“Mrs. Criss?”
I blink and a single tear travels down my face, burning a trail until it falls off my chin.
My chest seizes with panic. My belly becomes a sinking stone. Dread weaves through me like a poisonous vine.
All I can do is shake my head over and over, because I don’t want to hear one single word they have to say. It’s not real if they don’t say it. I can pretend everything is going to be fine. That Trevor will be walking through the door, running over to me and sweeping me into his arms. Telling me he loves me and he can’t wait to start the family we’ve longed for all this time.
“She’s not Mrs. Criss?” one of them asks.
“She is,” Jason says, the concern in his voice revealing the gravity of the situation. “Chelsea, go find Regan and Maddie.Now.”
I barely register his words. It takes a minute for my mind to wrap around why he’d summon my best friends.
Oh, right… because I’m about to get the worst news of my life. Worse even than when my mom died. Because Trevor is my life. My love. My soulmate. The boy who stole my heart when I was thirteen years old and who’s held it in the palm of his hands for two decades. The man who is meant to be the father of my children. The backbone of our family. My protector.
“Is there someplace we can talk?” one of the uniformed soldiers asks.
Jason takes my elbow and escorts me into the back room.
I rip myself from his arms. “Not here,” I cry, tripping my way to the back door.
I’m not about to let these two men destroy me further and ruin the very place I love by tainting it with the memory of what’s about to happen.
I’m impervious to the biting cold, my body already numb, feeling nothing. A large down coat is placed around my shoulders as I sink to the ground. I look up at the men whose faces will undoubtedly haunt me for the rest of my life. “Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
“Ma’am—”
I hold up a hand. “No!”
A throat is cleared. “We’d like to extend our sincerest condolences as we’re deeply saddened to report to you the death of Major Trevor Jordan Criss.”
All the air is sucked from my lungs. Time stops. More words are spoken, but I don’t hear them. They don’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.
“Ava! Oh, my god.”
Maddie crumples to the ground next to me and wraps me in her arms. I push my head into her shoulder and let out a blood-curdling scream.
I don’t know how long she holds me until someone picks me up, carries me upstairs to my apartment, removes the huge coat, and deposits me on the couch. Regan is here now. And Carter. The soldiers talk some more and try to comfort me, but all I want to do is curl up into a ball and cease to exist.
Because who am I without him?
I’m nothing. No one. There is no Ava without Trevor. No me without him.
“I have to get out of here.”
“Where do you want to go?” Regan asks. “We’ll take you anywhere.”
“I need to be by myself.”
In a fog, I put on my coat then shuffle to my bedroom and open the drawer where I keep the box holding all of his letters dating back to the very first one he ever wrote me. I tuck it under my arm, knowing there’s only one place I want to be.
Chapter Two
My Sweet Ava,
Right after my plane took off and I looked out the window to see the Atlantic Ocean, I questioned everything. Why did I do this to us? How can I go the next seven months, and then the years to follow, without touching you? Kissing you? Making love to you under our tree? Why didn’t I just take out loans instead of letting the military pay for medical school?
The entire flight over I was sure I was going to book a return flight home the moment I landed and figure a way out of this without being thrown in the brig.
