Chapter 1
Breelynn
I knew before the key turned.
It was in the air—the wrong kind of quiet, the kind that swallows sound instead of holding it. My heels clicked on the hardwood and each step sounded like I was tapping a glass that had already cracked. A jacket I didn’t recognize lay slung over the banister. A trail of clothes dotted the hallway—his shirt, a sweater I’d seen on my best friend a dozen times.
No. Not this. Not them.
A breath that wasn’t mine floated down the stairs. Then another, low and breathless, and a soft, strangled syllable that made my stomach turn to ice.
I climbed. My hand hovered over the banister because I didn’t trust my legs. Don’t open the door, I told myself. Don’t look. Pretend you didn’t see the sweater. Pretend you didn’t hear—
A sound—sharper, helpless—cut through the house.
I pushed the bedroom door open.
The world narrowed to a bed, tangled sheets, bare skin. His body moving. Her hands on his shoulders like she needed an anchor. Their faces—my husband’s face, the one I’d kissed a thousand times—flushed and startled, whipped toward me, everything in the room jolting out of rhythm.
For a beat, nobody breathed.
Then I did. I dragged in air so fast it scorched.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
They scrambled. He fumbled backward, reaching for anything to throw over them. She clutched the sheet to her chest, her hair stuck to her cheeks, her mouth already shaping my name like it could save her.
“Bree—”
“Don’t.” The word shook out of me like a warning siren. My hand found the lamp on the nightstand. I didn’t plan the next part. I just needed something to break. The lamp smashed against the wall in a burst of shattering glass. A slice of silence fell with it, and my pulse roared in the space it left.
“It’s not—” she tried again, tears spilling, voice shaking.
“Not what it looks like?” I laughed, sharp and hollow, because what else do you do when your life snaps in two? “You’re in my bed with my husband’s dick inside you. What the fuck do you think it looks like?”
She sobbed harder, shoulders curling in. “I didn’t mean for it to happen—”
“Didn’t mean?” I grabbed a picture frame, flinging it to the floor. Glass shattered around my heels. “You were supposed to be my sister. My family. My best friend!”
My husband held his hands out, pleading. “Bree, please, listen. It was a mistake, a stupid—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I lunged, shoving him back. My chest heaved, rage boiling until I thought it might crack my ribs.
Then her voice broke through again, small and shaky, but brutal.
“I’m pregnant.”
The room stilled. My heart stopped.
I stared at her, the words ricocheting inside me. Pregnant. With him.
She whimpered, curling tighter into the sheets. “I found out last week. I didn’t know how to tell you—”
The sound I made was part scream, part sob. I ripped the pillow from the bed, hurling it at her face. “And you guys still decided to fuck around, in my bed!"
My husband rushed forward again, trying to grab my arms, his voice desperate. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, Bree. We can fix this—”
“Fix this? FIX THIS?” My throat tore on the words. “You blew up my life and you think we can just patch it? Are you for fucking real? You’re pathetic.”
My palm flew before I even thought. The slap cracked across his face, his head snapping to the side.
Silence followed, heavy and suffocating. My chest rose and fell like I’d just skated a marathon program. My husband blinked at me, stunned, one hand pressed to his cheek.
I didn’t wait for him to speak again.
I yanked a duffel bag from the closet, shoved in the bare minimum—wallet, keys, phone—and stormed past them both. My so-called friend sobbed in the sheets, my husband muttered broken apologies, but I didn’t look back.
The front door slammed behind me so hard the frame rattled. I didn’t stop to fix it.
I drove.
I woke to the hum of the plane and my own pulse banging against my ribs. The seatbelt cut across my waist; the overhead light flicked on with that soft ding that says there’s an ending and a beginning in the next few minutes. For a second, the cabin swam. I stared at the felted gray of the seat in front of me until it settled back into one thing instead of three.
Just a dream, I told myself. The worst kind—true.
I lifted the shade. White sprawled below us—fields brushed with snow, a dark thread of river stitched through. Somewhere down there, Maple Falls was waiting.
