WHEN I WOKE UP THE next morning, my head was throbbing. My body ached. My heart was broken. It all came flooding back to me.

Kael.

My dad.

Their history.

My dad’s accusation that Kael was using me as a pawn in some revenge plot for what happened in Afghanistan. What they did there. What Kael had to go through. What Kael had covered up.

Part of me thought my dad was completely delusional, obsessively creating this entire thing in his head. It was a just a coincidence that Kael and my dad had ever known each another. A coincidence, like bumping into an old friend at the movies, or thinking about someone you haven’t heard from in a while and then seeing their name pop up next to a text. The fact that my dad and Kael were in the same Company was like that. a very extraordinary circumstance. But that they had actual contact while overseas at the same time. And the way Elodie’s husband just happened to be Kael’s close friend. That was pushing it even for someone who wanted to believe. The pain of it made me want to torment myself just to distract from the agony I was already feeling.

This was exactly what I had been avoiding with Kael.

I knew that, sooner or later, he would reveal himself to be exactly what he was, what we all are, the most selfish of creatures. I shouldn’t have ignored that little voice inside that told me we were headed for nowhere fast and running out of gas. I felt it, the way he withdrew from me the moment we were close. It was fucked up the way he cracked me open, turned me into a freaking Blossom Family maple tree, my deepest private thoughts pouring out of me and into him. He soaked them up, but kept the tap closed when it came to himself.

I got a line here or there, a little image of his former self lying in my bed in the middle of the night, wrapped in each other. Everything was different now, even if I did believe that our relationship wasn’t premeditated. He promised me, over and over, that he wanted to try this, whatever it was.

Was, was, was, I reminded myself.

While I got dressed I tried to think about something, anything other than Kael. Other than his brilliant deep mind. I could spend days inside, picking around his light. He was everything a man was supposed to be, the first one I had ever loved, and he turned out to be just another factory model.

Even so, my body clung to the hot flash that he was in my life. And then I thought about my own advice to Sammy after she and Austin broke up again, that he was only a teen tiny little part of her life, that in a year he wouldn’t matter. In five years, he’d barely exist in her memory. She said she’d never forget him because she’d always be around me, and that where I was, Austin wasn’t far behind, but things change. Obviously. I walked around my room and with each step I felt my body ache from last night. Every ounce of pain was felt through my entire body.

Even so, my body didn’t get the memo that we hated Kael now.

I wanted his touch. I needed to feel him, skin against skin. I couldn’t get him out of my mind, he had gotten so comfortable there. My fingers ached for him as I dug through my drawers for something thin and comfortable. I cancelled work for the day, ignoring the questions in Mali’s voice. I hung up before I started to cry. I focused on getting dressed. Of course today would have been a short day at work, and of course Kael and I had plans to drive as far away from this town as we could. We were preparing questions for each other, gathering music. Just the night before, Kael was making plans to thread our lives together.

Or so I thought.

Maybe he was just making plans to avenge whatever the fuck happened during that deployment.

How had everything shattered so quickly?

I thought that if I cleaned myself up, if I had a shower and brushed my teeth, I might feel a little more like myself. A little less than a zombie, anyway. But when I got to the bathroom and saw his tube of cinnamon toothpaste, rolled up at the end, I nearly choked. I hated the way this felt. This was bad. This was almost worse than the good had been good. I wasn’t sure if any of it was worth it. I never wanted to feel this again. Right then and there I decided that I wasn’t ever going to allow myself to step inside this danger zone.

I grabbed his gross toothpaste and tossed it into the trashcan. When I missed, it cracked against the drywall and a black line spread across at least five inches. I was starting to despise this house and it knew. That’s why it was falling apart right along with me.