Prologue: Hazel- Five years ago
Iwake up before dawn and know immediately that I need to leave.
The house is too quiet.
The wrong kind of quiet.
The kind that makes your chest tight and your thoughts too loud.
He's still asleep beside me. I can tell from the steady rhythm of his breathing, the warmth of him taking up space in a bed that's supposed to be just mine.
Has always been just mine.
Until last night.
I stare at the ceiling and try not to think about it.
About the way he'd looked at me when he finally said it. When he finally put words to the thing we'd been dancing around since we were teenagers.
I love you, Haze. I've always loved you.
Three months after my father's funeral.
Three months of me barely holding it together, and he chose last night to crack us both wide open.
My body still remembers his hands. The weight of him. The way I'd pulled him closer even though some part of me—some quiet, reasonable part—knew it was the wrong time.
Wrong timing.
Wrong everything.
But grief makes you reckless. Makes you reach for anything that feels like relief, even when you know you'll pay for it later.
I'm paying for it now.
I turn my head just enough to look at him.
His face is unguarded in sleep. Peaceful in a way it never is when he's awake. One arm thrown out across the pillow, relaxed. His hat's on the bedside table, brim curved the way he likes it.
I used to steal that hat when we were kids.
Used to wear it while we trained horses together, while we competed, while we pretended the thing between us didn't exist.
If I stay, I'll have to talk about this.
Explain something I don't even understand myself.
Pretend I'm okay when every part of me is screaming that I'm not.
I can't do that.
Won't do that to him.
I slip out of bed as carefully as I can. The floor's cold under my bare feet. The boards creak—they always creak in this old house—but he doesn't stir.
I grab my clothes from the chair. Jeans. Sweater. Boots I can pull on fast.
My hands shake while I'm getting dressed.
