She wove through the crowd.
“Maggie.”
She smiled up at the man beside her. “Hey, Connor.”
“I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
“It was a last-minute decision. Have you seen Ethan?”
“I think he went to the bar.”
The crowd opened up, and at a first scan of the bar, she didn’t see him. She almost looked away. Then, two people in the corner caught her attention. Ethan and Jay. They stood close, and even though she couldn’t see the front of Ethan, she saw all of Jay. And the expression on her face…
It was longing and need and love.
“You should join them,” Connor said, although evenhedidn’t sound so confident.
“Yeah, I…”
Jay moved closer to Ethan. She said one more thing before she quickly stepped forward and kissed him.
Maggie’s stomach dropped to her feet.
She looked away as if that could somehow protect her. It didn’t. The sight of Jay’s lips on Ethan’s broke something inside her. Or maybe it reignited something. And all that voice in her head could whisper was,are you surprised?
She felt sick, and her throat was so tight she could barely breathe.
Connor touched her arm. “Maggie…”
She shoved through the crowd. She wasn’t sure how she made it out of the bar. Everything was a blur. The millions of people around her. The floor. The voices. She could barely see.
She stumbled outside, the cool air making the chill on her skin seep into her bones.
When she reached her car, she slid behind the wheel, but thick tears blocked her vision. She blinked them away as she pulled onto the road.
That scene—everything about it fed into her deeply rooted self-loathing. The part of her she’d tried so hard to heal. The one that still floated to the surface at the worst times. All that work she’d done to wipe away the feelings of not being enough, only to fold like a piece of paper.
Her cell rang from her pocket. She didn’t answer. She didn’t so much as look at the screen. Finally, it stopped, but a text immediately followed.
When she reached the house, her chest hurt. Her eyes stung. And there was an ache in her heart, one so similar to what she’d felt eleven years ago.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
Breathe, Maggie. You need to breathe.
Somehow, she forced herself up and out of the car. Her fingers shook as she slotted her key into the door. She stepped inside and closed it behind her before touching her temple to the wood. Fresh tears pushed at her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall.
In her bedroom at the end of the hall, she pulled her cell from her pocket and saw his name on the screen. Even that hurt.
He’d called and texted. She opened the message.
Ethan: I need you to call me, Maggie. It’s not what you think.
The sight of Jay lifting to her toes and kissing Ethan flashed in her mind again.
JaykissingEthan.
Something clicked inside her—the first flicker of sanity. Ethan hadn’t been touching Jay. And she hadn’t actually seen his face. Jay had been looking at him with love, but how hadhelooked at her? And what if Maggie hadn’t turned away? What would she have seen next?
