I Called My Younger Self To Stop My Marriage

All because Elias, the self-proclaimed Ascended, coughed during his morning mantra, my father’s business was gutted by sundown. The Guru, perched atop his mountain of self-righteousness, proclaimed: “Your father’s deliberate distraction during my spiritual cleanse was a transgression. This is the universe’s necessary correction.” I dragged my crippled right leg—a souvenir from a night I regretted—and filed the lawsuit. The cost was instant and brutal: the company’s swift, ignoble collapse, followed by my father’s fall from our penthouse balcony. He didn’t die, but the shock cleaved his mind in two. They locked him away in a sterile, padded room. In that raw pit of despair, my wife, Sherry, tossed in the final stick of dynamite. She grabbed my left leg—the good one—and leaned in, her eyes cold as chips of glacier ice. “Drop the suit. Now. Or you and your father can both rot in hell.” It was the moment the illusion shattered. Every cruelty, every loss, had been Sherry’s carefully orchestrated defense of her ‘spiritual guide.’ As the crushing weight of betrayal pinned me to the floor, my father’s cell phone, which I’d salvaged, suddenly buzzed. On the other end was the voice of my eighteen-year-old self. “Dad! I finished my last final! You and Mom just keep working—I can walk home myself.” That walk home. That was the day I’d found Sherry being jumped in a dark alley. The day I played hero. The day I earned this mangled right leg. A frantic, electric hope surged through me. I choked out a warning to the past. “Don’t save her, do you hear me? Don’t save Sherry! For God’s sake, I’m begging you!” I needed to see it. I needed to know if without my intervention, without my money and protection, she could still ascend to the heights she’d reached, leaving ruin in her wake.

Eighteen-year-old Gabe was understandably bewildered. “Sherry who? And who are you? Why do you have my dad’s phone?” I fought to keep the desperation from my voice. “It’s me. You. The twenty-eight-year-old version.” “Are you kidding me? Give the phone back to my father or I’m calling the police!” The memory of my dad’s vacant, institutionalized stare tightened my chest like a garrote wire. “Your father can’t talk right now, but I can prove it. You have a heart-shaped birthmark on your inner thigh, and you’re planning to buy a strawberry layer cake on the way home to celebrate.” The birthmark had appeared my senior year. Nobody knew about it. The cake idea had literally just popped into my head the moment I left campus. A pause stretched across the line, heavy with disbelief and dawning fear. Then: “You’re really me? Okay, then tell me—am I successful at twenty-eight? Do I have a happy life?” No. You fell in love with a beautiful poison, and it destroyed everything you ever cared about. Just then, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Sherry. Panic made my voice a desperate rasp. “Listen! Don’t walk home today. Don’t try to save anyone, ever. That person will be the reason you’re crippled, and the reason your family suffers!” The basement door was thrown open. Sherry stood framed in the dim light, her expression cold and hard. I fumbled, slamming the phone shut and shoving it deep into my jeans pocket. “Who were you talking to?” she demanded, her voice an icy threat. “No one,” I ground out. She crossed the room, grabbed my throat, and squeezed. “Trying to call for help? I suggest you save yourself the effort of resistance.” A second later, her bodyguards dragged me out by the back of my collar and violently dumped me into the room she had converted into my father’s makeshift wake. Elias, dressed in flowing linen robes, stood over me, holding a long, flexible switch—a cane fashioned from a slender branch—like a holy weapon. “Mr. Gabriel,” Elias said, his voice dripping with condescension. “Your repeated attempts to undermine the faith have clearly opened you up to possession. I must perform an exorcism.” “For cleansing the heart and purifying the body,” he added, gesturing to the guards. “Strip him.” My fingernails dug into my palms. Rage tasted like metal on my tongue. “I’m not possessed! You are the sickness! Sherry, I’ll drop the suit! Just don’t let him defile my father’s memory like this!” Sherry hesitated, a flicker of something—maybe doubt, maybe pity—in her eye. Elias cut her off, his voice injured. “You’ve refused to drop the suit for months, but a single day in the dark basement breaks you? This is the cunning of the evil spirit! He’s feigning submission to seek retribution later. Ms. Sherry, do you trust him or do you trust me?” Sherry’s face hardened. She chose him. “I trust you, Elias. Guards, take his clothes.” They swarmed me. My struggles were futile against four men, especially with one bad leg. The cloth was ripped away piece by piece. Humiliated, naked, I was forced to kneel before my father’s photograph. The shame was a physical blow. I wanted to smash my head against the wall and end it all. The next second, Elias’s switch whipped down, biting deep into my skin. A white-hot slash of pain ripped across my back, followed instantly by a bead of blood. Elias’s voice was sanctimonious, ringing in the room. “Your father’s spirit would not wish to see his son controlled by a demon. He was kind to Ms. Sherry in life, so she will bear witness to the casting out of this evil, so his soul may finally rest.” I tried to scramble away, but Elias’s leather boot slammed down onto my injured right knee. I collapsed, face-first, gagging on dust and pain. Sherry watched. Her brow was furrowed, but she made no move to stop him. She knew. She knew exactly how I’d earned that injury. Time dissolved into agony. Finally, Elias grew tired. My back was a raw, bloody mess. I lay on the floor, barely breathing. Sherry walked over, knelt down, and tenderly cradled my cheek. A flash of something that looked agonizingly like sorrow crossed her eye. “Elias does everything in adherence to the higher law, Gabriel. Don’t blame him,” she murmured. “Just be sensible, and no one will ever take your place as my husband.” I looked into her eyes, silent, a tsunami of hatred roiling in my heart. It’s been an hour. My eighteen-year-old self must have avoided her now. Soon, Sherry would be nothing more than a ghost.

I was transferred to a hospital, more dead than alive. The doctor, a kind man, shook his head sadly. “The lacerations on your back are severe, no water for days. But there’s good news, inexplicably. Your right leg—it’s healed. Overnight. Like it was never broken.” I stared, stunned. Before I could process the miracle, a flurry of hushed voices drifted in from the hallway. “Did you hear? CEO Sherry was in a nasty car wreck on her way to the office. Her right eye is completely gone.” I froze. Then, my father’s cell phone rang again. It was my younger voice, excited. “Finally! I managed to call you back. I took an Uber home last night, and guess what? I saw an alley where a bunch of thugs were roughing someone up. Someone had their right eye gouged out! Crazy, right?” Gouged out. The original timeline: I saved Sherry, losing my right leg. The new timeline: I didn’t save her, my leg healed, and she lost her right eye. The trade was made. But the victory felt hollow. I frantically searched for news about my parents. My mother’s suicide headline was still there. The photo of my father in the asylum was still trending. Why? I avoided Sherry. Why hadn’t their tragedy been erased? Then, the young voice on the phone continued. “Oh, and Mom and Dad gave me a million dollars! I’m going to start a company. I’m meeting with investors next week.” A rush of forgotten memory. After I saved Sherry, I took her in, discovered her terrifying business acumen, and used my family’s money to fund her. That was the start of the massive Sherry Empire. The original tragedy must have been locked into the past, regardless of the injury swap. It meant the funding was the key. Sherry will be at that investment meeting. “Listen to me, this is critical,” I urged the younger me. “Next week, if you meet a woman named Sherry, no matter how brilliant she seems, do not pick her. Don’t even talk to her. Pick the other one. The one named Andrea.” Andrea (Andrea) was Sherry’s greatest rival, a brilliant mind who’d died young from an illness exacerbated by financial stress. If I funded her and ensured her health, she could become our family’s shield, or better, our sword. Young Gabe, now completely terrified, agreed without hesitation.

I stayed in the hospital for a week. Sherry never visited. The news, however, was filled with images of her and Elias. Elias sitting in three days of meditation, praying to heal her eye. Elias building fifty-five “wellness shrines” in her name. I laughed, a dry, bitter sound. I tried to call young Gabe again, but the phone just gave a dead signal. Our connection was fragile, only active when he reached out first. The day I was discharged was the day of the investment meeting. I walked out, a free man with two good legs, sick with worry, hoping young Gabe had chosen Andrea. I arrived home that evening. The front door was ajar. A guttural, agonizing sound was coming from the living room. Father. A knot of dread cinched my stomach. I sprinted inside. My father was lashed tightly to a support column. In front of him sat a basin of murky black fluid. Elias stood over him, holding a surgical scalpel. “Elias, what the hell are you doing!” I screamed, slamming into him and sending him sprawling. Elias scrambled toward Sherry, whimpering. “Darling, Gabriel’s father is cursing you from the asylum! That’s why your eye is damaged! He’s possessed! I was trying to drain the malignant blood and replace it with a purified plasma, to give him a clean slate!” Sherry was pale but supportive. “Elias is only trying to help your family, Gabriel. Don’t be hysterical.” I looked at the woman I had loved for a decade. She was a stranger. “You are the ones who are possessed! Sherry, he’s not a guru, he’s a damn monster!” SMACK. Sherry’s palm stung my cheek. Her eyes flashed with fury. “Do not disparage my Ascended! Not another word, Gabriel.” Elias shot me a triumphant smirk. Then, with a practiced motion, he slashed the scalpel across my father’s wrist. Blood immediately sprayed onto the floor. “Stop! Stop it!” I screamed, lunging forward. Sherry’s fist slammed into my jaw. The world went dark.

I woke up on the sofa. Sherry’s jacket was draped over me. She sat nearby, looking at me with that complex mix of guilt and disdain. I bolted up, grabbing her by the jacket lapels. “My father! Where is he? What did you do?” “His evil spirits were too potent, even for the sacred text,” Elias announced, standing nearby, his arms crossed. “A true pity. Such a sin, I weep for him.” I swung, catching Elias with a desperate, heavy backhand. “You animal!” Sherry’s grip snapped onto my wrist, her voice glacial. “Enough, Gabriel. I’ve already sent your father to the city hospital. With the professional doctors, he’ll be fine.” I shoved her away and ran, blindly, to the hospital. The doctor there told me, “Mr. Elias withdrew all funds for the procedure. We can’t operate.” I collapsed. I called Sherry. Elias answered. “Ms. Sherry is currently in a deep meditation. Do not disturb her.” “You took my father’s surgery money! Give it back, you bastard!” I screamed into the phone. Elias sounded utterly detached. “The Enlightened is compassionate. Your father, if he had led a life of good deeds, would already be out of danger. The surgery is three hundred thousand dollars. That money can fund so much genuine charity. That’s enough virtue to save your father for the rest of his life. I will not return it. And all your bank accounts are frozen.” He hung up. I sat on the cold floor, watching the heart monitor flatline to a single, terrible line. I changed the past. I saved myself. But the core tragedy remains. Just as the finality of the loss consumed me, a voice cut through the sterile silence. “I’ve paid for Mr. Gabriel Senior’s surgery in full. Prepare the operating room immediately.” I looked up, dazed. A woman stood there, familiar yet unrecognizable. It was Andrea—Andrea—the rival who’d died five years ago. She was alive. Young Gabe had done it. My father was saved. I rushed to Andrea, my gratitude a torrent. She just smiled. “You should be thanking yourself, Gabriel. If you hadn’t funded me all those years ago, I wouldn’t be here today.”

I watched over my father as he recovered. Whether it was the surgery or young Gabe’s altered choices, my father woke up mentally sound. He was lucid, not the drooling wreck I had known. But my mother’s death remained a fixed point. This meant my entanglement with Sherry was not over. Young Gabe contacted me again. He’d gotten his test scores. They were excellent. He was debating between the top American university—the one Sherry attended—or a study abroad program. The university is too close to her orbit. “Go abroad! You must study overseas! And never, ever come back!” I told him. If he missed Sherry entirely, the tragedy would be erased. Young Gabe promised that my parents were selling everything and moving the entire family overseas in one week. A week later, on the day my father was discharged, Sherry announced she wanted to visit him. I took her to the small shrine I had secretly built for my mother and father. But as we arrived, a construction crew was already dismantling it. Elias was leading them. I lunged forward, pushing the workers back. “What are you doing! My father is gone—can’t you let him rest!” Elias’s tone was indifferent. “Your father’s virtue was insufficient, Gabriel. I plan to convert this site into a public meditation center. It serves the community. A final act of virtue on his behalf.” Rage blinded me. I slapped him. Sherry instantly shoved me away. “Gabriel, have you lost your mind? Get out of here! This is not your place to cause trouble.” I slapped her too. Harder. “Sherry, I regret the day I saved you. I should have left you to those thugs in the alley!” Her eyes widened, shocked, a complex blend of confusion and a flicker of something ancient and terrible. Elias clutched his stinging face and cried out to her, “Darling, you promised you would always love me! He attacks me, and you do nothing? You lied! I’m leaving you!” Sherry’s brief moment of confusion evaporated, replaced by cold fury. She immediately ordered the guards to seize me. My father, just out of the hospital, saw the scene and went ballistic. He grabbed a nearby metal bar, swinging it wildly at Elias and Sherry. Sherry didn’t flinch. She simply pushed him. He stumbled, hitting the back of his head hard against a concrete headstone. Silence. Then a gurgling sound. I rushed to him, cradling his head. “Dad! Dad!” Sherry looked down at me, her expression a chilling disappointment. “Gabriel, I warned you not to make a scene. You brought this upon your father. You will never pay for the sin you’ve created.” Then the phone rang. Again. Young Gabe. “Our flight leaves in five minutes. I’ll call you when we land.” I smiled. A real, deep, satisfied smile. Sherry looked at me, her face clouded by fear. A construction worker suddenly shouted, “Ms. Sherry! This is an empty coffin! There’s no urn, no remains!” My heart soared. I managed to unlock the phone and search the news for my mother’s death. It was gone. Instead, an article popped up about a celebrated American businesswoman achieving a massive breakthrough in her overseas firm. The name: Eleanor Z. The knot in my chest dissolved. I looked up at Sherry, taking in her scarred eye, her frantic expression, and the dead man at my feet who was no longer my father. “Sherry,” I whispered, relief washing over me, “It’s finally over for us.” The world faded to black.