Chapter 1
ONE
Five years later
The mile-long trip from Leah’s new apartment in NoHo to the office building on Park Avenue was the perfect way to experience fall in New York.
The morning frost and vivid foliage only deepened her love for the city.
A thick pair of socks and a smoking-hot cup of the season’s finest hot chocolate helped keep her hands warm on the walk.
After a week of said walk, Leah tried taking a car.
But despite her father’s insistence she use the company vehicle, sitting in traffic angered her more than being shoved by a disgruntled local on the sidewalk.
She didn’t take it personally. After a couple of weeks, she realized New Yorkers weren’t rude—they were just late. For everything.
Leah now considered herself a New Yorker.
She was working in the city, paying a sickening amount of rent, and understood the chaos that erupted Monday through Friday on any corner, of any street, outside any coffee shop.
When ninety percent of the people surrounding you were tourists, getting to work was an extreme sport.
She was no stranger to the city. Leah had been lucky enough to visit at least twice a year.
She’d spent many holidays and school breaks here with her father, owner and founder of Douglas Green Advisory Group.
Douglas was a clever man. Leah had always admired his work ethic, even if it was likely the reason her parents’ marriage hadn’t survived.
The company specialized in investment management, life insurance, retirement planning, debt management—basically all the mundane parts of life no one wanted to deal with, but eventually had to.
After thirty-five years in business, her father finally convinced her to join him in New York.
A position as “Advisor to the CEO” had conveniently become available.
Leah knew that wasn’t a real role. It was a glorified assistant.
But her dad was adamant she learn the CEO’s day-to-day itinerary in preparation for her inevitable takeover.
She was an only child. Her mom had trouble getting pregnant after the complications with Leah—strike two on the failed marriage scorecard.
Leah had always wished for a sibling, but her father was even more upset his wife hadn’t given him a boy—not in a 1500s Henry VIII sort of way, but it was a factor.
He loved Leah more than anything—she was his pride and joy—but she didn’t have the desire to run his company the way he’d always hoped his offspring would.
A week after her thirty-fifth birthday, she packed two large suitcases with anything of significance from her apartment in Michigan and hopped on a plane bound for Manhattan.
Leah had reached a standstill in her career as Vice President of Marketing.
The title sounded glamorous, but in reality, she worked for an obscure charity with creative PR strategies, minimal funding, and aspirations of becoming as well-known as Make-A-Wish.
Leah took a salary like everyone else—definitely inflated by family allowance—but she insisted on paying for her own apartment and living modestly.
She’d never asked her father for much. Growing up, she was given everything she could’ve wanted, but once she left the nest, she was determined to stand on her own two feet—aside from the down payment on her first apartment.
She could’ve lived the penthouse life. Five Chihuahuas in Louis Vuitton carriers, a personal chef, and friends who only stuck around because she had status. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted a simple life.
Office management didn’t quite know what to make of her.
They were suspicious of her intentions—and probably her work ethic.
They watched her daily, waiting for a chance to chew her up and spit her back out.
She tried to win them over with mints and promises of Free Doughnut Fridays. So far, it hadn’t worked.
She was two blocks from the office when the rain started.
It hadn’t been forecast—but when was it ever?
New York had a pompous, narcissistic approach to weather.
It gave a daily middle finger to its eight million residents, just because it could.
If the city had a voice, it would shout, “Predict this, mother fu—” and laugh like a hyena.
Thankfully, Leah had embraced her mom bag.
What’s a mom bag, you ask?
After day two—when she mistakenly wore a thin white knitted jumper to work with no coat, tricked by a deceptively sunny sky—she endured the humiliation now referred to as White Jumper-gate.
A kind stranger with a pushchair didn’t laugh as Leah awkwardly bent under the coffee shop hand dryer.
Instead, she offered her a sympathetic nod and one of many helpful items from her cavernous bag.
Now, Leah unzipped her own oversized brown tote, pulled out an umbrella, tied her hair to one side, and tugged on gloves that would save her fingers from the ice-cold rain.
The timing was perfect. The umbrella offered the cover she needed to avoid a group of women walking directly toward her.
They were deep in conversation and passed by without a glance. Her heart dropped.
Making friends as an adult was tough. Leah missed her consistent group of friends in Michigan—well, she missed the group they’d been three years ago.
One by one, they got married, had children, relocated.
Group chats fell silent. Holiday get-togethers were replaced by family trips to the zoo or Disneyland.
Leah didn’t want to go to Disneyland. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything worse than wandering chaotic, snot-infested parks pretending to like her friends’ children when she was pretty sure each had been possessed by a low-level demon sent to quietly wreak havoc on life.
Since arriving in New York, it had been hard to form any new meaningful connections.
She’d tried. She met the group of girls who’d just walked past at a work event.
The open bar gave her the confidence to strike up conversation, and the night had felt like a night to remember, cliché as that sounded.
She had a blast—drunk enough to forget her inhibitions, but sober enough to read the room and make good choices.
That night was followed by Sunday brunch, a walk around Central Park, and an invite to Wednesday-night drinks.
Things took a turn when the conversation shifted to LGBTQ+ rights and the wave of new state laws targeting trans people.
Leah argued that the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage could be overturned without continued activism.
One girl replied, “I’m not homophobic, but—” which, as any queer person knows, is a red flag the size of Times Square.
Leah shut down immediately. Maybe she didn’t need friends after all.
Romantic connection proved just as difficult.
She took a trial-and-error approach to dating.
Aside from a brief two-month fling the year before, Leah had been single for over five years.
Did she even know how to date anymore? She asked herself this each time she arrived home bloated, emotionally drained, and ready to tuck into the cherry pie she’d picked up on the way back.
Ironically, as she turned off Lexington Avenue, Taylor Swift’s Welcome to New York played through her headphones like the unprompted soundtrack of her life. The song felt so relevant now, but she could never quite hear it without the reminder.
It reminded her of Ariana.
It had been five years since Leah last saw her. Half a decade. That was enough time to earn a degree, travel the world, build a career. Enough time to hit personal milestones, get married, buy a house.
A lot can change in five years. A group of friends can grow apart. Love can blossom. Life can knock you down a few times.
But the scariest part of half a decade isn’t what did happen.
No. For Leah, it would always be what could’ve happened.
After torturing herself with three more songs from Ariana’s favourite album, Leah strolled into work feeling deflated. Five years had passed, and she still thought about her every single day. Nobody seemed to understand. Not even her therapist.
She went through a phase of waking at 6 a.m. to go running in an attempt to clear her mind. She spent more time with family and friends. She threw herself into work, volunteered when she could, and dedicated an absurd amount of time to her new hobby—learning French.
On the off chance she decided to move to Paris, she wanted to be able to converse with the locals.
It wasn’t something she’d considered in much detail, but she’d once stumbled across a French-language film.
Two hours later, she didn’t understand a word, could barely follow the plot, but had fallen in love with the setting and the swoon-worthy language.
The truth? Leah was terrified of being hurt again.
She still clung to a quiet, delusional hope that one day Ariana would realize she’d made a mistake.
Leah had considered reaching out, but pride always overruled impulse.
Her last two-month relationship had ended because she couldn’t let go of the past. And while Leah considered herself smart—she didn’t need a therapist to tell her what she already knew—letting go was proving harder than she’d anticipated.
Heartache had a way of reducing the world to just two people. And some days, it felt like a lonely, torturous injustice.
She breezed past security and took the elevator to the fifteenth floor. She liked to arrive early—sometimes even before her father—so she could prepare for the day. But this morning hadn’t allowed for that luxury, and she knew it would be the talk of the office.
The floor buzzed with professionals already deep into their routines. Some were on calls, others hunched over laptops or clustered in meeting rooms. The pace was brisk and intense—nothing like her old job. The challenge thrilled her. The office politics did not.