thorne, called for progress reports.

Silas was forty-one, single, and wore gold-rimmed glasses. He always spoke with a slow, measured cadence.

In my last life, I thought he was a great mentor. Now I knew the truth.

He was just a pathetic man who lost his mind the moment a woman whispered sweet nothings in his ear.

When it was Noelle's turn to report, she stood up. Her voice was thin, and she choked up after only two sentences.

"I'm sorry, Professor. I've had some family issues recently. My progress has been slow"

Silas pushed up his glasses, his tone uncharacteristically soft.

"It's alright. If you're having trouble, talk to me. Don't carry it all on your own."

Noelle nodded, surreptitiously wiping away a tear as she sat down.

The other grad students in the lab looked at her with pure sympathy.

Then it was my turn.

I flipped my presentation to the third slide and began explaining the data I had generated this week.

Silas interrupted me halfway through.

"What's the basis for these variables? Which literature are you referencing?"

"The 2019 paper by Miller, and the study published by the MIT group last year."

"Are you sure? I recall that paper's conclusion being inconsistent with your direction."

I recited the specific citation number from memory. Silas checked his laptop, then fell silent.

"...Fine. Keep running the tests."

After the meeting, Noelle leaned in close. "Sloane, that experimental design you mentioned was amazing. Can you send me the slides? I want to learn from them."

I pulled my flash drive out and tucked it into my pocket.

"I'll send them after I finish organizing the notes."

I never sent them.

She asked again a week later. I told her I forgot.

She didn't ask a third time.

But that night in the dorm, lying in her top bunk, she suddenly spoke.

"Sloane, do you have a problem with me lately?"

"No. Why would you say that?"

"I just... feel like you've changed. You're different than before."

I pulled my blanket up to my chin.

"Maybe I'm just stressed with the research. Don't overthink it."

There was a long silence.

"Oh. Okay then. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

I kept my eyes closed, listening to her tossing and turning above me.

Different? Of course I was different.

The Sloane Vance from the previous life was dead. She died on her 1,087th day in the psychiatric ward.

The days blurred together.

I lived in the lab, backing up every new piece of data as soon as it appeared.

Every week, I emailed myself a record of the week's progress. I never let my lab notebook out of my sight.

I even carried it in my bag when I went to the cafeteria.

Noelle started getting closer to everyone else in the lab.

She would bring iced lattes for everyone, except me.

She wouldn't even pretend she forgot. She would count heads right in front of me.

"One, two, three... okay, that's everyone." Then she'd turn and walk away.

Leah Miller, a senior student, walked over with her latte and whispered, "Sloane, did you and Noelle have a falling out?"

"No."

"Then why did sheD"

"Maybe she just forgot."

Leah gave me a look but didn't push it.

In mid-November, I was washing my hands in the restroom when I heard voices from the stalls.

It was Noelle.

"...Sloane is just like that. She's incredibly paranoid. She locks everything up and carries her lab notebook everywhere. What normal person does that?"

The other voice belonged to Zoe Lane, a junior student.

"Wait, seriously? That's so dramatic."

"I live with her, why would I lie? Last time, she wouldn't even let me see her slides. I just asked a simple question and she snapped at me."

"That's crazy..."

"Sigh. I don't want to talk trash, but research is supposed to be collaborative. She acts like everyone is a thief. It's hurtful."

The sound of the faucet drowned out my footsteps. I turned off the water, dried my hands, and pushed the door open.

Zoe happened to be coming out of a stall. When she saw me, her face turned bright red.

"S-Sloane..."

"The restroom is out of paper towels. You should tell the janitor."

I walked out.

From that day on, the atmosphere in the lab shifted.

Whenever I spoke during group meetings, no one responded. When everyone went to lunch, they didn't invite me.

Once, I walked into the breakroom while they were chatting. The conversation died instantly.

Zoe walked out with her mug, muttering to another girl, "See? She's got the notebook. She brings it everywhere. It's so creepy."

I filled my water bottle and left.

In early December, Silas called me into his office for a private meeting.

When the door closed, he sat behind his mahogany desk, fingers interlaced.

"Sloane, some students have mentioned that you aren't being a team player in the lab."

"What does that mean, specifically?"

"Things like data sharing and literature discussions. You don't seem to participate."

"My data is in a critical phase. I'll share it with everyone once the paper is published."

Silas pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Academic work requires an open mind. You can't produce great results in a vacuum."

"Professor, you've seen my progress. The current data trends are excellentD"

"I know," he cut me off. "But good data doesn't excuse a poor attitude. The lab is a team. Do you understand?"

I gripped the lab notebook on my lap and said nothing.

"Fine. Go back and think about it."

I stood up and walked to the door.

Outside, Noelle was walking toward the office with a cup of coffee.

She looked surprised to see me, then gave me a sweet smile.

"Sloane, did the Professor want to talk to you?"

I ignored her and kept walking.

Behind me, I heard Noelle knocking on the door.

"Professor Thorne? I brought you an Americano. I saw your light was still on and figured you were working late again."

Silas's voice drifted through the crack in the door. It was ten times softer than when he had spoken to me.

"You're too kind, Noelle. Come in, have a seat."

I picked up my pace.

Back in the dorm, I opened my laptop. Thirty-two backup emails sat in my inbox, each with a clear timestamp.

I clicked the latest one. The attachment contained the results I had just run.

Three sets of control experiments. The results were perfect.

This project would be complete in six months.

In my last life, when these results were published, the lead author was Noelle Sterling.

That wasn't going to happen this time.

I closed my email and opened a new document.

The title: "Noelle Sterling - Debt and Repayment Record."

She hadn't paid back a single dime.

I saved the document and uploaded it to all three clouds. Then I turned off the lights and lay down.

Noelle's voice came from the top bunk.

"Sloane."

"Yeah."

"What do you think of Professor Thorne?"

"What about him?"

"Just... do you think he's a good guy to be around?"

"He's our advisor. It doesn't matter if he's a 'good guy' or not."

Noelle let out a soft giggle.

"True. Goodnight."

I didn't say it back.

I stared at the ceiling, counting to three hundred until Noelle's breathing evened out.

I rolled over, tucking my lab notebook securely under my pillow.

By spring, Noelle's obsession with Silas had become obvious to everyone.

On Mondays, she organized his desk. On Wednesdays, she picked up his packages. On Fridays, she handled his paperwork at the admin building.

On weekends, she started going to his house to "help with cleaning."

The entire lab saw it, but no one said a word.

Only Leah Miller whispered to me in the breakroom once. "Is it just me, or is Noelle going a bit... overboard?"

I shook my head. "None of my business."

"But sheD"

"Leah, just focus on your own research."

Leah stared at me for a few seconds, sighed, and walked away.

At the end of March, I submitted a request for research funding.

Two weeks passed. No news. Another two weeks. Still nothing.

I went to Silas's office.

"Professor, I submitted my funding request a month ago."

"I'm still considering the direction of your project. There's no rush."

"But I'm running out of reagentsD"

"I said, there's no rush."

He didn't even look up from his screen.

As I walked out of the office, I saw Noelle's approved funding form posted on the bulletin board.

Date submitted: March 28th. Date approved: March 31st.

Three days.

My application had been rotting in his drawer for a month, while hers was approved in three days.

I stood in front of the board, staring at that paper for a long time.

A junior student passed by and muttered, "Still looking at that, Sloane? Noelle's research direction is actually really impressive."

I turned and walked away.

In April, my funding was finally approved. It was a third less than what I had asked for.

I didn't argue with Silas. I used two thousand dollars of my own money to cover the gap.

The experiment couldn't stop.

By May, my core data started showing results.

All three sets of experiments were successful. The data was so beautiful it even surprised me.

I immediately synced it to all three clouds and emailed myself twice.

One email had the attachment; the other just listed the results and the date.

Then I opened my lab notebook and meticulously copied everything down.

After I finished, I hesitated.

I flipped to the last few pages and wrote down a second set of data in pencil.

This data was almost identical to the real results, with one tiny difference.

In the third control group, I changed the p-value from 0.003 to 0.03.

It was off by an entire order of magnitude.

The error wasn't glaring. If you weren't looking for it, you'd never notice.

But anyone in this field would know that a p-value of 0.03 meant the results weren't significant enough. The conclusion wouldn't hold up.

I left those pages in the back of the notebook with a sticky note labeled "To be verified."

Then I closed the book and left it on my desk.

In the past, I took it everywhere. Today, I left it right there in the lab.

Before heading to the cafeteria, I adjusted the angle of my desk lamp.

I tucked a single strand of my hair under the base of the lamp.

When I came back from dinner, the lamp had been shifted by two centimeters.

My hair was gone.

The notebook was in the same spot, but the sticky note inside had moved by one page.

I sat down and said nothing. I opened my laptop and started writing my paper.

Late that night, I passed the security office on my way out. The guard was scrolling through his phone.

"Hey, I think I dropped my ID card in the building. Can you help me check the footage to see if anyone picked it up?"

"Which floor?"

"Third."

"Let's take a look."

He pulled up the playback.

6:32 PM: I leave the lab for dinner.

6:41 PM: Noelle Sterling pushes the door open.

She stands at my desk, looks around, and opens my lab notebook.

She flips to the backDright to the pages with the bait data.

She pulls out her phone and takes a photo of every page.

Four photos. She closes the book, puts it back exactly where it was, and leaves.

The whole thing took less than three minutes.

The guard looked up. "See your ID?"

"Oh, no. It must be on a different floor. Thanks anyway."

"No problem."

I walked out of the security room and stood in the stairwell for a moment.

The hallway lights were motion-activated. Since I stayed still, the world went dark.

I shoved my hands into my pockets.

Alright, Noelle. The bait has been taken.