My Future Self Called To Save My Ruined Life Chapter 07

My Future Self Called To Save My Ruined Life Chapter 07

Word traveled back to my hometown faster than I expected.

News of Kleinman Lab’s partnership talks with Google hit the university’s website.

Just a small blurb, but enough to stir the pot.

Savannah’s message came directly to me this time.

She’d somehow gotten my new number.

[Jess! Long time no see! I’m job hunting right now-any chance you have leads over there?]

[I heard you’re on that Google-affiliated project? That’s amazing!]

[We were best friends for four years. You wouldn’t turn me down, would you?]

Four years of friendship.

Those five words felt both absurd and laughable.

Four years of friendship, and she slept with my boyfriend, used my capstone work, and now wanted

to use my network.

I didn’t reply.

I just deleted the conversation.

Zoey, however, forwarded me a screenshot from the class Discord.

Someone had asked Liam about me in a group chat.

Someone said:

[Isn’t Jessica at Ashford now? Heard she’s doing really well.]

Liam replied:

[She just got lucky. Right place, right time with her advisor. Anyone could’ve done the same.]

Another person shot back:

[Then why didn’t you go?]

Liam never responded.

I looked at the screenshot and smiled faintly.

Lucky?

The nights I stayed up until 3 AM tweaking models.

The weekends I spent grinding through papers after getting grilled by the PhD students.

The loneliness I pushed through in a new place, all on my own.

He called that luck.

Whatever.

It didn’t matter.

What mattered was that twenty-two-year-old me hadn’t wasted that phone call.

Eightfold return on the fund.

A core spot in the lab.

Google partnership in motion.

And the people who tried to hold me back?

Still spinning in place.

I closed my phone, pushed open the lab door, and saw my code waiting on the screen.

Outside, the Havenwood spring sun broke through the Gothic spires and fell across my keyboard.

My life was finally on the right track.

And this was only the beginning.

The Google acquisition talks moved faster than anyone expected.

Right at the start of the next semester, Professor Kleinman called us into the conference room with

a look I’d never seen on him before.

“Google has formally made an offer. Our multilingual sentiment recognition project is valued at

twenty-three million pounds.”

A collective gasp filled the room.

Kleinman scanned the group, his gaze landing on me.

“Jessica, as the primary developer of the core algorithm module, based on your contribution ratio,

your equity share will be approximately one point two million pounds.”

My brain went blank for three full seconds.

One point two million pounds.

In dollars, that was over a million and a half.

I was twenty-one years old, sitting in a conference room in a new state, and I’d just heard a number that would change everything.

The PhD lead clapped me on the shoulder.

“Jessica. Well done.”

I smiled.

I didn’t say much.

In my head, I heard that voice from the future-frantic, urgent-from over a year ago.

“Twenty-two-year-old Jessica, please-stop holding yourself back for anyone else.”

This time, I didn’t let her down.

And I didn’t let myself down.