Chapter 1

At the amusement park, my sister and I fell off the carousel at the same time.

My knees hit the gravel, and blood beaded up on the skin.

The pain made me suck in a breath.

Dustin Fox came running.

Past me. Past my outstretched hand.

Straight to my sister, pulling her up.

"Where does it hurt? Are you okay?"

He crouched in front of her, brows drawn tight, the worry in his voice impossible to hide.

Not once, start to finish, did he look at me.

Sitting there on the ground, staring at the back of his head, I suddenly felt like my knees didn't hurt so much anymore.

He got her on her feet before he seemed to remember I existed, turning to toss over his shoulder: "Wait here a minute. I'll take her to the first-aid room."

The night wind was cold, and it stung my eyes.

I looked down at my bleeding knees.

I didn't want to wait.

Three years ago, in the car crash, he saved my sister first and left me stuck in the crumpled wreck for another forty minutes.

Two years ago, in the rainstorm, he brought her an umbrella first and left me waiting an hour and a half outside my office.

And now, even a scraped knee had to wait.

I stood up slowly, and when my knee bent, I nearly went down again.

I dug out my phone and sent him a text.

"Dustin, let's break up."

......

Message sent.

Beside the green bubble was the one he'd sent a few hours ago: "I'm here, waiting for you at the entrance."

I stared at those words, and a laugh slipped out of me.

I shoved the phone back in my pocket.

I limped toward the park's exit.

Every step sent a sharp stab through my knee.

Blood mixed with grit, sticking to my skin, filthy and raw.

But my heart had never been so calm.

Like a pool of dead water that could never ripple again.

The exit was bright with lights, crowds coming and going.

I flagged down a taxi and gave the driver my friend's address.

We hadn't gotten far before Dustin called.

I hit decline.

He called again.

I hit decline again.

After a few rounds of that, he sent a text.

"Jane Pruitt, what are you throwing a fit about now?"

I looked at the line and felt nothing but the irony of it.

Right. In his eyes, all my hurt and resentment was just me throwing a fit.

Then a second message popped up.

"Vi's heart is acting up. The doctor wants to keep her for observation, and I can't get away. Go home first. We'll talk when I'm back."

Viola Pruitt again.

Always Viola.

My sister, Viola.

She was born with a heart condition, and from the time we were small she'd been everyone's precious thing.

Dustin included.

I blocked him on messaging and dragged his number into the block list too.

The world went quiet all at once.

The taxi pulled up outside my friend Melinda Sullivan's building, and I paid and got out.

Melinda came rushing down the second I called, and when she saw the state of me, especially the knees still bleeding, she jumped.

"Oh my God! Were you off fighting a war? Where's Dustin?"

"We broke up."

I said it flatly, like it had nothing to do with me.

Melinda froze, then slapped her thigh.

"Good riddance! A man carrying a torch for his girlfriend's sister? What would you keep him around for?"

She helped me upstairs, dug out the first-aid kit, and carefully cleaned the wound.

The sting of the antiseptic made me shudder head to toe.

Melinda cursed the whole time. "Easy, easy, hang in there. Dustin, that blind idiot, a whole grown person falls flat on the ground in front of him and he doesn't see it? Are his eyes just for show?"

I didn't say anything, just stared at my knee.

The wound came clean, laying bare the raw, ugly mess of it.

Hideous.

Melinda smoothed on ointment and wrapped it in gauze.

"There. Keep it out of water for a few days." She packed the supplies away, then couldn't help asking, "You really broke up this time? Not just talk?"

"Really."

I sank into the couch, feeling like every bit of strength had been wrung out of me.

Three years ago, in that crash, all three of us were in the car.

The car was crushed out of shape, and I was pinned in the passenger seat with a broken leg.

Dustin climbed out of the driver's seat, and the first thing he did was pull open the back door.

He carried the unconscious Viola out and got her onto the ambulance.

Only then did he come back.

The firefighters were cutting the car apart while he stood off to one side, watching me through the shattered glass.

I was in so much pain I was close to passing out, but I still forced a smile at him.

"I'm fine."

He didn't say anything, just his eyes went red.

I thought it was because it hurt him to see me like that.

Later I understood. It was fear catching up with him.

Fear that something might have happened to Viola.

I waited in that wrecked car a full forty minutes.

Forty minutes is long enough for a heart to go from scalding to ice-cold.

After that, it felt like everything changed.

And also, like nothing had changed at all.

He'd only taken that favoritism and moved it out of the shadows and into the open.