I've Been Here Before

By Nbs Malay and John H. Moore

A girl has been murdered and reincarnated as a boy, who remembers his past life and spends his new life seeking revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543927283

Book preview

Peace.

1

I am lost… lost in a world I once knew… but in a different body. I carry the same soul and I just don’t get it! My soul is supposed to be resting at peace, and here I am with yet another once upon a time. How is this possible?

The only reason I can think of my soul not being at rest is because my soul can’t rest. After all, my murderer is still out there preying on others who are just like how I used to be: a vulnerable and gullible person that we all faced in the mirror once in our lives. I suppose I have a purpose: find my body and prove who killed me. Question is, who will be absurd enough to help me?

What am I going to do? No one even believes me when I tell them that I am not the person who is reserving this body. But I know what it is… This body is my second chance at life and I must take advantage of it. The thing is, if I am going to use this body, I am going to use it being who I was before this new life began.

I have never been the person to care about what others thought of me. I only care about me and how I feel about what I like. Saying that, I will be visiting my beloved sister’s closet this morning.

Fresh out the shower, the foggy mirror paints the fading smile that was plastered across my butterscotch face. Today would be the first day of my fourth-grade year in Linton Bradley Elementary School. The first year that my sister, Ana Daye, wouldn’t be in my room picking out my clothes for me to make sure I looked cool enough to make friends.

Her peers used to pick on her in school and she always told me she never wanted me to experience that. She spoke about how important it was to be yourself and stay true to people who were loyal to you. To her it was also equally important to fit in and not make yourself a target.

Ana and I used to walk to the bus stop together every day. Even though she was five grades ahead of me, our schools were right across the street from each other, so we’ve always taken the same bus.

Crazy thing is, she was so sweet. She was the type of sister to come in your room without knocking, throw herself on your bed and blurt out her entire day. Sometimes it really annoyed me and other times I loved her for it. She was so genuine and she really cared about others.

One time she told me about a boyfriend she had name Vic. They had a spot they would meet every day for lunch until one day he said he wouldn’t be able to make it. She was pretty much isolated from her friends shortly after their relationship began, so she chose to still have lunch in that spot without him. As soon as she opened the room door behind the school’s auditorium, she uncovered the so-called rumor of Vic’s disloyalty to her.

What did you see? I had asked her.

She didn’t want to answer me and I didn’t ask her again because silence usually gets her talking. Ana always thought carefully before she spoke. My parents adopted her out of an orphanage when she was only five-years old. She learned at a young age that her tongue could get her in a lot of trouble so she always put thought to what came out of her mouth. She turned and faced the wall away from me, took a deep breath and said:

I saw Tania MacNelly… Silence took over as she held back tears that would choke her words up. …my best friend Tania MacNelly with my boyfriend… in our spot. That’s what I saw. But I’m okay! It kind of sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince me. I apologized for barging in on them and I shut the door. She sniffled a little bit and continued. I waited a few seconds to see if either of them would come after me to explain, to apologize or something! Maybe tell me that it wasn’t what it looked like, but I feel like I heard them continue where they left off, so I just walked away. She cried and as soon as I went to hug her, she sat straight up, wiped her tears away and smiled. I’m fine love. Trust me. She ran to her room and shut the door.

I loved my sister and if she were here right now, she would certainly let me borrow her dress. No one has been in Ana’s room since shortly after her disappearance. It’s been almost a year she’s been gone without a trace and I still feel her essence. Today I will enter Ana’s abandoned room and borrow one of her school dresses. I really need to feel like myself today and I haven’t worn a dress since before I died.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It had been my first date with a guy I had been crushing on ever since freshman year in high school. He’d finally asked me out after chickening out three times throughout our junior year. I was so excited. Nothing good used to come to me back then, so anything that happened in my favor, I was extremely grateful for it. Little did I know, I’d experience a rude awakening from my brief happiness.

I feel like I should use this new life to create happy memories for myself. I want something to finally be proud of. Something I can look back on fifty years from now and laugh. This life will be lived in freedom and nothing is going to stop me from being happy.

My name used to be Dandelliah Jean. Others used to call me Dandy because I hated my name. I felt the need to honor Dandy today because I am still her.

I found myself locked in Ana’s room rummaging through her drawers looking for the perfect dress. Wherever Ana is she would have supported Dandy because she loved Dandy. She understood her. Sometimes Dandy’s stories made Ana appreciate her life more. Ana would ask me so many questions about Dandy like she was going to create a biography for her. She found the stories so interesting and whether she actually believed me or not, it felt good to have someone just listen to me without accusing me of being insane. My dear, sweet sister… I hope she comes back soon.

The theory of her running away is just impossible. She loved it here and she would never leave me behind. The cops told my mom she had a history of running away when she was in the orphanage and sometimes it was just hard for kids like her to accept something good. They gave up the search for her after about a month because they apparently thought they had it all figured out. I don’t know what