I’m waiting for my bestie, Maggie, at the street corner Starbucks – chosen because it’s near my apartment and I was in no mood to really get out until she threatened me with bodily harm – when my phone buzzes.

Trent has sent me another text message. I scan it quickly, frowning.

Call me? he writes. I tried calling you several times but you didn’t pick up. I need to see you.

I have five missed calls from him.I missed two while in a shower, trying to tame my overlong bob into something resembling an actual hairdo, and the other three while walking here.

I bite my lip, staring at the phone.

Should I call him back?

Text him back?

Nah. I hate that I hesitate, wonder if… If maybe I should. If Trent changed. If we can go back to how we were.

He has been texting me for weeks now – or is it months? Since I returned to Chicago, he hasn’t stopped calling and asking to see me.

I never reply.

Maybe it’s because he cheated on me? With my favorite cousin of all people? How do you forgive something like that? I can’t forget how he hurt me.

Just like I can’t forget another man who cheated on my trust. Oh, he denied it all, but the clues were there. I’d been blind not to see them, yet again. You’d think I’d learned something from my experience with Trent.

But no, I had to go and fall for another guy who thinks with his dick, who didn’t respect me, didn’t love me, and I…

I couldn’t do this again.

Still can’t. Can’t put my heart through the wringer again, and that’s why I ran away as fast and as far as I dared. Back to where I started, where I grew up and almost got married.

What does that say about me? I came back to the start. Didn’t move a step. Not forward, anyway.

“Hailey!” Maggie hurries through the café, splitting the crowd waiting in line like Moses, minus the beard and staff. “So sorry I’m late. I’ll make it up to you. Come on, I’m inviting.”

“So magnanimous of you.” I’m a grouch. Then again, I didn’t want to get out of the apartment today.

Or out of bed, to be honest. Finding clean clothes to wear, washing my hair, locating my favorite pair of boots in the chaos that is my room was a struggle.

All this should be scaring me, all these hints that I’m sinking into a frigging low unlike any I’ve ever experienced, but I’m numb. Cold. I can’t seem to be able to get warm these days. Not even in bed, under my super-eiderdown quilt my mom gave me.

Weird, right?

“Earth to Hailey.” Maggie is waving a hand in front of me, her face scrunched up in a frown. “We’re hailing Hail—”

“Don’t.” I push her hand away. “No puns. Please.”

“But it’s funny!” She pouts. “Hailing Hailey is—”

“Maggie.”

“You’re no fun.”

She keeps up the pout as we choose our drinks, wagging her brows and crossing her eyes at me until I crack a smile.

“Stop it! They’ll think you’re crazy.” I elbow her, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Like it’s a secret?” She grins, her eyes sparkling. “And hey, I made you smile. Score for Mags. Haven’t seen your smile since you came back. For shame, girl.”

I ponder her words as we search for a table, an impossible mission until Maggie locates two chairs and we sit with a group of unfamiliar faces.

“You don’t mind guys?” she chirps, grinning at them manically, and they shake their heads. They’re teenagers, probably half my age, too busy bitching about school than pay much attention to us.

God, I feel old with my twenty-five years of experience. Old and sad.

“And there it is again: that long face you’ve been wearing for the past months.” Maggie leans over the table, mashing her boobs against the top, and stares me dead in the eye. “What’s going on, Hail? I thought you were getting better.”

“Better?” I scoff. “I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.” She leans back, digs her spoon into her unicorn rainbow sugary drink. I’m getting a toothache just looking at it.

Okay, maybe I am more grouchy than usual. And there’s a reason.

“It’s Trent,” I say, opening a sachet and pouring sugar into my cappuccino because why look after your waistline when you don’t care who sees you? “He’s been texting, and calling.”

“Trent the Douche? Seriously, again?”

I told her he texted me a couple of times. “He’s very…insistent.”

“What does he want?”

“To talk to me.”

She shoots me a dubious look. “You believe that?”

I shrug. No idea what I believe anymore.

“I guess everyone deserves to tell his story,” Μaggie mutters thoughtfully. “Right?”

I frown. Do they? “If you’re talking about Kaden—”

“I’m not. I’m not! Okay!” She lifts her hands and arches her brows in a show of innocence I’m not buying for a minute. “Trent. Tell me about Trent.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I hedge, still upset, and not sure why.

Maybe because my bestie seems to think I should call Kaden, talk to him.

Which is out of the question.

Nope.

No way. Not going there again. Because…

Because no matter how I tried to protect my heart, it hurts regardless. It frigging aches. It feels as if it’s been bleeding in my chest ever since I left Kansas City.

As if I’m slowly bleeding out, bleeding out dreams.