Prologue
DOMINIC
I didn’t see the end coming until it was too late.
Ellie had been acting off all weekend, but I’d chalked it up to stress. Spring finals were around the corner, and after we got through them, everything would be fine. We’d spend the summer traversing Western Europe, just the two of us, soaking up every moment together before the next school year began. I let her pick each stop, curating our itinerary, because I didn’t give a shit where we went—wherever she was, I wanted to be.
Life and circumstances forced us to attend different colleges. Ellie tried to convince me it would be fun, that we would have more authentic college experiences apart. I didn’t care about an authentic college experience when it meant being away from her. Despite the distance, we’d found a way to stay connected. Our universities shared a study abroad program, and from the moment we discovered it, we’d made a pact: every summer would be an adventure, together.
Sometimes, I miss the version of me who believed that was enough. Who thought we’d always be enough.
“Bro, there’s something wrong with your girl,” Brett, my roommate, announced from the doorway of our dorm. His eyes were glazed and heavy-lidded from his standard beer and blunt for breakfast.
“What do you mean, ‘wrong’? Like, sick?” My lips pressed together as a gnawing sensation creeped into my chest.
He shrugged. “Tiff saw her crying in the bathroom.”
That got my attention. Ellie wasn’t a crier. I’d seen her cry before, but as we had gotten older, she’d gotten in the habit of locking those feelings away—until the pressure built too much, and she finally broke. If she was crying now, something was seriously wrong.
“When the fuck was this?” I snapped, already on edge.
Brett blinked, startled. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Dom.”
I was out of my chair before he finished speaking. It clattered to the floor behind me, but I didn’t care. If Ellie was upset, I needed to find her.
I was done tiptoeing around whatever was going on with her this weekend. Honesty had always been the foundation of our relationship—since the beginning, back when we were just kids.
When I was seven, my parents finally achieved their American dream of owning a home. I didn’t want to move because it meant starting over at a new school. They bought an old farmhouse with a couple hundred acres of neglected land. The house was crumbling, the fields overgrown, and to me and my older brother, Adrian, the whole place looked like a dump. But to my parents, it was full of potential—something they saw clearly, even if we couldn’t.
The day we moved in, I set out to explore what I reluctantly considered my new playground. What I found instead was the most stunning pair of green eyes I’d ever seen, as translucent as green sea glass. To this day, those eyes are impossible to forget.
Crouched by the weathered railroad tie fence dividing our properties, tall, gangly, all elbows and attitude, was Elyse Ledger, the girl next door.
We became friends that day—or, more accurately, I said hi, and she promptly decided we were going to be best friends. And we were, despite our differences. My parents were immigrants, and our life was modest. The Ledgers, on the other hand, were practically local royalty—wealthy, well-connected, and pillars of the community. Ellie could’ve easily been a spoiled brat, but she wasn’t.
Instead of just growing up alongside one another, we grew into each other. Our lives wove together so tightly that I couldn’t imagine mine without her. As kids, we spent every free moment playing. As we got older, our parents started enforcing rules about how much time we spent alone and keeping doors open when we hung out. Our innocent minds didn’t understand what our parents clearly saw coming. Even then, they couldn’t stop the inevitable.
In seventh grade, we went to our first boy-girl party. Ellie was a bundle of nerves, convinced by teen movies it would devolve into a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. We both knew everything about each other—including the fact that neither of us had been kissed. I don’t think I had fully processed my feelings for her at the time, but the thought of another boy getting to be her first kiss made my chest ache in a way I couldn’t grasp yet. So, I suggested we get it over with—kiss each other.
To my surprise, she didn’t argue. She agreed like it was the best idea in the world. And so, at the very fence where we’d first met, it happened. It was awkward and barely lasted a second, but I was her first, and she was mine. I liked that more than I was ready to admit. In true Ellie fashion, she brushed it off like it was no big deal and acted as if it never happened for over two years .
It wasn’t until an upperclassman invited her to prom at the end of our freshman year of high school that something in me finally snapped. It was hard enough watching my friends start to notice her, seeing her go on dates, but this was different. He was older, popular, and Ellie was easily the most beautiful girl in school.
I couldn’t stop her from going, but I spent the entire night pacing the road in front of the Ledger house, imagining the worst. Was he touching her? Kissing her? Did she like him? I was spiraling, and I think her parents knew it because they didn’t throw me off their property, like they should have.
When the limo finally pulled up at midnight, I exhaled a sigh of relief as she stepped out alone. The moment her eyes found mine, her shoulders dropped, noticeably releasing tension. And I stood suspended in time, unable to tear my eyes off her—she was breathtaking. The dress hugged her body in all the places I’d only dreamed of touching, her hair and makeup flawless, like she’d walked straight out of a dream. The sight of her hit me hard, stealing the air from my lungs.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, not at all surprised to see me, in fact it looked like she was expecting me.
I shrugged, attempting to play it cool. “I wanted to make sure you made it home okay.”
She laughed quietly as her heels echoed against the pavement the closer she got to me.
“Where’s your date?” I tried my best to not make the word date sound like a bad word, but I’m sure it came out sounding something close to disgust.
Her forehead creased. “He got sick. It was super weird, one minute he was fine, and the next he was puking his guts out.”
I wasn’t as religious as my extremely Catholic upbringing would suggest, but I thanked God in that moment, that the big man upstairs had been looking out for me, and gave her date a stomach bug, or more likely a mild case of alcohol poisoning.
“That’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear that.”
She scoffed. “No you’re not.”
Her head tilted, assessing me, as if those clear green eyes of hers could see right through me. And maybe they could, maybe I wasn’t as good at hiding it as I thought I was.
A rush of nerves coursed within me. I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have feelings for Ellie, but a shift had happened recently. It changed from a mild crush on my best friend, to full-blown feelings. I thought about her constantly, wanted her constantly, but there was a lot of risk in making it known—in crossing the line. I didn’t want to lose her as my best friend, and she’d never given me any indication there were feelings on her end.
“Seriously, I wanted you to have fun.”
She came closer, close enough for me to get clouded with the smell of warm amber coming off her skin. “Why are you waiting for me?”
I swallowed the non-existent saliva in my mouth. “I told you, to make sure?—”
“Tell me the truth,” she whispered. Her glowing gaze locked with mine, refusing to let go.
The tension between us felt thicker than it had ever felt before. She got even closer to me and the beads of her dress made contact with my T-shirt. My fingers twitched, itching to touch her.
“If I tell you the truth,” I said quietly. “You might not like it. It might change everything.”
She dipped her chin, studying me with a curious expression. Then she smiled—a smile so different from any I’d ever gotten from her before, it might as well have set me on fire. My skin burned under its warmth. “I think I’ll like it,” she said.
Either I was imagining things, or she was giving me a clear opening. Before I could second-guess it and risk losing my window, I closed the space between us and kissed her. The weight of every worst-case scenario I’d imagined had been driving me insane, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. This time, it wasn’t awkward or fleeting. She froze for a moment, then melted into me like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her arms wound around my neck, pulling me closer, and I was completely gone.
We kissed slowly, exploring each other, testing boundaries. I wanted all of her at once, and it took every ounce of self-discipline I possessed to not go further.
After hours or minutes—I wasn’t sure because time lost all meaning with my axis completely tilted in this new world—she pulled back, smiling softly at me, her eyes dazzling under the starry sky.
“Took you long enough.”
Before I could reply, she yanked me by my T-shirt and crashed her lips to mine. Not slow, not exploratory, she knew exactly what she wanted. And I wanted it too. Badly.
That night changed everything. I’d been terrified my feelings would ruin our friendship, only to realize her feelings were just as strong. From then on, we were together. There was no awkward transition, no questioning what we were—it was seamless. The only thing that changed was my relationship with her brothers, who weren’t thrilled their buddy was now their sister’s boyfriend. It took some time, but eventually they realized I was pathetically in love with her, that I wanted to marry her one day, even though we were so young.
Forever with Ellie felt destined. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind she was the one. And while I still held strong to the belief we were forever, I couldn’t ignore that something was going on with her. And I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
We needed to talk before she left to go back to school. I wasn’t going to let her go without understanding why she’d been distant since she had arrived. If I was being honest, it wasn’t just this visit—she’d been acting strange for the past month. Little pieces of her had been slipping away, just beyond my reach, no matter how hard I tried to hold on.
After storming out of my dorm, I found her in the bathroom, hunched over the sink. Her hands gripped the edges of the counter like it was the only thing holding her up. When she looked at me in the mirror, her red, swollen eyes nearly stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t tell if she’d been crying, or puking, or both.
“What’s wrong, Ellie girl?” I asked, my voice quiet, worried if I spoke too loudly she’d spook.
She shook her head, breaking eye contact. “I think I’m going to go,” she murmured.
“Go?” I repeated, confused. “It’s late. You’re not feeling well. You’re not driving anywhere tonight.”
Her eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but at me. Unable to stand the space between us, I wrapped her in my arms. I told myself it was to comfort her, but really, I was the one who needed the comfort, trying to hold on to her as best as I could.
Everyone warned us long distance would be hard, but fuck, it was so hard. Every other weekend, we traded off who would make the five-hour drive across the state. On top of being exhausting and expensive, it was stressful, juggling school on top of all of it. Every time we had to go our separate ways, I questioned if my scholarship was even worth it. Transferring schools and taking on a student loan seemed a lot easier than being away from each other. Even though I knew my parents were set on me staying and graduating from WSU, I’d already started looking into transferring. I couldn’t do four years of this—we couldn’t withstand it.
“Talk to me. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong.” I held her tightly, breathing her in.
For a beat, the tension uncoiled from her, and she relaxed into me, only to stiffen back up just as quickly.
She pulled away and took a noticeable step back. “And that’s the problem. You can’t fix it, and I don’t want you to.”
“I don’t understand.” I raked a hand through my hair, wanting so badly to see things through her eyes.
“There’s nothing to understand. I just—I just can’t. I can’t breathe.” She took a deep, choking breath, her chest trembling between inhales.
I’d never seen her this way and it was terrifying. I went to rub her shoulder, trying to offer comfort, but she brushed me away.
She’d never resisted my touch. The sting of her rejection felt like a stab.
“Ellie, you’re scaring me.” My own voice shook. My entire body was shaking. I thought I knew everything about her. I’d spent years learning to decipher her veiled expressions, read between the lines, and see through her carefully constructed walls. I knew Ellie, but I didn’t know this Ellie.
“Why don’t you go lie down and rest, you’re clearly not feeling well.”
Her head snapped at me. “So now you think you can tell me what to do?”
Her tone was unrecognizable. She was a force, never one to back down, but we didn’t speak to each other like this. This wasn’t her. It wasn’t us.
“Ellie, talk to me. Please.” I stepped closer. “I want to understand. Help me understand so we can figure this out.” Gathering her face in my hands, I stroked my thumbs over her tear-stained cheekbones. “Querida mía, let me in,” I rasped.
Her eyes were pleading at me even if her body was retreating. A war was raging inside of her, but I was feeling more and more like the casualty.
Slipping away from me again, her expression hardened as she moved away. I followed her back to my dorm room, my stomach sinking deeper with every step.
When she turned to face me, her glassy eyes were distant, looking at me, but not really.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said quietly.
Her words hit like a punch, taking my breath. “What are you saying? Are you breaking up with me?” I said it almost like a joke, because it seemed ridiculous, despite my pulse heating in panic beneath my skin.
She didn’t answer, but the slow nod of her head was deafening.
My voice cracked. “Is there someone else?”
Her eyes flashed to mine, red and full of hurt. “What?! No, never. There’s no one else,” she said firmly. “I just…I can’t be with you. I need to be alone.”
I couldn’t process it. There was no world where Ellie and I weren’t together.
But when I looked around my dorm, I saw it—her stuff was gone. Even the stuff she usually kept here. She’d packed while I wasn’t paying attention, removing every trace of herself from my life. The necklace I bought her with our initials—the one she never took off—was sitting on my nightstand. This wasn’t impulsive. She’d planned to leave. To leave me.
My blood turned to ice, the shock of what I was seeing—what I knew was happening without fully realizing it yet.
“I love you,” I choked out, desperation creeping into my voice.
“I love you, too,” she said with a quiver, heavy tears streaming down her face—dropping her head, still avoiding my gaze.
And then she walked out the door. I stood stunned, in disbelief at what had just happened.
By the time I came to my senses and chased after her, she was already in her car. I banged on her window, begging her to stop, to stay, to explain. She didn’t.
And just like that, she was gone.
I didn’t know she would cut me out of her life completely. I didn’t know the gravity of what had occurred.
Not yet.
Six years passed before I saw her again.
It would take another four years before I’d get the chance to fight for her. And this time, I wouldn’t let her go.