It has been three days since he came back to the past. It was Sunday, and they were about to do the lottery drawing on T.V.

For the last few days, his anxiety has been crippling. He knows his ticket has the winning numbers. Yet, he couldn’t help but think he wouldn’t win this time. He was already changing the future.

It was an irrational fair. Zach was successful in his past life. After losing his winning, it took him a few years to get back on his feet, but he did. He started a game company with the money his mother saved for him.

The source code was on his beat-up laptop. Ten years from now, he released it. At that point, he’d missed the optimum time.

His gaming company was successful, but there were products on the market that could compete with his game. Two to three years from now would be the sweet spot. Exona was the game that revolutionized the online gaming market.

If he launched his game, Tetra, at the same time, the two would compete against each other and produce astronomical results.

He could be successful without this lottery money. It would take a few more years, but that didn’t matter when the thing he had the most of was time.

Zach couldn’t understand his anxiety.

Yes, he wanted to get away from the ‘friends’ he had around him. However, changing his friend group was easy in college. People drifted apart all the time.

It would still be easy to get his revenge. He already hacked into Ryan’s computer. Cybersecurity wasn’t as much of a focus as of yet.

If he was desperate to make money, there were a few semi-legal things he could do that wouldn’t be dangerous.

Why did winning matter that much?

The lottery lady danced around the machine. She started calling numbers, and his heart jumped into his chest.

Sweat ran into his eyes. He didn’t bother to wipe it off. It couldn’t have taken her five minutes to read the numbers off, but to Zach, it felt like a lifetime.

All the numbers were read out and corresponded to the ones on his ticket. He didn’t shout or rejoice. The muscles in his body relaxed. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Seven Hundred Million.

Seven Hundred Million!

He wasn’t going to tell a soul that he had won.

His experiences even made him hesitate to tell his mother. The thought only crossed his mind for a moment, but it made him unbelievably guilty.

Lisa, his mother, was nothing but supportive his whole life. In his past life, she had given him back his money.

She was nothing like his wife or his chil…, it was hard for him to say. Every time he thought of his children, there was a stabbing pain in his chest. The memories of them choked him.

Changing their diapers. Teaching them to ride a bike.

Dropping them off at school for the first time. Watching them graduate from high school.

His first grandchild.

He pulled in a gasping breath. His vision blurred, and his body started shaking.

It took him a while to pull himself back together.

He wouldn’t think about it. No, he couldn’t think about it. It would break him.

Jumping in fright, he smoothed out the ticket that he crumpled when his mood shifted. He didn’t go through all of that to damage the lottery ticket.

He sent a text to his mother. He told her he wouldn’t be home for a few days.

Zach drove for six hours to the store farthest away from where he lived to cash his ticket.

He already had his system set up. He had a blind trust set up. He would use that to accept his winnings so that his name wouldn’t be published. The company required him to do interviews. However, they wouldn’t stop him from wearing a disguise or mask during the interview.

He had a burner phone and a P.O box to use for his address.

Ideally, he would have waited a few weeks before turning in his ticket, but he didn’t want to wait.

***

It has been three weeks since he won the lottery. He went to and from his internship and new job. He went on dates with his girlfriend. He found moments to hang out with his ‘friends’.

The code on his computer tempted him each day, but he didn’t have the time to work on it. Plus, he needed a better hard drive and external storage. He had time, but he felt he could be doing more with his new life.

Classes at university would start in a week. On Friday, his internship will finish.

In his entire life, this was the longest three weeks he’d lived through. Worse, there were another three to five weeks before his check arrived.

It turned out that he didn’t have more patience. Despite years of experience, he was impulsive. It took him constant effort to keep himself under control. A trait he grew out of and would have to grow out of again.

He hadn’t seen Crystal’s younger brother. Though, he came up in conversation. It turned out that they were step-siblings.

For a while, people thought they were half-siblings. There was a complex love triangle between their parents. With a series of blood tests, everything got sorted out.

The accounts differ as to what happened to her, but Crystal’s stepbrother’s mother died. His anger and actions in the future made Zach think that things weren’t simple.

He didn’t know why he opened his mouth to advise the kid. It didn’t have anything to do with him.

***

Seven weeks. These damn people were taking their time with his money.

He sat in his economics class wondering why he was torturing himself like this.

Laughing at jokes, he no longer understood the context to. Smiling at people he didn’t remember or like.

Going to a job he couldn’t stand.

His mother was working two jobs. She functioned on little to no sleep. Despite that, there was always a hot meal waiting for him.

Zach lost count of how many times he almost confessed. It wasn’t that he was guarding against his mother, but the people around her.

It was hard to tell who was looking to take advantage of him and his family. In the past, everyone knew he won the lottery. His mother’s friends asked him to help out or give them loans.

Feeling like he needed to thank them for supporting his mother, he rarely turned them down.

It didn’t help that he felt guilty for having the money. He felt like he didn’t deserve the money. Giving it away made him feel better.

Now he knew it was common among lottery winners to experience winner’s guilt. If he was honest, he might have never gotten over that feeling.’

Zach worked for every penny he earned while building his company. There were long nights. Sabotage and corporate struggles. He almost went bankrupt twice!

Despite that, the money he had always felt like a hot potato in his hand. Wasn’t he murdered because he wanted to give away his money to charity when he died?

It would be impossible to speak about his past life, but he already contacted a few mental health professionals to help him deal with those emotions this time around.

The tutor wrapped up the class, and he moved along with the crowd.

Ryan was waiting for him. “Man! It wouldn’t hurt to ditch classes,” He sounded drunk despite it being eleven in the morning. “Why are you always so serious?”

He had been asking himself that same question. His actions only served to make his own life difficult. He didn’t want the people around him to know something was different. If the nerd of the school stopped attending classes, everyone would notice.

However, did it matter?

Zach would categorize himself as a cautious person. Despite these children not being a threat, he approached them as if they would lead to him experiencing a loss. It wasn’t true.

Their parents were small fish. They had money, but it wasn’t astronomical. Despite appearing influential in Eve City, they wouldn’t be able to raise their heads anywhere else.

Added to that, these kids were wastrels. Their parents would have to pay their way for the rest of their lives. Few of them would have any achievements past being socialites.

Zach worked his ass off to get into this school. He applied for every scholarship he could find. Yet, they were here to play around. Their parents spent money to get them into and keep them in school.

They were not a threat.

It was his past trauma that made him cautious when dealing with them. He thought he got over it after a few years, but now he is back facing them. He buried everything deep inside where he didn’t have to think about it instead of moving on.

“Z, are you not going to answer me?” Ryan continued when he didn’t get an answer.

“Sorry, what was the question?” Zach didn’t feel up to this game but couldn’t get himself to stop playing. That money needed to come so he could leave.

“Never mind, man. It wasn’t important.” Ryan was upset. Zach used to hang on to every word he said. Things changed when Zach and Crystal got together. It didn’t help that he’d been interested in Crystal for years.

“If you say so.” Zach headed towards the cafeteria. Not quite caring if he was being followed or not. When he heard stumbling footsteps beside him, he knew he was out of luck. “I heard you’re throwing another party.” He knew if he picked the right topic, Ryan could carry the conversation by himself.

Ryan sneered. His feelings of superiority came back. “Yeah, man. It is going to be epic! It is such a shame…,”

Both of them were happy. Ryan thought he was showing off his wealth. Zach was able to drown out the inane chatter.

The longer he spent here, the more the memories flood back. He’d heard this conversation a million times. He was sure Ryan and company only included him in their friend group to make themselves feel and look better.

***

Eight weeks!

He’d been complimenting himself on his full hair, but it was starting to thin again. His habit of biting his nail had remerged.

He was missing meals.

Zach’s mother had already realized that something was happening. It was almost funny when she sat him down and asked if he was under too much pressure at school.

Several times she hinted that drugs weren’t a solution. At a point, she considered quitting one of her jobs so she could be around more.

It was a welcome break from the anxiety he was feeling. He received the money after six weeks in his past life. How much could have changed this time around?

He was smart and didn’t spread around the fact that he won. Did this negatively impact him? If he thought about it, the company used that as free promotion to entice other people to play the lottery. His being ostentatious would be an incentive to give him the money sooner.

Either way, he was developing ulcers.

To his surprise, his shift in behavior was leading to other benefits. His relationship with Crystal fizzled. He no longer invested any time or energy into their relationship. Instead of realizing he was no longer interested in her, she attributed to school being his main focus.

Thankfully she was too lazy to argue with him. She ended things with a casual, “we're drifting apart.”

On his part, he got even more frazzled, which boosted her ego.

***

Nine god damn weeks.

It took nine weeks for his check to arrive.

Despite holding it in his hands, he couldn’t believe it was real. He’d lost twenty pounds he didn’t have while worrying about this.

***

“Mom, we need to talk.”

Lisa dropped the plate she was holding.