Chapter 1

After I learned I wouldn't live past twenty-five, the childhood sweetheart who used to fight me at every turn suddenly changed.

He stopped racing me for first place, stopped bickering with me. Even when I called him a dog the way I always had, he just took it, eyes rimmed red.

He watched sunrises with me, took me to see the northern lights, filled a whole sky with paper lanterns for me. And in front of everyone, red-eyed, he said:

"Even if she doesn't have long, she is the only wife I, Hilary Delgado, will ever have."

But the year I turned twenty-two, a bright, pretty girl appeared at his side.

They rode roller coasters together, shared late-night dinners out together, laughed as they biked through a downpour together...

Doing every single thing he and I never could.

Hilary promised me he'd send her away in three months.

He knelt at my feet. "She and I only have three months. But you and I still have three years."

On my birthday, the day Hilary was supposed to cut the cake with me, he never came home all night.

I stood at the window and watched him and that girl under the streetlight, pulling each other close, breaking apart, unable to let go,

and finally, in the rain, kissing like nothing could ever separate them.

The clock struck midnight. The three-month deadline had passed.

I finally decided I would stop waiting for Hilary to turn back into the boy who used to cry, afraid I'd leave him.

...

I pulled my gaze back from the bay window and turned around just as Hilary came in from the entryway, still changing his shoes.

The air carried a sweet, cloying gardenia scent.

That was the smell Samantha Winfield wore.

He saw me standing by the window and paused. "Why don't you have the lights on?"

I didn't say anything.

"Samantha's landlord got drunk tonight and came banging on her door. She was terrified and called me, so I went over to help her handle it."

The light fell on my pale face. I tugged at the corner of my mouth.

"You don't need to explain all this to me."

He clearly froze.

Before, anything to do with Samantha, and even if I said nothing, the spines bristling all over me would have prickled at him until he couldn't sit still.

But now I was so calm I didn't even have the strength to stir up a ripple.

Hilary seemed unused to my calm.

Without thinking, he came over, his big hand lifting to ruffle my hair. "If I don't explain, you'll only bottle it up alone and hurt over it."

"You're the person I've always wanted to keep walking beside. I care about how you feel. How could I not explain?"

I turned my head away on instinct, and his hand froze midair.

"Samantha has no one to lean on in this city, a girl all on her own. When something like this happens, of course she panics."

"...I've already started processing her resignation."

Hilary drew his hand back, his voice softening a little.

"But she doesn't really know anyone in Ashford. This thing with the landlord has to be settled before she leaves, or I won't feel easy about it."

He looked at me and added, "Just a few more days, all right?"

I stared at that trace of anxiety that hadn't yet faded from his eyes, my face blank.

"Fine."

The tension in Hilary's shoulders visibly loosened. He took out a delicate velvet box.

"Happy twenty-second birthday. I had this necklace custom-made this year."

He bent his head to help me put it on. "It's pretty. It really suits you."

He probably hadn't noticed that the shape of that little star was exactly the same as the charm on the bracelet Samantha had posted about on social media.

Hilary turned and went into the bathroom. I raised my hand, unclasped the necklace, and slid off the ring I'd worn on my finger for four years.

Hilary had it custom-made when he was eighteen, making a special trip all the way to Europe for it.

He'd said, "Pat Cooley, you're the only wife I'll ever have in this life."

At four in the morning, Samantha's voice, thick with tears, leaked faintly through.

"...I dreamed the landlord came knocking again. I'm so scared..."

Almost without a moment's hesitation, Hilary got up, walked out onto the balcony, and soothed her in a gentle voice.

"Don't be afraid, I'm here. Dreams aren't real..."

I lay there in the dark, my bones aching too much to close my eyes.

In my ears was that gentle tone that had once belonged only to me. Coaxing me to take my medicine, coaxing me not to cry, coaxing me that tomorrow the sun would rise as always.

Right now it was going to someone else, every word of it driving into my battered heart.

After daybreak, I started clearing out the room.

The photos on the wall, one by one I took them down and put them away in a drawer.

There was one from when we were fifteen, the first time he took my hand, my face so red I didn't dare look up.

He'd written something on the back:

[The hand I took at fifteen, I won't let go of it even in death.]

But after Samantha appeared, he never took my hand again.