Before You Called Me Beautiful
Description
At her glittering engagement party, Ava Lancaster wears the perfect dress, the perfect ring, and the perfect smile, but inside, she's suffocating. When she collapses and wakes up in her teenage body, braces, frizzy hair and all, she's trapped in 2010-forced to relive the cruelty of high school and face the boy who once broke her. As timelines flicker and her father's broken watch begins to tick again, Ava must decide: is she here to fix her past, forgive it... or finally rewrite it?
Chapter 1
Jun 24, 2025
Ava wasn’t the girl people picked first. Or second. Or at all.
Back then, Ava walked through hallways with her shoulders hunched, hoping no one noticed the braces, the baby fat, the shaky voice when she got called on in class. She wore oversized hoodies to hide her body, kept her head down to avoid the whispers.
Fat. Weird. Try-hard.
Those words stuck to her like gum on a shoe. She grew up thinking success was for other girls—the pretty ones, the ones with glitter in their laughter and hands that knew how to take up space.
Ava? She barely knew how to breathe in public.
Her home life didn’t help. A father who left too soon. A mother who worked two jobs and came home too tired to notice when Ava skipped dinner or spent hours crying over her reflection.
No one told her she could be anything. No one told her she deserved to be.
But Ava Lancaster was done playing small.
Silk clung to her skin like a second layer of lies. Diamonds danced at her ears, her neck, her fingers. Especially one. That ring.
Too bright. Too loud.
Nathaniel’s voice cut through the air, smooth as always. “To Ava Lancaster,” he said, lifting his glass. “The woman of my dreams.”
Applause followed. Smiles bloomed like roses on everyone else’s faces. Hers twitched into place a second too late.
“Breathtaking,” someone whispered nearby.
“Flawless,” another added.
But Ava’s heart didn’t beat like a bride’s. It beat like a bird in a cage, slamming against invisible bars.
Her fingers grazed the diamond ring as if to ask it why it felt so wrong. It stayed silent, cold and perfect, gleaming under the lights like it belonged in a museum—not on her hand.
Cameras flashed and Nathaniel leaned closer. His arm slid around her waist, too firm, too rehearsed.
“Come on, Ava.” His breath brushed her ear as he whispered. “Smile like you mean it.”
She did. Teeth, lips, perfection. But her jaw clenched beneath it and still—still—the world kept spinning, the music kept playing, the lights kept sparkling.
Only inside her did everything begin to unravel.
“You should be happy,” her mother had whispered that morning, adjusting Ava’s earrings with trembling fingers. “You’ve won, sweetheart—he’s perfect.”
Ava had nodded then, numbed by the weight of everyone else’s dreams draped over her shoulders like a veil she couldn’t remove. Glasses clinked like bells tolling at a wedding she never agreed to.
She stood still, champagne flute in hand, her smile stiff and practiced. Nathaniel’s glass tapped hers with a soft ping, his voice smooth as silk.
“A toast to forever,” he said, eyes gleaming under the chandelier’s glare.
She forced her lips to move. Not a smile—just movement. The sound of laughter rippled around them, but it bounced off her like rain on glass. Her gaze shifted to the mirrored wall across the ballroom.
There she was—lit up, airbrushed by gold light, dressed like perfection. Ava Lancaster. Bride-to-be. Poster girl for someone else’s dream.
She blinked at her reflection. “Who are you?” she thought, drowned by violins and applause.
Nathaniel leaned closer, the scent of expensive cologne tightening her throat. “Let’s not ruin the photo ops, darling,” he murmured, voice honeyed and hollow.
His hand slid along her waist, squeezing just a little too tight—firm enough to remind her she was being watched. Her spine stiffened, but she didn’t pull away.
Not here. Not now.
Her eyes darted across the ballroom—rows of polished smiles, heads tilted in admiration, laughter cued like a script. Everyone was playing their part. Except her.
Ava’s voice barely reached her own ears. “I’m fine, I’m just fine,” she whispered, not to anyone—just a quiet, desperate spell she cast to hold herself together. But she wasn’t.
The orchestra swelled behind her, romantic and slow, the kind of music people waltz to in love stories. Then—snap, a tug at her wrist.
She looked down. The watch—her father’s watch—was hanging by a thread. The leather strap had torn and metal strained.
‘No, no, no.’
It dropped and hit the floor. The gold face cracked clean down the center. Something inside her cracked too. She crouched halfway, hand outstretched to pick it up—then froze.
Air caught in her throat like it hit a wall. Her chest tightened, vision stung. The room wobbled beneath her heels.
Nathaniel’s voice cut through the music. Sharper now. “Ava?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
Her fingers trembled midair, knees locked and even her own lungs refused her. She was breaking. Right here, in front of everyone and not a single soul noticed.
Ava stumbled forward as if pushed by some invisible force, her heels scraping the marble. The flute of champagne slipped from her fingers and shattered at her feet, splashing golden liquid across the floor.
Gasps rippled through the crowd like a wave, but Ava didn’t hear them—her ears were full of wind and silence. Her knees gave way, crashing into the tiles with a thud she didn’t feel.
Screams echoed like sirens in a dream—sharp, urgent, far away. Footsteps pounded against marble. Someone yelled for help. Voices overlapped, but none of it reached her.
All she saw was the ring.
It still sparkled on her finger, catching the chandelier’s light like it belonged in a fantasy. But to her, it felt like a shackle. Heavy. Foreign and wrong.
Her fingers clawed at her chest. Nothing. No breath. No relief.
“Breathe, Ava,” she whispered to herself, lips barely moving. “Come on… breathe.”
The air refused to come. Her throat closed tighter, vision narrowed—everything distant except that cracked watch on the floor.
The gold face shattered. Her father’s voice from long ago flickered through her mind: “This watch has seen everything. Take care of it, and it’ll take care of you.”
But it hadn’t. Not tonight. Not when everything was falling apart.
A dark shape moved through the crowd—slow, deliberate, almost untouched by the panic around them. She tried to focus. Blinking against the blur.
Then someone knelt beside her. Small hands cupped her face, cool and steady. Ava blinked again, startled by the sudden calm that came with the stranger.
The woman was old, her features lined but soft, like time had folded into her instead of stealing her beauty. She didn’t say anything at first. Just held Ava’s cheeks, thumbs brushing away tears she didn’t realize she’d shed.
“Shh,” the woman whispered. “You’re alright.”
Ava tried to speak, but her lips trembled too hard. “I… I can’t… I can’t breathe…”
“You will,” the woman said, voice quiet and rooted like the earth. “Just look at me.”
Their eyes locked. Everything else faded—the music, the shouting, the people stepping back in fear and confusion.
Only this moment remained. The woman leaned closer, her lips barely moving, her breath warm against Ava’s forehead.
“Sometimes,” she said gently, “time has to break… before it can be fixed.”
Before You Called Me Beautiful
30 Chapters
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