Chapter 2

The first three days felt less like a broken heart than like withdrawal.

Every morning, I reached for my phone, expecting Adrian's good-morning text. At the convenience store, I almost picked up his usual black coffee. When a ridiculous video made me laugh, my thumb hovered over the share button until I remembered there was no longer an us to send it to.

I had blocked him everywhere and moved into a temporary room in my high school's dormitory while I got ready to leave Pierton. Adrian never came looking for me. He assumed I would cool off, unblock him, and apologize for causing a scene.

On the fourth morning, I dragged myself out of bed. I had already accepted Wesmuth University's early-admission offer; now I had to finish the enrollment paperwork, housing forms, and freshman orientation requirements before the fall term began.

I was on my way out of the dorm to the city library when I walked right into someone.

"Still not looking where you're going?"

Adrian grinned down at me. He was wearing the black shirt I had bought him and holding a paper bag from the potato-roll shop downtown, the one with a two-hour line on weekends.

"Still angry?" He pressed the warm bag against my cheek as though nothing had changed. "I didn't stay at the hotel. Sienna's roommate came to get her. I stood in line at five this morning for these. Will you forgive me, Mrs. Walker?"

That teasing name used to melt me. He knew it.

I stepped back. "We broke up."

His grin faltered, then came back. "Come on, Claire. I'll admit I didn't think it through. I hurt your feelings. But Sienna's our classmate. I was only trying to stop things from getting worse."

He took a thick envelope out of his bag and held it toward me.

Inside was an itinerary for a graduation trip to Sundale, along with two first-class tickets for the following Wednesday. Diving near Centora Island. Sunset at Coconut Bay. Dinner at the cliffside restaurant I had once shown him on my phone.

It was the trip I had described out loud for years while he nodded without glancing up from his work.

"I was swamped with competitions, and I neglected you," he said. "This time I'll switch off my phone. No calls, no favors, no interruptions. Just the two of us. We'll celebrate graduation and Wesmuth the right way."

I hated that I wavered. But eighteen years couldn't vanish just because I had finally said two words outside a bar.

I studied the itinerary, then him. "Can you really do it? Just one trip where you don't leave me waiting because Sienna needs something?"

"I promise." He lifted one hand. "I won't go back on my word."

I accepted the envelope, but not the food.

"Then I'll see you at the airport next Wednesday."

His relief showed far too fast. He believed he had already won me back.

I knew better. I hadn't forgiven him. I had simply handed him one clear choice.