The Cost Of Loving You

The Rearview Mirror of Forever

I always thought twenty-five was supposed to be the threshold of a "real" life.

It was the age of milestones—marriage, a climbing career, perhaps a house with a yard and a tire swing.

It was supposed to feel solid, like granite under my feet.

Instead, as I stood frozen in the doorway of my own apartment, the floor felt like thin glass, spider-webbing beneath me until it finally shattered.

Brandon was twenty-seven. My fiancé. My almost-husband.

The man I was supposed to stand before in three weeks to exchange vows that now felt like ash in my mouth.

And Chloe—my best friend since we were twelve, the girl who had held my hair back when I was sick and cheered the loudest at my graduation—was tangled up with him in the very sheets I'd picked out at Target.

Her blonde hair, usually a comfort, was spilled across his chest like some kind of cruel, abstract painting.

I didn't scream. I didn't throw the heavy glass vase I was holding, though my knuckles were white from the grip.

I didn't even cry. I just stood there for one breath, then another, waiting for the room to stop spinning.

They hadn't noticed me yet; they were too lost in their own betrayal.

Maybe that was the only grace I'd been given—the chance to witness the murder of my future without having to hear them apologize for the weapon.

Before Brandon's head could lift, or Chloe's laughter could catch in her throat, I turned around. I walked out. Not just of the bedroom. Not just of the apartment. I walked out of the life I'd spent seven years convincing myself I wanted.

I'm Aubrey Collins. I'm twenty-five years old, the daughter of a small-town diner owner and the little sister to Anthony Collins, the most overprotective man to ever wear a firefighter's uniform.

I left home at eighteen with Chloe by my side, two girls chasing a skyline, believing the city was going to polish us into diamonds.

For a while, it did. We had the college degrees, the entry-level jobs, the late nights fueled by cheap wine and expensive dreams.

Then I met Brandon. He was steady. Dependable. The kind of man who remembered my coffee order and promised me a "forever" that felt safe. Now, that forever looked like a greasy lie I couldn't scrub off my skin.

By the time Brandon realized I was gone—by the time Chloe would inevitably send her first frantic text filled with tearful emojis and hollow excuses—I was already moving on autopilot. I didn't have the energy for a confrontation. I just had the instinct to survive.

I packed a single suitcase. I bypassed the professional blazers and the high heels, grabbing instead my favorite worn-in jeans, a few cotton dresses, and my makeup bag.

I hesitated at the photo album on the nightstand, then shoved it in.

I hated it, but I couldn't leave it behind; it was a ghost I wasn't ready to exorcise.

I didn't leave a note. I didn't want my words to be the last thing they tucked away in their memories.

I wanted my silence to be the loudest thing about me.

I changed my phone number before the sun even hit the horizon. By dawn, I was at the station, buying a one-way bus ticket with trembling hands.

As the city skyline began to shrink in the rearview mirror, I realized I was headed back to the one place I swore I'd never return to: Willow Creek. The town I'd run from because it felt too small for my ambitions. The town that knew every one of my mistakes before I'd even finished making them.

Willow Creek was where Anthony still worked at the firehouse, his life dedicated to saving people who didn't want to be saved. It was where my mom still served coffee and blackberry pie at the diner on Main Street, her apron always smelling like cinnamon and hard work.

And it was the town where Nick Harrison lived.

Nick was Anthony's best friend, fifteen years my senior, and a permanent fixture in the landscape of my life.

At forty, he was the kind of man who never blended into the background, no matter how much he tried to.

He had broad shoulders that seemed built to carry the weight of the world, and dark hair that had begun to sprout flecks of silver at the temples—a detail that only made him look more grounded.

Ink wound up his arms like a map of stories he refused to tell.

When I was a teenager, Nick was the shadow on the porch who terrified any boy brave enough to ask me out. To Anthony, he was a brother. To me, he was... off-limits. He was the "Uncle" who wasn't an uncle, the man I wasn't allowed to notice, and the person who had seen me at my most vulnerable.

I pressed my forehead against the cool bus window as the miles of highway blurred into green forests. The ache in my chest hadn't eased. If anything, it had migrated, curling deep in my stomach until I felt physically ill.

Brandon and Chloe. The words were a poison I couldn't spit out. But there was something else, too—a secret heavier than the suitcase in the overhead bin.

Two pink lines.

I'd found out just three days ago. I hadn't told Brandon yet; I'd been waiting for the "perfect" moment, a romantic dinner, a quiet evening. I'd barely had time to process it myself. Twenty-five, no job, no husband, no best friend—and a baby. My baby.

My hand slipped down to my stomach, fingers splaying over the flat skin. It didn't look different yet, but everything beneath the surface had been rewired. I wasn't going back to Willow Creek to beg for Brandon's forgiveness or to fight Chloe for some twisted version of loyalty.

I was going home because I needed the air that smelled like pine and woodsmoke. I was going home because I needed my mother's arms, even if I couldn't find the words to tell her why. I was going home to start over from the literal ground up.

And maybe, just maybe, I was going home to collide with Nick Harrison in a way that neither of us was prepared for.