Chapter 1

Every time Xavier Delgado did something to make me angry, he'd go running to his so-called love strategist, Rosamond Pruitt, for advice.

And my dear best friend, Rosamond, always turned around and forwarded me her chat logs with Xavier the second she got them.

"He forgot your period AGAIN?! Does he have a brain the size of a pea?"

"He left you waiting half an hour just to play games? What are you keeping a man like that around for?"

Whenever I was upset, Rosamond acted even angrier than I was.

So, naturally, she came up with all sorts of ways for me to punish Xavier.

It started with a thousand-word written apology, and escalated to making Xavier record himself trashing his own name a hundred times over.

The punishments kept getting harsher, until even I thought it was going too far, chipping away at a man's pride.

But Rosamond would jab me in the forehead like I was hopeless.

"Men are all like this. If you're too easy to win back, he'll never learn to treasure you."

And I believed her.

Right up until the day of our third anniversary.

I stood in the cold wind for a full hour, and Xavier never showed.

I started to panic, worried something had happened to him on the way.

Then Rosamond suddenly sent me a voice message.

"She's such an idiot. She still has no clue we've been sleeping together this whole time."

1.

My fingers had gone stiff in the wind.

"What did you just unsend?"

She replied fast.

"Typo! My keyboard's been glitching lately, jumping to random words, it's driving me insane."

Two pouting emojis followed.

I pressed the screen dark.

If I hadn't opened that voice message in time, I probably would have believed her all over again.

After all, for three years she'd always been the one who stepped up whenever Xavier and I fought, holding me while she cursed him out, then turning right around to hand him his lines.

She had both of us wrapped around her finger.

Quick footsteps came up behind me.

"Astrid!"

Xavier cut through the crowd, running toward me.

Sweat beaded at his hairline, his scarf hanging loose around his neck.

A bouquet of pink roses in his left arm, a paper bag stamped with a jewelry brand's logo in his right hand.

The second he saw me, he couldn't hold back his grin.

"Sorry I kept you waiting."

He stopped in front of me and opened his arms.

I didn't move.

His arms hung there for a couple of seconds, then dropped like nothing had happened.

"I was late because I was picking up your gift. I swear I didn't stand you up on purpose."

He held the flowers out.

"You like them?"

I'd told him plenty of times that I liked white roses.

Rosamond liked pink.

Before, when Xavier got the flowers wrong, I only thought he was careless.

Today, that clump of pink crowded up in front of my face, petals still beaded with water, like they'd just come out of the shop.

"Where did you buy them?"

"That shop on the west side. Rosamond said their flowers are the freshest."

Xavier answered without a hitch.

I took the paper bag but didn't touch the flowers.

Inside the box was a necklace.

This piece came in two versions. The fronts were nearly identical; the difference was hidden in the pattern on the back.

I liked the star version. Rosamond liked the flower version.

We'd talked about it when we were out shopping, and she'd even sent me a photo of herself trying it on.

I turned the pendant over.

A little flower engraved on the back.

Xavier leaned down to watch me, his voice full of pride.

"Nice, right? To get your taste out of the strategist, I had to bribe her with a dozen lattes. The clerk said it was the last one. I ran to two malls before I found it."

So he really had put thought into it.

It just hadn't been thought about me.

All the little details I'd overlooked came surfacing, one after another.

The cake he bought me was always the chestnut flavor Rosamond loved.

The movies he took me to were always the artsy ones Rosamond kept mentioning.

Even the words he used to smooth things over, he ran by Rosamond first.

Xavier was still waiting for my reaction.

I snapped the box shut.

"Nice."

His smile faded.

"That's it? Just 'nice'?"

"I want to go home."

I handed the paper bag back to him and stepped around him toward the roadside.

Xavier reached out to grab me. I dodged.

"Astrid Fisher, I ordered your gift two weeks in advance, I drove halfway across the city to see you, what more do you want?"

"I'm tired."

"So you're throwing a fit again?"

He glanced down at the flowers in his hand, and his face went completely dark.

The next second, he slammed the pink roses down onto the ground.

The wrapping split open, and the stems rolled to the feet of passersby.

"Astrid Fisher, are you done or not?!"

The people around us slowed.

Some turned to look, some pulled out their phones.

I looked at those flowers, and suddenly I wanted to laugh.

He was the one who'd betrayed me.

Yet he stood there straight-backed and righteous, as if I'd been the one in the wrong from start to finish.