Prologue
PAST
ARIA
“Three… two… one. Happy New Year!”
Standing next to the Wishing Tree, shivers dance along my spine as the chilly wind perforates through the thin wool of my peacoat. I flip the collar up and adjust my scarf as the wind whips the tiny snow flurries around and around like dancing wood sprites.
“I’m so sorry, Aria.”
I watch Mason’s tall silhouette disappear into the crowd of people.
Fireworks boom overhead, illuminating the snowy night sky with a rainbow of colors that fall to earth in a waterfall of sparkles. The cacophonic din of exuberant, drunken cheers explodes around me. Passionate kisses abound, celebratory hugs are passed around, and resolutions are made with good intentions as people—some are students like me who came back early from holiday break or never left, while others are locals or tourists—gather in the central quad of Carolina University to welcome in the new year with excitement. Happy peoplewith wide smiles fill my blurred vision, and I swipe at the icy snowflakes that dust my wet cheeks and melt into my tears.
I thought I’d be one of these people. Full of cheer and excited for a brand-new year to begin. I thought I’d be ringing in the new year withhim. The man I loved. The first man I ever trusted enough to give my heart to. The man who promised he would protect my fragile heart and never break it.
But Mason McIntyre is a liar.
He didn’t protect my heart. He obliterated it.
I look up at the Wishing Tree adorned with hundreds of paper stars. Its limbs are barren of leaves which make the dancing pieces of paper tied on with string that much more fantastical. Like something from a children’s fairytale.
The Wishing Tree is an old oak tree that stands in the center of the main quad on campus. Several years ago, three students decorated the tree with string lights and hung silver paper stars from its branches in memorandum of a friend they’d lost, or so the story goes. Since then, it’s become a tradition for students to hang paper stars along its many branches—stars they write their most desired wish on. Once the paper disintegrates, eaten away by rain and the elements, your wish is supposed to come true.
How many wishes had Mason and I hung on this tree? Dozens?
I saw Mason for the first time as I sat under the tree’s shade reading a book. He gave me my first kiss under the lights of its branches. And standing next to the tree, he broke my heart just moments ago as the gentle snow started to fall while revelers counted down from ten to one.
My gloved hands fumble with the zipper of my small backpack purse. The steamy vapor of my breath in the freezing air occludes my vision even more than the damn tears that won’t stop. When I finally get the zipper undone, I rummage around the haphazard contents until I find a pen and a napkin that Icompletely forgot I had in there. It’s from the restaurant Mason took me to for our first date. The irony will do nicely.
Using my thigh to perch the napkin on, I scribble out a wish, barely legible because of how badly my hands are shaking. I shouldn’t have worn this dress on such a cold night, but I wanted to look pretty for him. I thought the dark red color complemented my jet-black hair and green eyes. Christmas colors. At least I had the foresight to wear leather low-heeled boots and not the strappy stilettos my best friend, Kama, suggested when I videoed her earlier in a panic about what to do with my hair.
Rising on tiptoe, I impale the napkin on a dormant terminal bud of a twig, stabbing it directly in the center of the heart I drew. How symbolic.
“What did you wish for?” a girl asks, her eyes glassy and her words slurred.
What did I wish for?
I wished I’d never laid eyes on Mason McIntyre.
Chapter 1
PRESENT DAY
MASON
Dropping the heavy moving box onto the white-painted wood of the wide veranda, I lift my damp T-shirt and wipe the sheen of sweat from my brow.
A shrill whistle sounds from the front walkway. “Showing off the ab porn already. You’ll give the little old lady next door a heart attack. She’s already been creepy peeping with her binoculars from the window for the last hour.”
I look over to my left and sure enough, Mrs. Taylor is standing in her living room bay window, staring, while her tabby cat, Buttons, perches on the windowsill and lazily licks itself. I wave, and she smiles a dentured smile before letting the curtains fall back into place.
“She’s harmless,” I tell Carter.
With a chin lift, he gestures at my other neighbor’s house. The one with the cherry red door and black shutters. “Have you seen—”
I abruptly cut him off. “No. And drop it.”
