I don't even know how I manage to focus on the road in front of me. Between bouts of crying and internal rationalization, I know leaving Crescent Ridge, again, is for the best. Mom is doing better than I anticipated, and now that Faith is home, and with the help of the nurses, I know Mom is in good hands. There’s no need for me in Crescent Ridge.

The further I get away from that little town and my past, the more I realize how I never really got over Cole. I buried us, but never dealt with us. Cole is a scab covering my broken heart that never fully healed. The kind that pulls up at the edges when bumped slightly and begins to bleed all over again. Seeing him again, listening to his apology ripped that scab off and reopened that gaping wound.

All of the pain we endure over the course of our lives leaves us full of battle scars. In time, the pain eventually heals, but the scars always remain, reminding us of where we've been, and the battles we've endured. Except Cole will never be a scar—he'll always be a gaping wound on my heart that never heals.

The clock on my car display tells me it's just past nine-thirty in the evening. I still have three hours ahead of me until I make it back to Los Angeles. I've tried calling Ted numerous times, only his phone goes straight to voice mail, so I call the only other person who knows about my history with Cole—Ashley, my college roommate and best friend.

As the phone rings and rings, it's hard not to remember all that Ashley and I have been through, and memories of freshman year come racing back.

---

A light sweat sprinkles my forehead as I jog across campus to get back to my dorm room as quickly as possible. I finished my last final of my freshman year and my mind is on one thing—getting home to Cole.

“Ash,” I holler as I push open our dorm room door, pulling the key from the lock.

“In here,” she answers me with her soft voice. I find Ashley, my roommate, with her head stuck in the built-in wardrobe, pulling shirts off of hangers and folding them neatly before placing them in moving boxes.

“I’m done. I’m headed out,” I muster as I try to catch my breath.

She lifts her head and twists her lips into a pout. “You said you weren’t leaving until tomorrow.”

“I know, but I just want to get home. There's no sense in delaying—”

She interrupts me. "So you're going to tell him?"

"I can't not tell him, Ash." I take a deep breath and wipe the small beads of sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

She cocks an eyebrow and glances at me out of the side of her eye. “You sure you don’t want to spend the summer with me in Malibu? Take the summer off to decide what you're going to do? Relax with me at my parents' country club?” She grins at me and bites her lip.

I release a loud sigh. “Ash, you know I can’t afford to spend one night in Malibu, let alone the summer. And I know what I'm going to do.” I pull my last duffle bag off the twin-size bed that was mine for the last nine months and steady the strap over my shoulder.

Ashley steps over the box of clothes she was just packing and places both of her hands on my shoulders. “It’s my parents’ house, silly. You wouldn’t have to pay a thing, you know that. And I’m going to be home alone most of the summer while my parents are in Europe. I need someone to keep me company. My parents would consider that payment enough,” she pouts.

I offer her a tight smile. “I can’t. I need to get back to Crescent Ridge—”

“No,” she interrupts me. “You need to get back to Cole Ryan.” Her eyes lift knowingly.

“Cole…” I smile. “I miss him—”

“I know you do, but Frances, Crescent Ridge is in the middle of the desert. Literally in the middle of nowhere. You should be where it's civilized and—”

“It’s not in the middle of nowhere,” I correct her.

“Close enough. The nearest town is thirty some miles away. You don’t even have a Starbucks for Christsake.”

I tap her nose jokingly. “We have the Ridge Diner and their coffee is better than any one of those sugary Starbucks drinks.”

She sighs loudly and blinks her green eyes rapidly. “It’s just that I’m really going to miss you, and next year won’t be the same—”

“That’s your fault.” I laugh at her. “You were the one who wanted to rush a sorority and move into the house."

She rolls her eyes at me and tosses her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “It’s a legacy thing. My mother did it, my grandmother did it…they’d kill me if I didn’t. They almost killed me for not doing it this year.” She sighs.

I reach out and touch her forearm. “Hey, I’m happy for you, Ash. You’re going to be living with a great group of girls. I’ll be fine. And I’ll be fine in the Ridge.” I pull the strap of the duffle bag up a little higher on my shoulder to balance the weight since it’s so heavy.

She gives me a longing look before returning to her packing. “You tell Cole he better take care of you.”

Ashley and I are polar opposites on pretty much everything, but we became the best of friends the day I moved into the dorms at the University of Southern California. We’re the unlikely duo. She’s blonde, I’m brunette. She’s rich, I’m not. She’s destined to be a trophy wife and I’m studying my ass off to be a lawyer. She’s all about having fun, and I’m all about trying to graduate as soon as possible so I can start my career and life with Cole Ryan. She’s everything I’m not, and I’m everything she’s not.

“Give me that piece of shit phone of yours,” she grumbles, swiping away a stray tear. She begins pounding on the screen before handing the phone back to me, and I notice that she’s changed her name from Ash to Best Friend.

I smile at her warmly. “You are my best friend, Ashley.”

She lets out a little laugh. “I’m your only friend.” Sadly, she's right.

“You’re such a bitch.” I swat at her and begin moving toward the door.

“You love me,” she calls after me.

Turning around, my lips pull into a giant smile. “I do.” I'm so lucky to have Ashley for a friend. I'm not sure I would have survived my freshman year away from Cole without her. She's the kind of friend who'd help you bury a body and take that secret to the grave with her.

“Frances? Please call me if you need anything." She raises her eyebrows and pulls her lips between her teeth. "And maybe call me, just to talk, ya know.” Her voice breaks.

I glance over my shoulder and see her choking back her emotions. I turn around and walk over to her, pulling her into a tight hug. “You know I will.”

“And when you come back in the fall, check your shitty attitude at the door. You’ve been a real piece of work the last few weeks.” She squeezes me back hard.

I smile and tilt my head at her. “I’m just tired. You know I haven’t been feeling well.”

“You’re love sick,” she sighs with a chuckle.

I roll my eyes, but she knows the truth. My heart swells at the thought of seeing Cole in only seven short hours. “Maybe just a little bit.”

---

The sound of her voice pulls me from the past. "I was wondering if you'd ever call me again now that you're some famous lawyer," she says, answering the phone with a small laugh. Normally I'd joke around with her, only I'm not in the right frame of mind.

"Ash?" I respond, my voice breaking.

I hear her inhale sharply at the sound of my voice. The tone of her voice changes from joking to serious. "Frances, what's wrong?" I can hear shuffling on her end of the line before she speaks again. "Talk to me. Are you okay?"

I can feel the lump in my throat growing as it sits heavily at the base of my neck. I swallow hard, trying to choke it down. "There's so much I need to tell you." My voice cracks again. Emotion is not something I show freely. I've been trained to bury it. Stick to facts. Articulate issues and derive solutions. It's the lawyer in me. Only Cole isn't an issue I can derive a solution to. "Cole—" I manage to get his name out as the tears start to fall.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she says under her breath. "Start from the beginning. I've got all night so don't spare any details."

This is what I love about Ashley. She'll drop what she's doing at the drop of a dime for me and I couldn't love her more for it. She knows my deepest secrets and has held my hand through the hardest events of my life. She is a true friend, and I'll be indebted to her and her family forever. After college, Ashley moved to Washington D.C. to work as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. We may have lived across the country from each other, but our friendship and support never wavered.

As I get myself together, I take a deep breath and start at the beginning, telling her how out of the blue Cole called to tell me about my mom. As the sky gets darker and lights of Los Angeles become nearer, Ashley listens intently for the next hour and a half and I spare her no details on what happened back in Crescent Ridge.

"He still loves you." I hear her pop the cork on a bottle of wine. Oh, how I wish I was sitting with her on a couch, sipping on a glass of wine. "He fucked up so bad, Frances, but he still loves you." She pauses. "And I know you love him. He was the kind of love you never get over."

I hold my breath for a moment as I think about what Ashley's just said. "I'm getting married, Ash. To Ted. I moved on from Cole a long, long time ago."

"But have you really? What if there was no Ted?" Her voice echoes in what I assume is her wine glass.

"Well, there is a Ted. So we're not playing what-ifs, all right?"

"I'm just saying, if the circumstances were right—"

"Ashley!" I bark at her and she instantly quiets. "Besides, there's no coming back from where we've been." My heart aches as I say that.

"Did you tell him about—"

"No!" I cut her off. "That's my secret," I start before she interrupts me this time.

"No, Frances. It's not. He deserves to know the truth." I hear her sigh loudly as she waits for me to respond. Only I can't. Because she's right. "Look, Frances," her voice is quiet and calm, "just think about it. He deserves to know the truth about this as much as you deserved to know the truth about what happened between you two ten years ago. And the truth fucking hurts, but maybe it’s time everything is out in the open."

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. I know she can't see me, but I know my best friend and I know she knows I agree with her.

"Call me when you get home,” she says. “It's getting late, but I'll be up and I need to know you made it back safely."

"Okay," I whisper and bite my bottom lip.

"I love you, Frances, and you're going to get through this and come out stronger on the other end—just as you've always done."

"Love you, too, Ash." I disconnect the call just as the tears begin to fall…again.

---

It's nearly one in the morning when I finally pull into my neighborhood. A few more blocks and I'll be home—leaving Crescent Ridge and all of that stress behind me. I remember that Ashley wanted me to call, so I quickly press the dial button from my steering wheel, allowing the Bluetooth in my car to call her back. Ringing fills the quiet car until she answers.

"You made it?" she asks, her voice just above a whisper.

"Yeah. Just turning down my street right now."

"Good. I was getting worried. I figured you should’ve been home by now."

"Yeah, you know L.A. traffic," I begin just as a white BMW that I don't recognize comes into view…parked in my driveway. "Ash?"

"Yeah?"

"There's a car in the driveway…" My voice hitches. "I've been trying to call him for the last two days and he hasn't answered or returned any of my calls which is so unlike him." Ted never has people over, and he doesn't really have any friends—this has to be another attorney from the firm and they're working on their case here instead of the office this late at night.

"Don't panic," she instructs.

"I'm not panicked," I lie, because something just doesn't seem right.

"I'll stay on the line with you until you're inside."

My heart races as my gut is twisting into knots. I step out of the car, leaving everything behind except my phone and car keys. My hands shake as I fumble with the key in the lock of the front door, finally pushing it open. There on the floor of the foyer sits a Louis Vuitton purse and a pair of black pumps.

"Oh, Jesus," I mumble as I choke down the wave of nausea rushing through me.

"Talk to me, Frances," Ashley says, but I can't form any words.

The house is mostly dark as my feet carry me up the stairs to the master bedroom. "Please, no," I whisper to myself over and over as panic washes over me.

"Frances," Ashley calls to me, her voice growing more urgent. "Tell me what's happening."

I reach the master bedroom doors, pausing as my fingers wrap around the lever handle. I can hear the soft sounds of laughter coming from behind the double doors. Bile rises up into my throat as I turn the handle and push open the door.

My eyes find a trail of clothes across the bedroom floor and over to the bed where Ted has a woman pinned beneath him. He doesn't even bother to stop fucking her when his head jerks around to find me standing in the doorway, watching him. The woman squeals in delight, not knowing that I'm watching my fiancé fuck her in my bed. I hang up on Ashley as my entire body shakes from the sight of Ted with another woman.

In one swift motion, I reach for my left hand, yanking the obnoxious diamond ring off my ring finger before throwing it at Ted. It lands with a thud on the bed next to him.

"Frances!" Ted calls to me in surprise as I turn on my heel and run down the steps and out the front door to my car.

"Fuck you!" I scream as the door slams closed behind me. I sit momentarily in the driver’s seat, stunned and shocked at what I just walked in on. In a million years, I never would have expected this from Ted. My cell phone rings and rings as Ashley tries to get in touch with me, but I'm too in shock to even form words at the moment.

Without another thought, I push the start button and back out of the driveway, destination unknown. Funny how life can be a fickle little bitch. In a matter of seven hours, I left my past in Crescent Ridge and lost my future in Los Angeles.