I SAT BESIDE BEN in the lavishly decorated room that hosted the post-wedding breakfast. Morning sun poured through the windows, Christmas music was on, champagne was flowing, and everyone was in high spirits.

A beautiful Christmas, a beautiful day for Ben and Amber to begin their new life together.

I felt like I was being stabbed by knives.

It was a purely physical pain—I was too numb to experience emotions—but the physical part ripped through my chest at regular and sometimes unexpected intervals: when someone threw a balled up napkin at someone else and the two broke up laughing. When a man reached over to pour more coffee into his partner’s cup.

A couple times, the pain sawed so hard I gasped. When Ben looked over, I disguised it as a failed sneeze.

I could barely hear the voices around me for the ones in my head. Scolding, bracing, angry voices.

After all, what had I thought would happen? Trey hadn’t come for me. And of course he hadn’t stayed for me. I wasn’t enough, and had I really ever thought I was capable of being enough, for that guy? Trey owed me nothing. Just because what we’d shared meant more to me than him, that wasn’t his fault.

He’d done nothing wrong.

Still, I wanted to run after him and club him with a baseball bat.

After the clubbing, I wanted to curl up in a ball under one of those stupid towering evergreens like a forest creature, wrap my arms around my body and sob. For days. Weeks.

The rest of my life.

How was a person to live knowing the only man you’d ever loved, the only one you would ever love, had walked out of your life?

Hot, stabby tears pushed at my eyes. My chest contracted. I couldn’t inhale for a second. I bent my head, my face fixed, chin crumpled, trying to hold all the tears inside.

It was going to be a long life.

Peacock the Pup had left too. He must have slipped out when Trey walked out, and I’d been staring dead-eyed at the wall.

At my side, Ben stirred. “Puck?” he said quietly.

I started fussing with my napkin, keeping my face down. “Dropped some omelet here,” I said, stiff and bright. “You can’t take me anywhere.”

He leaned closer. “Cass, I’m truly fucking sorry.”

“You warned me,” I said, staring at my napkin.

His hand went to the back of my neck, holding me. “Cass, listen—”

“Please don’t,” I whispered. “Please stop talking. I’ll be okay in—” never “—a little while, but for now, please just …stop.”

He was quiet a second, then I felt him shift in his chair. “Cass—”

“Stop.”

“No, Cass, look up a sec—”

I was starting to get angry. “Seriously, Ben, can’t you just stop—”

“Seriously Cass,” he interrupted sharply. “Look at me.”

I did. He met my eye, then nodded over my shoulder.

A chill shivered across my skin. I turned slowly in my seat.

Trey was standing at the doorway. Peacock was in his arms.

I opened my mouth and stopped breathing.

Eyes dark, he came into the sunlit room and walked over. He drew up behind my chair. I stared at him, my eyes wide, my mouth still dropped. I probably looked like a baby bird.

He dropped the duffle bag on the floor. It landed with a thud. He set Peacock down.

“I have an idea.” His voice was low.

My heart punched against my chest.

“Have you ever seen Destiny Falls?”

I shook my head dumbly.

“Want to?”

A little sound burst from my frozen lungs. “What are you saying?”

“You have some time on your hands, right? How about you come with me?”

“For how long?”

“How long have you got?”

“How long do you want, Trey?”

His eyes met mine. “How long will you give me?”

My shoulders came forward on a gasped exhale.

“I’m saying why don’t we see if we can build a life together? At least, we should give it a try. Because I’ve never felt the way I feel with you, Cass, not my whole fucking life, and I don’t want to stop feeling it ever again.”