Houston laughs as Skippy shoves his head into his lap, begging for even more attention. I shake my head as I watch my boy hamming it up, then I glance over my shoulder at Liam. He has Sparky by the collar as the dog jumps up and down excitedly, eager to join his new buddy Skippy. I want to invite Liam and Sparky to come over, but I feel like it would be too awkward. And I don’t want to give Houston the wrong impression about Liam and me.

“Houston, I know you’ve already met Liam, but can I please reintroduce you?”

He takes a deep breath before he stands up, glances in Liam’s direction, then flashes me a reluctant smile. “Anything you want.”

“Thank you.”

I tear my gaze away from his gorgeous face and turn back to Liam. I wave at him, but he doesn’t notice me. I take a step toward him and suddenly I’m knocked onto the grass face-first.

“Tessa! What the fuck?” Houston roars.

It takes me a moment to realize I’ve been hit in the head with something. I reach up to feel the back of my head, but I’m yanked backward by my hair. The whiplash cracks the joint in my neck, then it’s over as quickly as it began and I’m lying facedown on the grass again.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Houston’s voice sounds panicked, but I can barely hear it over the sound of Skippy and Sparky’s barking.

“Is that her?” a shrill female voice echoes inside my skull. “I knew you were cheating on me!”

“Rory, are you okay?”

I turn my head toward Liam’s voice and Skippy’s tongue sloshes across my nose several times. “I think so.”

“It’s over, Tessa. Let it go.”

Houston’s words make my chest ache as Liam helps me sit up. I can’t help but be reminded of the time Houston whispered those same words in my ear. If anyone knows how this woman feels right now, it’s me. If she didn’t knock me over the head, I might actually empathize with her.

When I’m sitting up, I finally see her. Her blonde shoulder-length hair is as wild as the look in her eyes. She’s breathing heavily, seething with anger as she brandishes a steel thermos in her right hand. I rub the back of my head, wincing at the sharp pain.

Houston is standing like a six-foot-four wall of muscle between me and his wife. He looks back at me over his shoulder, a worried expression in his blue eyes. I gasp loudly when his wife takes a swipe at him with the thermos.

“Watch out!” I scream.

She hits Houston square in the side of his head and he curses as he covers his ear.

“Call 911,” I urge Liam, but he’s already on it.

“Let it go, Tessa,” Houston repeats the phrase, and I finally understand he’s referring to the thermos, not the marriage.

I’m sure he could easily take it away from her, but he probably doesn’t want to be seen in public struggling with a woman. That could easily be misconstrued if a stranger were to stumble upon the scene.

She throws the thermos at Houston’s face and he catches it in his right hand. “It’s all your fault. Everything is your fault!” she shrieks. “I hope you’re happy knowing you killed your baby.”

She takes off running toward the street and Houston drops the thermos onto the grass as he takes off after her. My heart is pounding so hard, my fingers are going numb. I grab Skippy and pull him into my lap so he doesn’t chase after them. And so I can hug him.

“Should I go after them?” Liam asks, holding his phone to his ear in one hand, his other hand clenched around Sparky’s collar so he doesn’t bolt after Houston and Tessa.

I nod as I stand up so I can grab on to both Sparky and Skippy. Liam takes off in the same direction as Houston and Tessa, his phone still pressed to his ear. But seconds later, everything seems to stop. Sound. Time. My heart. Everything.

The sound of tires squealing is followed by a loud crash.

“NO!” Houston roars so loudly, his cry ruptures the silence.

Liam picks up his pace toward Raleigh Street and I let the dogs pull me after him, though I almost don’t want to know what we’ll find. I think I’m going to be sick. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other until we’re at the fence surrounding the dog park. I take the dogs through the gate and they whimper as they try to pull away from me. Their instincts kick in as they sense someone needs their help.

A leaf falls off a large elm tree and flutters across my line of sight. Only then do I realize I’m crying. I move forward slowly toward the space between my Toyota and Liam’s truck. The first thing I see is an Asian woman standing on the sidewalk across the street. She’s covering her mouth and staring wide-eyed at something on the other side of the truck. Skippy, Sparky, and I squeeze through the gap between the vehicles and the scene is laid out before me.

Tessa is lying facedown on the asphalt and Houston is on his knees next to her. Liam is standing over them, his phone still pressed against his ear as he looks up and down the street. Probably looking for any sign of an emergency vehicle. My heart stutters when I see Tessa’s arm move. She attempts to roll onto her back, but Houston stops her.

“Don’t move, baby. The ambulance is on the way.”

The word baby coming out of Houston’s mouth in reference to another woman makes me sick to my stomach. And when I think about the fact that the other woman is his wife, this only makes me sicker. I have no right to be sickened. I’m the other woman.

Liam spots me standing between his truck and my car and shakes his head. I don’t know what he means by this, but I take it to mean that I don’t need to watch. They have it covered.

I turn around and lead the dogs back onto the sidewalk. I unlock my car and let them into the backseat. Then I sink down onto the curb, rest my head in my hands, and cry as I replay the events of the past twenty-four hours over and over in my mind.

Oh, God. What have we done?

It seems that without knowing it, we fell into the same pattern we fell into five years ago. We were so busy looking in the rearview mirror, we didn’t realize we were about to crash. Only this time, it wasn’t just Houston and me who got hurt.