prologue
JULIETTE
Running was never supposed to become my thing.
I’m not talking about the good kind of running either, where you buy expensive sneakers and track every mile. No, my specialty is the other kind. The messy, heart in your throat, bad decision kind of running. Theflighthalf of fight-or-flight.
It started seven years ago during my senior year of high school. Mom sat me down at our old wobbly kitchen table, her hands shaking, her voice thinner than I’d ever heard it. It was the first time I bolted.
“I’m so sorry, Juliette,” she whispered back then, as if the words would shatter me if she said them any louder.
One second I was sitting there, staring at the woman who was supposed to be unbreakable, and the next, I wasn’t. My feet moved before my brain could catch up. I ran out the door. Down the porch steps. Away from the house. And as far from those words as my feet could carry me.
I didn’t have a plan or a destination. I definitelydidn’t have the first clue of what the hell I was doing. All I knew was that staying felt impossible.
It was spineless of me to flee whensheneededme, but I didn’t know how to be strong. So, I ran.
I ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out. Until I found myself in a clearing I didn’t recognize, surrounded by nothing but the quiet wilderness and sky and the distant hush of wind through the trees.
And for a minute, I could almost pretend none of it was real.Almost.
As it turned out, I got pretty good at running. It was the stopping that proved to be difficult.
one
JULIETTE
Ipull into my driveway on my lunch break, already running through the plan—run inside, grab my bag of art supplies, and get back to work before anyone notices I’m gone. My usual spot is already taken by a car I don’t recognize.
It’s black and sleek, its exterior gleaming with a high-gloss shine that catches the sunlight in a way that’s almost blinding. Everything about the vehicle is unsettling. It’s too pristine, too perfect.
I can’t explain this uneasiness coursing through me. Maybe it’s the way the car looks out of place, or maybe it’s the nagging feeling that something’s off. I’ve been jumpy for weeks now, ever since I noticed a change in James, with his late nights out and quiet phone calls he likes to take in private. Still, I shake it off and tell myself I’m being ridiculous. That I’m tired. Paranoid. That it’s nothing.
He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Would he?
I swallow hard, but the question refuses to loosen its grip on my thoughts.Get out of the car, Juliette Miller.You’re spiraling.
It’s just a bag. The one I left smack in the middle of the dining room table during my usual morning circus act that consists of half a cup of forgotten coffee, keys nowhere to be found, hair still wet as I ran out the door muttering promises to myself about “getting it together.”
And now here I am, back in the driveway I already left once today, stewing in my own unease because my overworked brain forgot a stupid tote full of worksheets and markers.
My fingers close around the door handle, but my body…stalls. It’s like it knows something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet. I force myself out of the car, the weight of each step so heavy that my feet drag behind me. The air has an edge to it, too cool for spring but too warm for winter. It sneaks through my sweater and settles deep into my skin.
I climb the front steps on autopilot, push the front door open, and that’s when I hear it.
A laugh.
Light, musical, feminine, anddevastating. It slices through the silence and cracks me wide open with it.
Time stops as I step into the living room, each second dragging like molasses as I take in the scene before me. There, onourcouch, is my fiancé. He’s sprawled out, one arm slung casually behind his head, the other resting on the thigh of the woman currently draped over him like a sheet. She giggles as her nails trail down his chest with a familiarity that makes my stomach churn.
She’s bare. Glowing. Her platinum hair is tangled in a halo of sin with that messy, ruined look people wear when they think no one’s watching.
Except I am, and I can’t tear my gaze away from the disarray of the throw pillows tossed carelessly on the floor or the wine glass teetering dangerously close to theedge of the coffee table. All these little things make this moment painfully real.
James’s eyes aren’t on me. They’re fixed on her, locked in a way that tells me everything I need to know. It’s as if I never mattered, never existed at all. Just like that. I’m…erased.
My chest burns as I try to push through the hammering of my heart, each beat loud enough to drown out her giggle that seems to mock me from across the room.
